Abraham the Prophet

Everyone may imagine something slightly different when they hear the word “prophet.” For me, I think of a person whose vocation is very mouth-centric. He or she declares what God says. Those declarations may be quite prolific, like Isaiah or Ezekiel, or they could be more compact, like Obadiah, who prophesied a handful of verses.

Have you ever considered what God thinks about, though, when He uses the word, “prophet”? When He calls someone with this title or gives to someone this gift, what does He have in mind?

Thankfully, we do not have to merely speculate about this because scripture gives us insight.

Genesis 20 contains an odd story where Abraham presented his wife, Sarah, as his sister in order to protect himself from being killed. He feared that her beauty would make him the target of powerful men’s violence. As a result, King Abimelech took Sarah into his house, not knowing she was married to Abraham. Before the king could touch Sarah, though, God interrupted him with a dream.

In the dream, God warned Abimelech that He would judge him harshly if he did not return Sarah to her husband. God explained further that this man, Abraham, was not just any man, but someone unique. He said, “Now therefore, restore the man’s wife; for he is a prophet . . .” (Gen. 20:7, emphasis added). God called Abraham a prophet.

I read this verse a few weeks ago, and I was shocked by it. I think of Abraham as many things: father of faith, friend of God, patriarch and pillar––but prophet does not come to my mind. It does come into God’s mind, though.

Furthermore, this verse is significant not only because of what is said about Abraham, but also because this is the first time in scripture God used the word “prophet.” It was God’s introduction of the idea, which helps us understand the way in which God thinks about it.

This challenges my own definition of the word. We do not have a record of things Abraham declared on behalf of God. He didn’t stand at the city gates or at the thoroughfares of trade, confronting people with judgments or encouraging them with promises. He doesn’t seem to have a mouth-centric vocation at all. Instead, his entire life was ear-based.

Abraham heard and obeyed what God said. In doing so, his life became the prophecy. He may not have been a preacher of righteousness like Noah or a seer and sayer like Jeremiah, but his life embodied the word of the Lord because he was perceptive of God’s voice and acted upon what he heard.

This is what God has in mind when He uses the word, “prophet.” That doesn’t mean prophets will never speak, declare, write, and release God’s word. (They certainly did throughout scripture.) It means that Abraham’s life is the foundational understanding of what a prophetic vocation is: hearing and obeying in order to embody the word of the Lord.

Just after I read Genesis 20:7 weeks ago, I visited a friend’s church near D.C. to preach. After the message, my friend, his wife, and their leadership team prayed and prophesied over me. To my surprise, he released this word: “God called Abraham a prophet. But when did he prophesy? His life was the prophecy.” He had no idea I had been meditating on this exact idea, which confirmed God’s emphasis upon it for my life.

This is relevant for each of you reading this as well because God promised in Joel 2:28, “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy . . . .” By the work of the Spirit, there is a prophetic dynamic operating in each son and daughter of God. What does that look like in action? From Abraham we learn that it begins with hearing and obeying the voice of God.

Today, allow the Holy Spirit to freshly awaken your ear to hear and your heart to obey. In doing so, your life becomes a prophecy to the world around you.