by David Gibson<\/p>\n
He lied-repeatedly (Genesis 12:10-20; 20:1-13). Yet we remember Abraham as the man of great faith, the friend of God (Romans 4:18-22; James 2:23).<\/p>\n
It was Abraham’s great-grandson Judah who persuaded his brothers to sell their despised brother Joseph as a slave (Genesis 39:26-27), but 22 years later Judah proved himself to be a truly changed man (Genesis 44:18-34). Centuries later, the Messiah would be hailed as “the lion that is from the tribe of Judah<\/em>” (Revelation 5:5 NASB).<\/p>\n She was once a prostitute, but Rahab is honored for her faithful help to Israel (Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25).<\/p>\n He committed adultery, then murder. But these were marked exceptions to a life otherwise wholly devoted to God-David, a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22). And Jesus would be called “the son of David” (Matthew 1:1).<\/p>\n The one who cowardly denied Jesus quickly grew into the bold apostle Peter (Luke 22:54-62; Acts 4:1-22; 5:27-42), to whom Jesus would grant “the keys of the kingdom of heaven<\/em>” (Matthew 16:19).<\/p>\n It’s not what we once were that counts in God’s book, but what He enables us to become-by His grace.<\/p>\n There’s hope for us yet!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by David Gibson He lied-repeatedly (Genesis 12:10-20; 20:1-13). Yet we remember Abraham as the man of great faith, the friend of God (Romans 4:18-22; James 2:23). It was Abraham’s great-grandson Judah who persuaded his brothers to sell their despised brother Joseph as a slave (Genesis 39:26-27), but 22 years later Judah proved himself to be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[674,390],"class_list":["post-86666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-change","tag-conversion"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":31485,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/jacob-blesses-his-sons\/","url_meta":{"origin":86666,"position":0},"title":"Jacob Blesses His Sons","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 1, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Some thoughts on Genesis 49 by Jefferson David Tant Prophecy and its fulfillment present some of the strongest evidence of the inspiration of the Scriptures. This presents a strong challenge to those who seek to deny that the Bible is of Divine origin. The apostles also recognized the significance of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":57904,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/lessons-from-genealogy\/","url_meta":{"origin":86666,"position":1},"title":"Lessons from Genealogy","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"begots\" and \"begats\" of the Bible can be laborious at times and difficult to pronounce. Often throughout the scriptures, time is devoted to accounting for the family lines of thousands of people. The chronology of these individuals is important for two reasons: The nation of Israel was confirmed through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94391,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-story-of-redemption\/","url_meta":{"origin":86666,"position":2},"title":"The Story of Redemption","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 6, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeff Grisham There are some narratives in Scripture that are not exactly what we would call \"family-friendly.\" In other words, if some of the biblical narratives were televised, we would probably not let our children watch them. Let's look at a couple of examples. The first is found in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55622,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-consequence-of-sin-can-outlive-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":86666,"position":3},"title":"The Consequence of Sin Can Outlive Us","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kent Heaton The apostle Paul declared in Galatians 6:7, \"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.\" There has always been consequences to sin from the moment Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden (Genesis 2,3). A man\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2519,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-long-was-the-egyptian-bondage\/","url_meta":{"origin":86666,"position":4},"title":"How Long Was the Egyptian Bondage? (Hamilton)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton \u00a0 Occasionally someone will insist that the Bible is not inspired by God and to prove their point they will state there are contradictions in the Bible. One of these apparent contradictions involves the duration of the Israelites' bondage in Egypt. There are five verses which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":93307,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/judah-and-jospeh\/","url_meta":{"origin":86666,"position":5},"title":"Judah and Jospeh","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 20, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Chad Bird Genesis 38 often feels like an unwanted interruption in the Joseph story, a dark and unsettling back-alley detour filled with death, sex, deceit, and judgment. For years, I treated it like a commercial break, impatient to return to Joseph's story. But that view missed the point. Badly.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}