“Do Unto Others” Study Guide: The Call of Abraham and Sarah
Week 1: Calling – The Call of Abraham and Sarah
“Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” that rule we were all taught as kids, sounds like such a simple principle to follow. But if most people pledge allegiance to that rule, why does it seem like we live in a society marked by spiteful division? Why do we struggle so much with loving our neighbors? As we move through the Do Unto Others Kindness Campaign, we’ll live into an intentional season of growing in kindness towards our neighbors. Our hope is that, through this campaign, we’re sending a message to our community that kindness is the most important behavior we can exhibit as we seek to de-polarize our communities and love our neighbors. This four-week study guide will explore the scriptural call to bless others, examining the Bible’s rich meaning behind the simple rule and how to model it in our day-to-day lives.
Focus Scripture: Genesis 12:1-3
Prayer: Lord, give us comfort as we navigate a world filled with hatred and division. Show us how we might grow in kindness and love, and give us bravery to share it with our neighbors. Thank you for the blessings you have given to us, and make us be a blessing to the world around us. It is in the name of your Son, who showed us true love, that we ask this. Amen.
Lesson: The quest to establish a family in a peaceful community was difficult. All around, people were scrambling to claim ownership of homes and land, but there were far more people than housing options. The ones who did secure homes closed themselves off from their neighbors, content with the fact that they had secured what they needed for themselves. The ones who were not able to acquire homes had to bounce around from one place to another. It was a time of chaos.
This chaos stemmed from an identity crisis. In recent memory there had been strong leadership that connected a vast network of communities, each of which had their own culture and characteristics. But that leadership and unifying ethos was fading. In its place, villages and states pursued their own interests, creating barriers meant to safeguard their communal identities. When connective leadership failed, it became every group for itself.
The effect of this identity crisis was a movement towards anxiety fueled by scarcity of resources. People had to define themselves against those outside their communities, ensuring that outside cultures didn’t sweep away what made their land and way of life special. But when communities sectioned themselves off, it meant that locals had to fight among themselves for limited resources. Now, neighbors had to define themselves against other neighbors within their communities, too. It was all “us” vs “them,” among both neighbors and outsiders.
The circumstances described here might sound familiar, but what we are talking about is the historical context of biblical Abraham and Sarah. In the ancient region known today as the Levant – along the eastern side of the Mediterranean Sea – the Ur dynasty ruled vast territories of land around 2000BC. Mysteriously and suddenly, the dynasty collapsed. The surrounding network of cooperative city-states responded, not by sustaining their relationships with one another, but by closing their borders to protect themselves. Some families and cultures did not have the luxury of finding a secure home safe from other tribes and had to adopt nomadic lifestyles in which they wandered the land as shepherds. These families were labeled as backward thinking and poor, while those who settled were the societal elite.
It is notable that the founding family of Israel was called to be instruments of God’s blessing in this time of bitterness and division. It was in this political chaos and systemic anxiety that God called Abraham and Sarah. Moreover, Abraham and Sarah were one of those nomadic families, one of the have-nots, eventually settling in the land of Haran with their humble possessions and resources, a land safe from outsiders. It was there that the living God appeared:
The Lord said to Abram [renamed ‘Abraham’], “Leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and will bless you. I will make your name respected, and you will be a blessing. (Gen 12:1-2)
This call from God was both palatable and scandalous at the same time. To leave their land was certainly no small thing, but Abraham and Sarah were both descended from nomads. Moving about is likely more stressful for our modern ears than it was theirs. The second element of that call, too, sounded appealing – a name that would be respected. Perhaps they thought God had favored them and would give them status, power, and resources in a safe part of town when they could finally settle.
But it is the last part of that call that changed the world forever – and you will be a blessing. Those words were the scandal. Abraham and Sarah’s family would be blessed so that they would be a blessing to others.
Perhaps you know what came next. Abraham and Sarah’s descendants became the people of Israel, whom God called to model to the world compassion, justice, and love. They didn’t always succeed. But from the Israelites came Jesus, born of God and Mary, who showed us true love.
This story of Abraham and Sarah reminds us of the complex realities in our society. “Do unto others” sounds like a great principle to follow until you look around and see limited resources and cultures that conflict with yours. It’s not easy to truly love others as we would want to be loved amidst realities that are complex, risky, and fraught. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
And yet God’s call is the same. God did not make a mistake. God calls us still, in the midst of division, to bless the world – to do unto others how we would have them do unto us. In the next few weeks of this study, we’ll consider what it takes to truly live that call, trusting that God will give us the strength we need to resist division and promote peace.
Questions to Consider:
The beginning of the lesson described the social context of the ancient Levant, the same context of Abraham and Sarah. What are some connections between that context and ours?
How have the divisions and disagreements in our society impacted you personally?
In this lesson, we see that God called Abraham and Sarah to pursue their calling in the midst of chaos. What is a time in which you have been called to bring peace to a chaotic situation?
What is your experience of political or social tension both within your community and outside your community? How do you think the pursuit of resources impact that dynamic?
What are times in your life in which circumstances made being kind to others complex and challenging?
*This study guide was adapted from Cultivating Kindness through Scripture and Community: A Four-Week “Do Unto Others” Study for Adult Small Groups