You see the same pattern throughout Scripture. There is the godly line: there is Noah, there is Shem. Jewish tradition says that the descendant of Shem, whose name was Eber, did not cooperate in the building of Babel. We would like to think that was true, but there is no word of it in the Bible. However God draws them out at Babel, and yet within a short time, they have again been engulfed by the world, the seed of the serpent. So God calls them out again in Abraham, and on it goes, throughout the history of the Jews. You get to the point where a remnant is called out from the nation at large. Then in Christ, the church is called out. The two kingdoms: that's what you read about from cover to cover in Bible history – the two kingdoms. What a tragedy that today there are people who are supposed to be Christians, but they are desperately trying to teach that the church should be in the world and dominating the world and influencing the world! Dr. Timothy Keller, who was well known for a time as an evangelical, held to some very strange views, but he attracted a lot of attention. A Presbyterian pastor in America, he is constantly calling for us to be involved in the world. Because, don't you know, our calling is to improve the world socially and politically, as well as religiously. And so Christian people have got to be very good and capable and achieve much in the world of the arts and everything, so that we can take over the culture. It should be obvious to all true Christians that that kind of idea and aspiration is in complete collision with the story of the Bible and the two kingdoms, and God repeatedly taking us out and making us a distinctive people. Right from the very early days of the Christian church, the Roman Empire succumbed to Christianity, and promptly tried to embrace it and take charge of it and condition it. That has happened all over the world. It has happened in our country – the state church, all tied up with the machinery of the crown and government. It has happened even though God is, generation after generation, keeping us distinct. And yet people say, ‘Today, we have got to be culturally relevant, adopting the music of the world, the ways and styles and fashions of the world; it is the same error. We are winning the world, but we are not of the world.
Terah was 70 when his children were born (Genesis 11:26) and Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran (Genesis 12:4) and so Terah would then have been 145. But Genesis 11:32 says that Terah lived to 205, so how can Acts 7:4 tell us that Abram did not leave Haran until after his father was dead? The simplest suggestion is that not all of Terah’s children were born when he was 70 but only the first of them, Haran. That Haran was in fact the oldest, even though Abram (because of historical importance) is named first, is strongly implied by Genesis 11:29 which says that Nahor married Milcah, the daughter of Haran. Evidently Haran was old enough to have a daughter that his younger brother could marry. Furthermore Haran died in Ur before any of them left, and so we conclude that actually Terah was 130 when Abram was born.