First Nation Bible Study Lessons

The word unbelievable is a choice word to use in response to an account that has an unexpected outcome. Entering the phrase unbelievable stories in an Internet search engine provides examples from war, sports, and other backgrounds.

Consider, for example, “the amazin’ Mets” of 1969. The previous year, baseball’s New York Mets finished ninth in the 10-team National League. The Mets had come into existence in 1962, and the team had never finished higher than that in its 7-year history. To tell anyone in 1968 that the Mets would win the World Series the following year would have drawn laughter. Yet on October 6, 1969​—​exactly 44 years ago today​—​the New York Mets won the National League pennant. The Mets then went on to defeat the Baltimore Orioles in the 1969 World Series. Unbelievable!

The lesson for today is about a promise with unbelievable dimensions—that Abram would have descendants and that they would be more than the stars he could see and count.

B. Lesson Background

After the Tower of Babel event (last week’s lesson), the people clustered by language groups and migrated to different areas of the earth (see Genesis 10:5, 20, 31). Cities and civilizations developed. Groups such as the Sumerians and Akkadians became powerful. Their artifacts and clay tablets reveal much about them.

God’s redemptive plan, for its part, was moving forward according to His schedule. That plan involved relocating a man named Abram from Ur of the Chaldees (or Kasdim) to the land of Canaan. Several sites are mentioned as possibilities for the location of Ur, but the one that is about 170 miles south of Babylon seems to have the best evidence. Ur was a progressive city that some consider as one of the largest cities of antiquity. Estimates of its population are as high as 65,000. Abram and his family left this thriving commercial area and moved to Haran in northern Mesopotamia. Genesis 11:31 states that Terah (Abram’s father) is the one who led in the relocation.

Abram was called to leave Haran after his father died (Genesis 12:1; Acts 7:4), and God gave the seven special promises found in Genesis 12:2, 3. The seventh promise has messianic implications: all the families of the earth would be blessed because of Abram.

So Abram journeyed to Canaan. He built his first altar to the Lord in Canaan when he was at Shechem (Genesis 12:6, 7). It was here that Abram received a promise that this was the land that would be given to his descendants. Famine drove the family to Egypt, and then they returned to Canaan (12:10–13:1). Abram and his nephew, Lot, both prospered, but they had to go their separate ways (13:2–12). Again, God promised the land to Abram (13:14, 15).

The “adventures” that follow in Genesis 14 lead up to God’s covenant with Abram in Genesis 15. In the opening verses of Genesis 15, we see Abram assured of the Lord’s favor. That assurance includes the promise of a son to become Abram’s heir. Abram’s name is not changed to Abraham until Genesis 17, and that distinction will be maintained in this lesson.

Lloyd Pelfrey et al., “The Promise of a Future,” in The KJV Standard Lesson Commentary, 2013–2014, ed. Ronald L. Nickelson and Jonathan Underwood, vol. 61 (Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishing, 2013), 50–51.