Genesis 12 explodes with good news. While Abram was still living in Mesopotamia (Acts 7:2) and part of a family of idol worshipers (Josh. 24:2), God came to him and promised a sevenfold blessing (Gen. 12:1-3). Abram would be a great nation, he would have a great name, and through him, all the families of the earth would be blessed.
But no sooner do we hear of God’s promised blessing to Abram than we find the promise threatened by famine in Egypt and (even worse) by Abram’s foolishness before Pharaoh. Fearing that his life will be in danger because of the beauty of his wife, Abram instructs Sarai to lie to the Egyptian king and say that she is his sister. This leads Pharaoh to shower Abram with riches and to take Sarai into his harem as his wife. Whether Pharaoh committed adultery with Sarai or not is unclear (I think not). What is clear is that when Abram is sent away by the king he leaves Egypt a much wealthier man than we he arrived.
The point of the story is not to moralize, good or bad, on Pharaoh or Abram or Sarai. It’s not wrong to draw lessons from Old Testament history (1 Cor. 10:6), but Genesis 12:10-20 is not mainly about the patriarchs. It is first of all about the invincibility of God’s promise.
Pharaoh’s house was cursed when it looked like Pharaoh would dishonor Sarai (cf. Gen. 12:3). And meanwhile, Abram was blessed—blessed beyond his wildest expectation and certainly blessed well beyond all deserving. This is the story we see over and over again in Genesis: God’s protection and God’s provision for the sake of God’s promise.
What did Abram do to deserve to leave Egypt a richer man than when he arrived? Nothing. Actually, less than nothing! And yet, Abram left with great wealth, because God is true to his promise. The promises of God are so sure, not even God’s people can ultimately mess them up.
Looking Back
There’s a connection between the story about Abram and Sarai in Egypt in chapter 12 and the story about Adam and Eve in the Garden in chapter 3.
Both stories center around a temptation caused by food. In the garden, it’s the fruit that looks good to eat and the temptation that arises from that, and in here it’s the temptation arising from the lack of food.
In both instances, we see the disastrous results of a husband’s poor leadership involving his wife.
We also see that both stories deal with deception. The serpent deceives the couple, and here the couple deceives Pharaoh. The result of both deceptions is this language, “they saw and they took.” The woman saw the fruit, she took and she ate. Pharaoh saw the woman and took her to be his wife.
In both stories, once the deception is found out, the ruler asks questions. God comes to Adam: “What have you done?” Pharaoh comes to Abram: “Why have you done this? Why didn’t you tell me?” In both cases the man’s excuse is to point to his wife: “Well, the wife that you gave me, she gave me the fruit.” “Well, the wife that I have, she’s simply too beautiful. I had to lie.”
And what’s the result in both stories? The couple is sent out. Adam and Eve are kicked out of Eden. Abram and Sarai are sent away from Egypt.
You could even look at the next passage to follow in each instance. After leaving the Garden there is family conflict between Cain and Abel. After leaving Egypt, there is family conflict between Abram and Lot. We are meant to see this episode in chapter 12 as another kind of fall from grace. The two stories track with each other in uncanny ways.
Except for this all-important detail. In Genesis Adam and Eve are kicked out of Eden, and they leave with cursing. In Genesis 12, Abram and Sarai are kicked out of Egypt, and they leave with blessing. They deserve cursing, just like Adam and Eve did in the garden, but here the promise of God is so operative that when they deserve the same cursing, instead they get what they don’t deserve, they get more blessing.
Looking Ahead
And there’s a connection with this story, not only going back to the garden, but looking forward to the Exodus. Remember, Moses is writing this story is writing it for the people when they are wandering in the wilderness, on the cusp of entering the Promised Land. Think about the parallels they would have seen between their story this story.
Abram migrates to Egypt because of a famine. Jacob’s family, at the end of Genesis, will go down to Egypt because of a famine.
When Abram and Sarai approach the land, they plan a speech for Pharaoh so that it might go well with them. When Israel’s family journeys to Egypt at the end of the book, they plan a speech for Pharaoh so that it might go well with them.
Sarai becomes a sort of slave to Pharaoh. The Israelites will become, for many centuries, slaves to another Pharaoh.
God then afflicts that Pharaoh with plagues, just as he afflicts the Pharaoh in Genesis 12 with plagues. In both cases, the plagues result in Pharaoh sending God’s people out of Egypt.
And what happens when they leave Egypt? Both times they leave with great wealth from the Egyptians. And in both cases, the next stop is to journey in the Negev and then later arrive back in the land.
This story in Genesis 12 was meant to be a comfort to God’s people wandering in the wilderness because of their sin. Parents would have been able to say to their children, “Remember what God did for Abram? He almost blew it. But God took care of him. God rescued him. God blessed him and brought him back to Canaan, all for the sake of his promise. Surely he will do the same for us.”
Looking at Ourselves
Obviously, the lesson from Abram and Sarai in Egypt is not that we should lie our way to wealth and prosperity. Abram’s conniving is a rebuke to all of us who think God’s plan needs help from the world’s ways.
But mostly, the story is a word of hope. It’s a firm reminder that nothing and no one can fully and finally derail the promises of God. You may look at your sin and stupidity and think that you’ve forfeited all of God’s blessing for you. But you haven’t. We may corporately look at the failures of God’s people—worldly compromise, theological error, fallen leaders, hypocrisy, duplicity, sin, and scandal—and wonder how the church will ever accomplish the purposes God has for her. But don’t forget: Jesus himself promises to build his church. This is not an excuse for us to be lazy, let alone to be disobedient, but it is reason for hope.
I don’t know what God is up to in your church, your city, your denomination, or your country, but we can be absolutely certain of this: Christ will be true to his word. The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable (Rom. 11:29). Nothing can fully and finally derail or destroy the promises of God. Not the world, not the flesh, not the devil. Not even us. Jesus Christ will have his way. He will keep his promises. He will bless his people. He will build his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

Sometime in the first part of 2009 I started blogging. I didn’t know what I was doing. I did some silly posts, some posts I wouldn’t do again, and hopefully some posts that were helpful. In those days, you had to blog almost constantly to be heard. Most people found your blog by typing an address into their web browser. If you didn’t have anything to say, no one would stop by to find out. Consequently, I blogged virtually every day of the week but Sunday. No one not named Tim Challies has been able to keep that up.
Before too long, Ben Peays asked if I’d like to move my blog to this new thing called The Gospel Coalition. I was happy to move over to TGC. I think Justin Taylor and I were the first two bloggers to move our independent sites over to this new web enterprise.
I’m glad I did. TGC has provided me with a platform I never anticipated. They have also provided me with technical support, editing suggestions, and many good friends. It’s been great to work with Collin Hansen as editorial director and with two TGC presidents, Don Carson and Julius Kim. My blog—DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed (I know, kind of lame, but it seemed clever at the time)—has been at TGC for over a dozen years. I’ll always be grateful for this long partnership.
Starting today, I am moving my blog to my own personal website. No one asked me to make this move. For the better part of a year, I’ve been working (read: other smart people I trust have been working) on creating a personal website that can house all of my online content. This new site includes sermons, conferences messages, articles, and blog posts—all under one digital roof. The design is clean and sharp. The search function is effective and easy to use. With the launch of this new site it makes sense that I would house my personal blog in the same place.
My years of TGC content will still be available at TGC (and at my new site). I’m still on TGC’s council (though I’ve been off the board since last April). I’m sure I’ll still write for TGC from time to time—just like other people do, when invited and through the normal editorial channels. I’ll still write in other venues (e.g., World, 9Marks, Desiring God, Ligonier) as called upon. With so many other commitments I don’t blog nearly as much as I used to. That infrequency will probably continue. But when I do blog, it will now be through my own site. That address is KevinDeYoung.org. The new website—like the Death Star once was—should be fully operational. If you’d like to continue receiving email updates when I publish content, you can subscribe at KevinDeYoung.org/subscribe.
I’m thankful for the many good, godly, smart people—good friends, some of them—who have helped support my TGC blogging endeavor all these years. For them and for all the readers over the years, I give thanks to God.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

Reformed Faith & Practice is the online journal of Reformed Theological Seminary. You can browse five years of of the journal online or download each individual issue as a PDF.
In the latest issue you will find a reflection on Eugene Peterson’s pastoral theology, a sermon on Numbers 6:22-27, an argument for restricting the ordained office of deacon to qualified men, several other articles, and a number of book reviews.
Included among the latter is my review of James Eglinton’s new biography of Herman Bavinck. With permission, I’ve pasted that review below.
*****
James Eglinton, Bavinck: A Critical Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020). Cloth. $44.99. xxii, 450pp.
Over the past decade, there has been a growing tide of English language Bavinck dissertations and Bavinck-inspired theologizing, but there has not been a corresponding scholarly account of Bavinck’s life—until now. Making impressive use of Dutch language newspapers of the period, as well as Bavinck’s own journals (dagboeken), James Eglinton, the Meldrum Senior Lecturer in Reformed Theology at the University of Edinburgh, has managed to write an academic biography that is at learned and nuanced as well as fresh and insightful.
Central to Eglinton’s thesis is his argument against the old historiography that saw “two Bavincks”—the conservative Calvinist and the apparent modernist—forming opposite poles in one man. Building on his earlier work, Trinity and Organism (T&T Clark, 2012), Eglinton insists that far from being a schizophrenic theologian holding contrary opinions, Bavinck was a creative thinker who sought to articulate the historic Christian faith in a newly modern world. “My biography has a particular aim,” Eglinton writes, “to tell the story of a man whose theologically laced personal narrative explored the possibility of an orthodox life in a changing world” (xx).
Eglinton’s biography has been widely praised since its release in September, and with good reason. The book is meaty—with well over a hundred pages of end notes and bibliography—but the narrative itself wastes no words and is only 300 pages. Eglinton’s approach is critical (in the academic sense), but never unsympathetic to Bavinck as a man and as a Christian. There are enough personal vignettes to keep the casual reader interested (e.g., Bavinck’s unrequited romantic affections over many years for Amelia den Dekker), but the text never plods along as a mere chronicle of daily life.
I especially appreciated the Appendix, “My Journey to America,” where Bavinck applauded the youth and energy of late nineteenth-century America but also critiqued its superficial religious life. Among his other observations, Bavinck noted that “there are few handsome men, but more and more beautiful women” (308), that Orange City surpassed Pella and Holland as an enclave of religious piety (303), and that the pillows were bad (307). In a surprising final remark, Bavinck predicted that there was little future for Calvinism in America, but allowed that Calvinism was not the only truth and that American Christianity should chart its own path (314).
Several features of the book’s design are noteworthy. I was helped by the “Chronology” page at the front of the book and by the section highlighting “Key Figures, Churches, Educational Institutions, and Newspapers” in the back. The 39 plates of photographs in the middle of the book were tremendous, and the original artwork by theologian Oliver Crisp makes for an attractive cover. It’s hard to find much to complain about in the book, but I would have benefited from a Bavinck family tree, and some readers may come to the book expecting more intellectual history (though, personally, I was glad Eglinton stuck to biography more than the theological exploration).
Of all the important lessons in this outstanding biography, the most important may be the most obvious: Herman Bavinck was a real person. Writing to his friend Snouck Hurgonje who asked whether Bavinck had been able to keep up with his scholarly pursuits, the 26 year-old new pastor remarked, “If you think for a moment that I must preach twice on Sunday, teach the catechism four times through the week, must also devote much time to visiting homes and the sick, and then sometimes have to lead a Frisian funeral, you won’t have to ask further whether any time or opportunity remains for my own study” (121).
Bavinck was not only swamped with ministerial duties at the outset of his short pastorate in Franecker (1881-82), he was also single, lonely, and spiritually depleted. “The most difficult part of my work,” Bavinck wrote in the same letter to Hurgonje, “is always to lift myself up to, and to stay at, the ideal level in my faith and confession.” Bavinck worried that a shallow, insincere heart might take shape beneath the guise of spiritual depth. He felt pressure to always be the minister, and without a wife he struggled to find “anyone here with whom I can (or might dare to) enjoy” the “familiarity” of friendship (121). Here is a man honest about ministry and honest about himself.
Since the English translation of his four-volume Reformed Dogmatics appeared in 2008, Bavinck has become a treasured companion and authoritative guide for Calvinist theologians, students, and pastors throughout the English-speaking world. And yet, for many, I imagine Bavinck the person has been virtually invisible, swallowed up by the heft of Bavinck’s brain sitting on our shelves. Almost every Reformed pastor knows something about Luther’s courage at Worms or Calvin’s reforms at Geneva or Whitefield’s role in the Great Awakening. But without any commensurate knowledge in Dutch history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bavinck can be too quickly reduced to disembodied ideas on a page. This would be a shame, for the story of Bavinck’s life is interesting and instructive in its own right. Herman Bavinck lived a remarkable life as a dogmatician, an ethicist, an educational reformer, a politician, a journalist, a Bible translator, a champion for women’s education, and eventually the father, father-in-law, and grandfather of heroes and martyrs in the anti-Nazi resistance movement (291). This is the story Eglinton tells, and he tells it very well.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.