Jimmy, have you thought much on the verse that says, "Faith worketh through love?" I have often pondered that Abraham and Sara are a great example of that.
_________________Jeremiah Dusenberry
Maybe a females perspective would help? I will let you judge...Sarah was post-menopausal, meaning she was past the child-bearing age when she was told she would give birth to a child.When a female is in the child-bearing age, most females anticipate birthing a child - at least once. There is just something built into the female psyche that desires this. However, once age creeps up on you and your body can no longer conceive, most lose that desire to bear children. Only once have I heard an older woman wish she could conceive and bear children. Those of us who have passed this era look at a pregnant woman and think:"I am sure glad it is not me!" This is why we think a 50ish woman must be crazy to go for fertility treatments and the doctor who will perform this service is crazier still. Which brings me to the following quote to be true.:
I presume that after her reaction of unbelief she came to faith and believed that she would bear a child.
_________________Sandra Miller
I believe Sarah understood the principleof seed. All life begins with seed.Faith is a seed. The Word (promise) ofGOD is a seed. The seed brings forthnew life!!
_________________Martin G. Smith
KingJimmy on 2010/7/29 18:22:34 writes..."Being barren and having a womb that was considered "dead" would have undoubtedly sappped Sarah of hope, and thus, perhaps shut down her drive."I think I will make this my last contribution, on this part of the thread anyway... I want to spare folks some blushes... But infertility and being 'post menopausal' do not necessarily 'shut down' the enjoyment of conjugal relations. So I don't think it is physically true that the expression of her faith is focused on this area. I do think she was beyond 'hope' that she could be the channel of fulfilment for God's promise to her husband; that is part of the story of Hagar and Ishmael. I think she had 'ruled herself out' of a personal contribution and went for a surrogate which was acceptable behaviour for her time and culture.I think her faith, like, her husband's, was ultimately the kind of faith that 'believes in a God who quickens the dead, and calls those things which are not as though they were'. Rom 4:17It was her faith that made conception possible, under God, not her submission to her husband. In this she becomes a forerunner of another..."Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord." Luke 1:45 NKJV
_________________Ron Bailey