NOTES for Heb 11:8-19

In today's reading the apostle Paul offers a very interesting interpretation of Abraham's behavior. For us, who grew up in Christian culture, it may be completely obvious that if we believe in God, then we also believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yet even in Paul's time this was by no means obvious. It was still less obvious in Abraham's time. Strictly speaking, Abraham had no special grounds for believing in resurrection. For a person of that time and culture, immortality was found precisely in children; Abraham could not imagine any other continuation of life. But Paul says that Abraham trusted God, who had promised that Isaac would be the father of a great nation, so completely that he did not doubt for a second that the promise would be fulfilled, even if Isaac were offered as a sacrifice. How can this be? Does the how really matter? Abraham does not think about how it will happen. He simply accepts as fact that God's words cannot contradict one another, and therefore they will somehow fit together... And this trust is credited as righteousness.