THE STORYTELLER'S BIBLE
Act I - The Pentateuch, Scene 5
Script by Bob Allen

For four voices

Scene 5

2  3  4

1

VOICE TWO:             Abraham, a man of faith.

VOICE FOUR:            Abraham, a watershed in Bible history .

VOICE THREE:          He stands, as it were, on the apex of a spiritual continental divide.

VOICE ONE:              God pours his divine grace into a man called Abram, and from that insignificant beginning swells a mighty river that will eventually fill an ocean.

VOICE TWO:             Abraham, a man without a country

VOICE ONE:              But one who had God.

VOICE THREE:          Abraham, a man without descendents.

VOICE ONE:              But one who had God.

VOICE FOUR:            Abraham, a man without blessing.

VOICE ONE:              But one who had God.  What is faith, after all?

VOICE TWO:             Depend on your land and possessions and you have no need for God.

VOICE THREE:          Depend on your family to assure your future and you don’t need a God.

VOICE FOUR:            Depend on yourself for blessing and you could care less about God.

VOICE ONE:              I will make of you a great nation.

VOICE TWO:             Yet Abraham never owned anything in the land of Canaan except a burial plot for his wife.

VOICE ONE:              I will make your name great.

VOICE THREE:          Yet Abraham would die in relative obscurity as a stranger in a strange land.

VOICE ONE:              I will bless you and make you a blessing.

VOICE FOUR:            Yet Abraham struggles on for one hundred years without a child to carry on the family name.

VOICE TWO:             Abraham, a man of faith.

ALL:                            Why? 

VOICE ONE:              He believed God.

VOICE TWO:             (CROSS DOWN RIGHT)  The triumphant obedience of Abraham at the beginning of his call from God provides an example for all to follow.  He was willing to leave his country and his father’s house and go to a strange land which God would show him. 

VOICE THREE:          (CROSS DOWN LEFT)  But, eventually, reality set in.  God was going to give him a land, but he was still living in a tent.  God was going to give him a people, but he and Sarah were still childless.  God was going to bless him, but right now there was famine in the land.  What kind of blessing was that?

VOICE FOUR:            (CROSS DOWN LEFT TO JOIN # 3)  Just a simple little trip to Egypt.

VOICE TWO:             We have no intention of settling there.

VOICE ONE:              (CROSS RIGHT TO JOIN # 2)  We’re just trying to get past this reversal of fortune, this famine time.

VOICE THREE:          We don’t plan to take up citizenship or anything like that.  It’s a sojourn.

VOICE FOUR:            Just a simple little trip to Egypt.

VOICE TWO:             We went down empty and we came back full.

VOICE THREE:          We went down believing that God would provide us an heir, and we came back thinking that maybe we needed to make our own arrangements in that regard.

VOICE FOUR:            We went down with a nephew who was content to live in harmony with us and came back with so much cattle that the land could no longer support us both.

VOICE ONE:              We went down with just our own family and came back with sheep and cattle and camels and menservants and maidservants.

VOICE THREE:          Maidservants?  Did someone say maidservants? 

                                                                                                                            

 VOICE TWO:             Hagar!  Substituted, mistreated, cast out.

VOICE THREE:          Ishmael!  Welcomed, envied, sent away.

VOICE FOUR:            Sarah! Barren, surprised, satisfied.

VOICE ONE:              Isaac!  Promised, prolonged, prized!

VOICE TWO:             (CROSS TO CENTER)  Abraham heard the promise of God with amazement.  It had been hard enough to believe that he would become a father at 75, but  now he was 99.

VOICE THREE:          Sarah laughed.

VOICE TWO:             Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.

VOICE THREE:          Sarah laughed.

VOICE FOUR:            But one year later she wasn’t laughing.  Instead she was nursing the child of laughter, Isaac.  Born to one who was far too old.  Born out of a biological impossibility.  Born when even the suggestion of bearing brought uncontrolled mirth.

VOICE ONE:              Is anything too hard for God?

VOICE TWO:             Abraham heard the command of God with anguish.  It had been hard enough to believe he would become a father at 100, but now he had loved his son for sixteen years.  After the devastation of childlessness those years had multiplied the joys of fatherhood one hundred fold.  Now, the man of faith, the man who had believed God from the first day he met Him, was being asked to trust Him not only in life—but in death.

VOICE THREE:          (CROSS TO CENTER)  The altar.

VOICE FOUR:            (CROSS TO CENTER)  The fire.

VOICE ONE:              (CROSS TO CENTER)  The knife.

VOICE TWO:             But where is the lamb for the sacrifice?

VOICE THREE:          Would Abraham have killed his son that day?  Only God’s omniscience includes both the potential and the actual.  Was Abraham obedient to God?  Down to the last detail. 

ALL:                            God will provide himself a lamb.