Bible Reading Challenge Blog

God remembers Noah and the waters subside and the ark comes to rest on Mt. Ararat.  There have been numerous sightings of the ark, all of them, in my estimation, a waste of time trying to prove one thing or another.  The story of Noah ought to be able to stand alone.  It is a story of God never losing His faithfulness toward us.  It is a story of God taking care of His people and making sure that all of his creation would be able to start over again.  The way in which Genesis describes it is captivating, but it is not something that we ought to lose sleep over in order to prove its historicity.  I believe it, but even if it is merely an object lesson the point of the story would not be lost.  

Please notice that the first thing that Noah does when he descends from the ark is offer a sacrifice.  The first thing that Noah does when he stands on dry land is to worship God in the only way that he knew how.  God was pleased and God promised to himself that he would not destroy humanity again.  Now, he doesn’t make his covenant with Noah just yet, that comes in the next chapter, but we do find in the end of this chapter a love that God has for us which is reflected in the senses of smelling the offering, an emotion of gratitude for the offering and a response to the act of Noah which is one of grace upon more grace.  That is how our God works.

We find described in Genesis 7 a time when New Year’s Day would have been insignificant.  The faithful Noah, again the one who did all that the Lord commanded, gathers his family and all the animals and they enter the ark which he had created as the rains begin to fall.  If you start and focus from vs.21 and following you almost hear a recap of how God created life: breathed into the nostrils of humans, and reverses that by taking the breath of life from the nostrils of all creatures.  All life was taken, not just humanity, but yes people too, but all the creatures and they are listed individually.  That’s pretty significant.  

We can learn that God never leaves anything to chance, because there is no such thing as chance, and so prepares for when the land will be dry once again and the animals and the humans will be able to take over the earth again.  Once the rains fall for 40 days the waters remain on the earth for 150 days.  That’s a lot of water and Noah and his family were not on a cruise.  I can’t help but think of this song as I read this Scripture.

Noah is a very faithful child of God.  The last sentence of this chapter tells us so, Noah did this, he did all of this.  So what has brought us to this place in Scripture?  Remember, the problem wasn’t just in Noah’s day.  From the moment we were able to choose how we were going to relate to others, we were selfish.  From the moment we were able to choose how we were going to relate to God, we chose ourselves over God.  When we were able to choose how we relate to each other, we chose ourselves over our brother, and in fact neutralized our brother.

God was sorry that he made us, God wished we would be more obedient, but we weren’t.  We aren’t.  So God decided to start over and see if with the very obedient Noah and his family we would move toward a more perfect relationship with God and with each other.  God tried to give us another chance to do it on our own.  It took eliminating all that he had created in order to see if this great human experiment would work.  We are left at the end of chapter 6 with the hope that maybe, just maybe, it could work.  We were God’s utopia, a dream, a vision for a better future that just might be.

As old as Methuselah.  Have you ever heard that?  Well, if you have, this is where it came from.  He is considered the oldest person in the Bible having lived 969 years.  That’s quite an accomplishment, but how is that possible?  I don’t consider the book of Genesis to be a science or a history book, but I do believe it simply because I have no reason not to believe it.  Why couldn’t the relatively pristine state of the world have created an environment where our organs had minimal stress and people just lived longer?  I’m okay in believing that, but if in the future, or even now and I’m not aware of it, it is proven that they only lived about 35 years, that wouldn’t rock my world.  I could be okay with that.

Here we find ourselves introduced to Noah who is going to play a pivotal role in the the course of the history of the world.  From his birth he was considered someone who just might do something different and provide relief to the hardship which was life in that day.  We see that those who are born with significant roles ahead of them, at their birth someone makes a significant statement about them.  You can look at John the Baptist and Jesus for examples.  Even in Isaiah where the birth of the Messiah is foretold, we are introduced to him as someone who will do significant things.

But I want you to notice that once again we are reminded that we are made in the image of God and that God created us as male and female and as equals.  Look at the beginning verses of this chapter.  There is constant theme of differentiation and yet equality which resonates through all of Scripture.  This is crucial to understanding how God views us today and how we are valued by the one who created us and views us with grace and love.

So, people begin to invoke the name of the Lord.  It took them long enough.  You would think that the stories of Adam and Eve with their walks with God in the garden would have triggered their children and grandchildren to a devotion to the Lord which would have been obvious.  But Scripture says that they began invoking the name of the Lord only at the end of chapter 4.  What is sad in these stories is that the first accounts we have of humanity and their relationship with God is defined through sin.  Adam and Eve sin, and so are punished and cast out.  Cain sins and so is banished.  But also in both of these cases we have God who ensures not only the protection of His children, but also their longevity and their security in perpetuity.  God loves us even while we were yet sinners.

We find in this chapter the often misused quote: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  The answer to that questions is, of course, yes, of course.  More often than not we misuse it to say that no, we are not responsible for our brother.  But obviously in this context Cain was very much responsible for the demise of his brother so yes, he was at that point his brother’s keeper.  Don’t let anyone use this quote to describe how they have either washed their hands of a situation or trying to shed any responsibility vis a vis another individual. 

There is a lot of ground here to cover.  Let’s begin by what is not mentioned in these verses.  We do not see the name Satan or the devil anywhere in these verses.  But we have associated the serpent with Satan and we feel secure in that association.  I’m okay with it, as long as it doesn’t remove our responsibility from whatever sinful actions we may take.

Do you notice what happens as soon as they eat the fruit?  As soon as they eat the fruit their first realization is that they were naked.  Now, that is a bit of a stumper for me.  God has created us in a certain way and our bodies ought not to embarrass or cause shame, they ought to be just another part of that miracle which is God’s creation.  But for some reason we are somewhat obsessed with our bodies and sexuality.  It all goes back to the garden where we became embarrassed and that embarrassment turned to shame and that shame turned to hiding from God, and hiding from God turned into creating idols which are addictive.  

God’s tortured cry in vs.9, “Where are you?” is echoed throughout Scripture.  From the prodigal son to the disciples who flee Jesus in his darkest hour, God’s call to us and is wanting to find us as we hide from him and create our own idols haunts our existence.  That “where are you” is a beseeching on God’s part to come back to him after we have run away.  It is not a threat to punish, although punishment does come, but it is a promise of restoration. It is a promise that God will make things right even if it means knitting garments for us with His own hands.  Our God loves us so much!

Did you know that there is another creation account from the pagan Babylonians?  Here is the text of it: 

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm

It contains very similar wording to what we find in Genesis, and some scholars see it as a predecessor to the Hebrew text of Genesis.  There is no conflict here for me in regards to a nation writing about creation to uplift their god over other gods.  The Babylonians wanted to lift up their god, Marduk, as the most powerful and so ascribe to him the creative ability.  

Some Christian scholars will also say that there are two creation stories which do not correspond to each other: the one found in Genesis 1 and the one found in Genesis 2.  I have a different take.  I believe that there is one creation story with Genesis 1 giving us the general flow of creation with the 6 days.  Genesis 2 gives us the seventh and final day as well as describe more in detail the creation of humanity.  

If you have the time read through those two chapters again and you can see how at vs. 3 it seems like the author is taking a break and then diving into the details of the creation of the human which begins a more detailed description starting in vs. 4.  It fits for me and seems to go together better than two separate accounts that might conflict with each other.  

When you look at the account of the creation of Adam you see God breathing His Spirit into him.  What a powerful image.  For some reason this scene in this movie comes to my mind whenever I read this passage.  I envision God getting down and getting muddy to create us.  So, I tried really hard to find a clip of Robert Redford whispering to the horses to train them as an image of God getting down and creating us but I couldn’t find that scene.  

I know I have included a few times this article on what it means exactly that woman was created to be a “helper”.  I hope you find it useful.  

A Suitable Helper (in Hebrew)

We transition from the Greek language to the Hebrew language as we move from the New Testament to the Old Testament.  The first five books of the Bible are called the Torah which means literally the law.  But before you establish the law you need to know how things came about, how what we have now has come to be.  Genesis 1 gives us an opportunity to set the stage, to understand why God does what he does and how much he loves us.  That is the beginning of God’s Word for us, it simply is that he loves us so much that all that we see is a result of that relationship.

Many hours have been lost by people on both sides arguing over creation or evolution and all the permutations in between.  Let me say from the beginning that I do believe that God created the heaven’s and the earth.  I believe that is the point of the whole story.  Christian evolutionists also believe that God created, but the details are different than what is expressed in the Scriptural account.  I’ll never forget a confirmation paper that I received probably 20 years ago where the topic of this youth’s paper was why you can’t be an  evolutionist and a Christian.  I completely disagree.

While I am a creationist I also recognize that the Bible is not a science textbook and that the primary point of these creation stories is that God created, period.  That is all that really matters as far as the truth of Scripture, we need to agree that God created.  But how God created is not a point which separates those who are saved and those that are not.  We need to be sure we keep that clear.  While I take an approach to Scripture which tends to be more literal (for example I believe that there was a real Adam and Eve, I’m okay with that), in no way does a literal vs. metaphorical approach define a salvation vs. damned approach.  As we look at some of the most important biblical stories in Genesis I am going to take a more literal approach, it is more interesting for me that way and I actually believe it.  But no one reading this should ever think for a moment that either you take it all literally or you are an unbeliever.  There simply are no grounds for this false dichotomy.

So, creation, pretty powerful reading isn’t it?  God creates from the void, from the nothing.  Here is my favorite depiction of the creation below.

Sorry for the unwanted advertisement for Alamy, but it was the best image that I could find which included not just the creation of Adam, but the other days of creation as well.  One highlight which must be mentioned is how God creates.  God speaks and creation happens.  It is through the Word of God that things happen.  Just like the Gospel of John mentions.  Feel free to read John 1 again to see the role that the Word plays in creation.  That Word which became flesh which we cannot forget this day after Christmas.

The next chapter we will look at creation again and the relationship that we have with God and each other as well as another potential creation story from a culture and religion that is not ours.  Tune in tomorrow!

Get ready to roll into the book of Genesis.  We will begin the study on December 26.  Pick up your booklet in church and follow along.

Pastor Bob