The trials of Abraham, Moses, Paul and the apostles
We sometimes imagine the great figures of the Bible as heroes who never doubted or suffered. The reality is very different. Abraham, Moses, Peter, John and Paul were men of flesh and blood who went through very hard trials: long waits, deserts, failures, prisons, persecutions and losses. Their faith did not spare them difficulties; it sustained them in the midst of them. The letter to the Hebrews calls them “so great a cloud of witnesses” surrounding us and encouraging us to run with patience the race set before us (Hebrews 12:1). In this article we trace their trials and what they teach us about our own.
Abraham: the trial of leaving everything
Abraham’s story begins with a hard command: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee” (Genesis 12:1). He was seventy-five years old. He left his city, his security and his roots without knowing exactly where he was going. Hebrews says: “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went” (Hebrews 11:8). The first test of faith is often taking a step without seeing the whole road.
Abraham: the trial of waiting
God promised Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars. But the years passed and Sarah remained childless. Abraham waited twenty-five years. During that time he doubted, made mistakes, tried to solve it his own way with Hagar, and still God was faithful. Paul sums up his faith like this:
“He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.”
Romans 4:20-21
Many of our trials are trials of waiting: an unanswered prayer, a door that won’t open, a promise that is slow in coming. Abraham teaches us that God’s timing is not ours, but that his word is fulfilled.
Abraham: the hardest trial
When Isaac was finally born, God made the hardest request imaginable of Abraham: to offer his son on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:1-2). Abraham obeyed, heartbroken but trusting. When Isaac asked where the lamb was, he answered: “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:8). At the last moment God stayed his hand and provided a ram. Hebrews explains that Abraham reasoned “that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19). This story foreshadows the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb God provided for us in that same place in Jerusalem. Read the story of Abraham.
Moses: from the palace to the desert
Moses grew up as a prince in Pharaoh’s palace, but he chose to identify with his enslaved people. Hebrews says he chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:25). For trying to defend them his own way, he had to flee and spent forty years as a shepherd in the desert of Midian. It looked as if his life had failed. But there, in solitude, God prepared him and called him from the burning bush. Sometimes the seasons that seem wasted are God’s schools.
Moses: the trial of leading
After freeing Israel from Egypt, Moses faced forty more years of trials in the wilderness: a people who grumbled, rebelled and wanted to go back to Egypt; lack of water and food; opposition from his own family; exhaustion. He even told God: “I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me” (Numbers 11:14). God answered by giving him seventy elders to share the load. Moses also failed: he struck the rock in anger instead of speaking to it, and so he did not enter the promised land. But he died on Mount Nebo, gazing on the promise, and God himself buried him. Centuries later he appeared beside Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Read the story of Moses.
“By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.”
Hebrews 11:27
Peter: the trial of failure
Peter was one of Jesus’ closest disciples. But on the night of the arrest, after promising he would lay down his life for him, he denied him three times. His hardest trial was not external, but facing his own failure. Jesus had prayed for him: “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22:32). After the resurrection he restored him with three questions of love. Peter became a courageous leader of the Church: he was imprisoned and flogged for preaching, and answered that “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). One night, about to be executed, he slept peacefully between two soldiers, and an angel set him free (Acts 12:6-11). According to ancient Christian tradition, he died a martyr in Rome. To believers who were suffering he wrote:
“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”
1 Peter 4:12-13
Read Coming back to Christ.
James and John: the cost and the faithfulness
James, John’s brother, was the first of the twelve apostles to die for his faith: King Herod “killed James the brother of John with the sword” (Acts 12:2). His brother John, by contrast, lived many years and suffered exile. He himself wrote in Revelation: “I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation… was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 1:9). In the solitude of that island he received the vision of Christ’s final triumph. Two brothers, two different paths of trial, one same faithfulness.
Paul: a catalogue of trials
No figure in the New Testament describes his trials in as much detail as Paul. When some questioned his authority, he listed what he had suffered for Christ:
“Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.”
2 Corinthians 11:24-27
To all this was added “a thorn in the flesh”, an affliction from which he asked three times to be freed, and God answered: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Read Paul’s thorn. On the voyage to Rome as a prisoner, his ship was wrecked; in the middle of the storm Paul encouraged everyone because God had promised him that no one would die (Acts 27). Several of his letters were written from prison, and in them, far from complaining, he speaks of joy and contentment: “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content… I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:11, 13).
Paul: finishing the race well
At the end of his life, imprisoned in Rome and knowing his death was near, Paul wrote words to Timothy that sum up a life of trials lived in faith:
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
2 Timothy 4:7-8
According to tradition, he died a martyr in Rome. He did not end in resentment, but in hope. That is the goal of every believer: not to avoid all trials, but to finish the race keeping the faith.
What their trials teach us
Faith does not prevent trials. God’s greatest servants suffered much. If you are going through a trial, it does not mean God has abandoned you. God shapes his servants in the desert and in the waiting. Moses’ forty years in Midian and Abraham’s twenty-five were not wasted time. Failure is not the end. Peter denied Jesus and was restored; Moses failed and remained God’s friend. God’s grace is sufficient. Paul discovered that weakness is where Christ’s power is shown. We are not alone. God was with each of them, and Moses needed helpers, Paul had companions. The goal is eternal. All of them looked beyond: “they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly” (Hebrews 11:16). Read also What the Bible says about tribulations.
Prayer
Lord, it comforts me to know that your friends trembled too. Abraham waited twenty-five years and doubted. Moses told you he could bear no more. Peter denied you beside a fire. Paul pleaded three times and the thorn remained. They were not made of iron: they were like me. And you let go of none of them. I am in my own trial and sometimes I feel I am the only one. Surround me with that cloud of witnesses. Come, Holy Spirit, the same who upheld them: uphold me. Give me Abraham’s obedience when I cannot see the road, Moses’ stubbornness not to abandon those you entrusted to me, Peter’s tears to come back, and Paul’s certainty that your grace is sufficient. I do not ask for a life without a desert. I ask to reach the end saying: I have kept the faith. Fix my eyes on Jesus, who for love of me endured the cross. Amen.