Inquiry:
Did Sarah have faith that she would conceive? Hebrews 11:11 says yes, but Genesis 18:10-15 says she laughed at God. Is there a contradiction?
Response:
This attempt to show a discrepancy in the Bible has an inherent failure in it. What an individual believes at a given time is not necessarily what they will believe at another time. Faith and understanding is not concrete; but changes as knowledge increases and circumstances in life happen around us.
Did Sarah always believe that she would bear a son? In Genesis 16:2, she attempted to fulfill God’s promise of a child through her maidservant. This was not God’s plan.
Genesis 17:15-21 reveals that Abraham also had difficulty believing that he would have a child by Sarah. Yet God affirmed that it would be so.
In Genesis 18:10-15, it is affirmed again that she would conceive. She still had difficulty believing. The physical impossibility is what caused her to laugh. God challenged her:
Is anything too hard for the LORD? (v 14)
It may have been this challenge or another event that caused her to believe. When and what it was, we are not told; but we do know that she “by faith … received strength to conceive…” (Hebrews 11:11). How and when is not revealed, just that she once did not believe, but eventually did.
There is no contradiction.
Links: YouVersion | GROW magazine
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