Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. (Jos 24,2)

Abram and his ancestors were idolaters. Although it is clear that there was a certain awareness of God even at his time (there was at least the oral experience of Adam, Seth, Noah and others) history teaches us that if pure consciousness and knowledge of God appears somewhere, the revelation is gradually covered by a layer of profane vision resembling human understanding and is slowly but surely moving from the heavenly heights to the lowlands. For this reason, a restoring, cleansing word from above must be heard again and again, which reveals and awakens man (it is the precious RHEMA of Ephesians 5:26). Such word was brought by prophets in both the Old and New Testament periods.

It is good to realize that Abram did not know God at all in the beginning. His previous religion taught him to think of the gods in an habitual way. This included sacrificing so that they do not harm a man, provide him with supernatural protection (practically a kind of protection money), but even more, to bless him in his earthly journey. Abram had never experienced a deity speaking to him, having special intentions with him, calling him to higher paths, or pursuing distant aims. So far, everything he experienced with the gods took place in a regime of mutual exchange of goods, which both sides had at their disposal.

Fortunately, when the new, unknown God spoke to Abram to leave his family and homeland, he had no theology at the time with which he could agree or disagree. Otherwise, he would be in danger of explaining that God certainly did not want something so crazy from him, because He is not like that. But it was not a matter of Abram's approval or disapproval at all. It was just a matter of whether he would obey and set out.