New Beginnings: Same Old Problems

Thinking Through Noah and the Flood in Genesis 6-9

by Clarke Dixon

If only we could hit the reset button and start over, everything would be great, right? We may be thinking about work, a key relationship, marriage, or about parenting. I’m just now feeling like I am getting the hang of parenting, now that we are nearing the empty-nest stage!

You might be thinking of your entire life. Can I just start over?

We may be thinking about the entire world. Let’s just start over!

A new beginning would be a great beginning, right? We’d get it right the next time, we’d do it better.

But would we?

In the Bible we find a story about a great “reset,” and the opportunity for humanity to start over. So how did it go?

I’m guessing you are familiar with the story of Noah and the flood, but have you really considered the whole story of Noah, including what happened after the flood?

The way the story of Noah and the flood is written up, we are to get the point that this really is a new beginning, a hitting of the reset button. Bible scholars point to all the parallels between the creation story and the flood, things like the call to “be fruitful and multiply” and so on.

So how did it turn out? Did humanity get off to a better start with Noah than with Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel?

Well let us check out the part of the story of Noah we don’t hear as often. To summarize what happens next, Noah got hammered, as in drunk, and he passed out naked in his tent. One of his sons, Ham, saw his Dad in that state and went and told his brothers. We are not told the content of what was said, but reading between the lines, it was probably a shaming thing like “go look at Dad – what a loser!” Ham’s brothers did the respectful thing by their Dad and covered him up, walking into the tent backwards so as to not see him in such an embarrassing situation.

How did Noah respond when he woke up?

When Noah woke up and learned what Ham had done he cursed Canaan, Ham’s son:

“May Canaan be cursed!
May he be the lowest of servants to his relatives.”
Then Noah said,
“May the LORD, the God of Shem, be blessed,
and may Canaan be his servant!
May God expand the territory of Japheth!
May Japheth share the prosperity of Shem,
and may Canaan be his servant.”

Genesis 9:24-27 (NLT)

Noah lashed out with a curse, not against his son Ham, but against his grandson, Canaan, who seemed to have nothing to do with it. Perhaps Noah was hungover, perhaps he had a splitting headache, but whatever his state of mind, the state of his heart led straight to a curse.

So how is this fresh start going?

Let us remember the original reason for the flood:

The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. . . . Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. . . . And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them . . .

Genesis 6:5,11,13 (NRSV emphasis added)

The earth was filled with violence. Following the flood, Noah and family had a chance for a future without violence.

In fact God showed the way to a future without violence. This fresh start was one in which God promised mercy instead of judgement. As we read the following, let us consider that the Hebrew word for “rainbow” is the very same word used for the weapon “bow,” as Bible scholars point out:

I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Genesis 9:11-15 (NRSV emphasis added)

In hanging up a rainbow, the picture is of God hanging up his weapon of war. It is in God’s heart to bless and not curse.

What a contrast we see here between God and Noah. Where God renews the tone of blessing, of promise, Noah sets a tone of curse. Noah’s curse sets up one part of the family as as better than the other. Such disparity and discrimination will only lead to problems, and to violence. Great new beginning? Same old problems. Same old human hearts.

So what about us?

Anytime that we experience a new beginning, are we just setting ourselves up for the same old problems because we have the same old hearts and the same old hang-ups? Do we ever feel like every new beginning ends up being the same old?

Will we ever change? Can we ever change?

Change is possible!

We are called to change

Jesus calls us to change when he calls us to pick up our cross and follow him. We may be used to thinking of “bearing our cross” as bearing whatever suffering comes our way, but that is not the call. The call is to handle things differently, to handle things in line with the heart of God.

Notice how at his arrest, trial, and crucifixion, Jesus did not respond to violence with violence. We are reminded of God’s promise signified by the rainbow, a promise to not destroy. God came to us in Jesus and we, humanity, killed him. Yet God did not flood the earth. God could have destroyed us, but instead loves us and offers reconciliation and a love relationship. God hung up his weapon. In fact, God, in Jesus, was hung on one of ours. God responds in love.

The call is to live with hearts that reflect the heart of God. When we are offended, like Noah was by his son, or way worse, as Jesus was by everyone, we respond, not with curse like Noah, but with love like Jesus.

We are enabled to change

We have the gift of the Holy Spirit.

. . . the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control . . .

Galatians 5:22,23 (NRSV)

Fundamental shifts in our character are a consequence of walking with God in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit. These fruit of the Spirit are not just changes in habits, or the correction of certain behaviors, this is deep heart work.

Let us remember that Noah was the most righteous person of his day, yet his heart was not right. That is kind of the point, that even the most righteous person on earth needed some deep heart work. We do too.

In our relationship with Christ, and through the work of God’s Spirit, we are called and enabled to change so that each new beginning we face has new possibilities. Let us be mindful though, that deep heart work takes time.

In Conclusion

With Noah we see a new beginning, with new possibilities, and then we see the same old problems coming up because of same old hearts harboring the same old hang-ups. Noah’s new beginning was not a great new beginning.

With Christ we experience a new beginning, and a new heart. Therefore each new beginning can be a better new beginning in Christ.

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Clarke Dixon is a Canadian pastor who appears here most Thursdays. Click here for his blog and/or click here to watch a video of the message from which today’s devotional is based.

The Exceptionally Long Lifespan of Early Biblical People

^NIV.Gen.5.3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. ⁴ After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. ⁵ Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.

⁶ When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh. ⁷ After he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. ⁸ Altogether, Seth lived a total of 912 years, and then he died.

⁹ When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan. ¹⁰ After he became the father of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and daughters. ¹¹ Altogether, Enosh lived a total of 905 years, and then he died.

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^NIV.Gen.6.3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

 

This week Clarke Dixon’s church had a time of testimony with different people sharing their spiritual journey. Some of these people I knew somewhat superficially, but I was so encouraged to hear more of their story.

This week’s post from Clarke appeared on his blog Sunday’s Shrunk Sermon eight years ago this month. Click the title below to read at source.

Genesis 5 and The Short Life of a Cricket

by Clarke Dixon

Having recently closed the pool I have lost one of my morning rituals; a rescue operation for crickets and beetles. Most bugs that find their way into the pool drown fairly quickly, just like the mice, chipmunk, and a skunk that went for a swim this year. Beetles and crickets seemed to be able to keep their heads above water, so in the mornings I would skim off the dead bugs (and the occasional animal), and rescue the living. The beetles were numerous and began to get annoying, and at one point I considered spray painting them to see if the same ones kept coming back for a swim each night.

The crickets however, were even more annoying. They would cling to the side of the pool so I would try to splash them off making it possible for me to pick them up in the skimmer and bring them to safety. Problem is, they were tenacious and held onto the side for dear life, then when I did finally get them into the water, then into the skimmer, no sooner would I get them out of the water that they would leap right back in. This would then often result in my scolding them for their foolishness, and no doubt my neighbours wondering if I was losing my mind. I was trying to lengthen the crickets’ lives, they seemed intent on shortening them.

This reminds me of Genesis 5 where we find some people with incredibly long lives, some reaching nearly 1,000 years. Some people get to this point in the Bible and wonder if the Bible isn’t on the level of fairy tales after all. People just don’t live that long and we have trouble imagining that they ever did. A perusal of Bible scholars will yield four possibilities as to why we find these incredibly long lives in Genesis:

1) Several generations are ‘hidden’ within each person listed, the ancients not being as set on historical details as we are today.
2) There was a different way of counting time back then.
3) The ages are a literary embellishments which allow the lesson in theology to trump a lesson in history.
4) They really did live that long.

No matter which option is closest to what you think, we can remember that the book of Genesis exists primarily to teach us theology, that is, it tells us what it tells us to help us know God better. So what do we learn from these long lives? That life is short, of course!

In the Bible, and especially in the early parts, we find a whittling down of life. Adam and Eve were to live forever, but that didn’t work out so well. Then we find these very early people not even making it to a thousand years. It is thought that Moses, who it is also thought to have had a hand in recording Genesis in some way,  wrote these lines:

You turn men back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, O sons of men.”  For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.  You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning– though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered. (Psalm 90:3-6 NIV)

We think of these people as living extraordinarily long lives. But from the perspective of the eternal life God wanted to give them,  they didn’t live long at all. It is interesting that in other records from Ancient Near East, there are “kings lists” which record the reign of ten kings, some of whom were said to have reigned for over 60,000 years. If the people who were alive when Genesis was committed to writing were aware of such things in nearby cultures, the Biblical account would have had the affect of reminding them of how short life really was.

Then beyond Genesis 5, we find the average lifespan being whittled down until we get to Joseph who lived for 110 years, as we are told in the final verse of Genesis. Beyond that we get to the time of Moses, again an important time in the bringing forth of the book of Genesis, and the declaration that  “The length of our days is seventy years– or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” Psalm 90:10

The point of the whittling down of lifespans, from Eve and Adam, through the early generations, down through the rest of Genesis and into the days of Moses, is clear. We are like crickets that refuse to be saved. God’s desire has always been to bless us with life, but we have turned away from His blessings and have chosen death instead. People still do this today. Just like we have a moving away from  the garden of Eden, first with Adam and Eve in chapter 3, then even further with Cain in chapter 4, in Genesis we have a moving away from the blessing of life and the hastening of death, as chapter 5 helps make clear. Besides the ages these early generations, the repetition of their deaths sounds an ominous reminder of the curse of sin. And for the Christian, it serves as a reminder of the depth of God’s grace and His desire to bless us with life:

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. . . “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  (1 Corinthians 15:22,55-57 NIV)

Think About It: Noah Had Never Seen Rain

“Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die.”
So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.
-Gen 6:17,22 NLT

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,
 -1 Peter 1:8 NIV

Back in September, when we last visited the blog Rhetorical Jesus by Jack Wellman, I explained more fully how this particular devotional site is designed as an outreach for (and to) people on Facebook and Pinterest, and even included the matching graphic that went with that devotional.

Today you’ll have to click the header below for the graphic. You might even want to use some of these on your own social media.

Will you trust me as much as Noah did?

Hebrews 11:7

By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

The Eyes of Faith

Noah had never seen a flood. He had never seen rain, yet there he and his family were…building an ark in the middle of a semi-arid desert region. Noah believed God and not his eyes. He trusted God enough to do what made absolutely no sense to others and did everything God asked him to do (Gen 6:22), and by his obedience, he obtained a righteousness that comes only by faith or trust. Put yourself in Noah’s place. He had no idea what rain was, not to mention floods, and where he lived, building a great boat made no sense. He built a massive boat, the ark, when no such thing had ever been constructed. Noah saw things that were not as though they would be because he saw with the eyes of faith. Can I trust God as much as Noah did?

Confidence in What Is Not Seen

Chapter 11 of Hebrews has been called the Hall of Faith because in it, there is a veritable who’s who of men and women who trusted God in what was to come before it ever came to be. That’s why the definition of faith is having an assurance of things that are hoped for and the strongest of convictions of what is not even seen (Heb 11:1). Experience tells us that we too can trust God more than what we see with our eyes. God holds the future in His sovereign hands, and there is more confidence in what is not even seen today than what we see with our eyes. We can’t please God without having faith (Heb 11:6), and our faith is only as strong as the Object of Faith.

Faith is Believing God

The genuineness of our faith is being tested today so that it will come forth as being more precious than gold (1Pet 1:7) because even though none of us have even seen Jesus, we believe in Him (1 Pet 1:8), and, thus, a living hope is born in us. The fact that salvation is fully a work of God should make us trust Him even more. If it were up to us, we would have every right to be anxious, but God tells His own children that He isn’t ever going to leave us or forsake us (Heb 13:5).  Shouldn’t that be good enough since we know that God cannot lie (Heb 6:18)?

A Closing Prayer

Great Creator God in heaven, please help me to believe in You and trust You even when my eyes tell me otherwise. I know that You hold the future in Your hands and control everything that happens in my life, so please forgive me in my times of doubt and help me to learn to trust You more and more with each passing day. In this great desire of mine I pray, in the strong name of Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

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From the same author: What is God Calling You to Do Today?

Was the Flood of Genesis a Hate Crime?

by Clarke Dixon

Was the flood in the days of Noah a hate crime?

Imagine you are alive sometime between Noah and Moses but you are not part of the Hebrew people of Moses. There are stories of a great flood being passed down from generation to generation. How do you suppose people accounted for the reason behind this flood? You might think of a god or several gods hating people.

Indeed there were stories of a flood being passed down in those days which were quite similar to the Biblical account. One such story is called the “Epic of Gilgamesh”. According to it, the people of the earth were so noisy that they were disturbing the peace of the gods. Extermination would fix that! These are the kinds of things people came up with as they tried to make sense of life’s experiences in a prescience and very superstitious time and place. However, the Bible was coming into existence. The Biblical account of the flood, though being very similar to other flood accounts in some ways, is very different in others. It sets the record straight.

In setting the record straight, the reason for the flood is given:

The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. Genesis 6:5-6

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. Genesis 6:11-13 (emphasis added)

The evil of humankind was the reason for the flood, and a very specific kind of evil; violence. Indeed, upon leaving the ark, violence is addressed as being of first importance:

For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life.
Whoever sheds the blood of a human,
by a human shall that person’s blood be shed;
for in his own image
God made humankind. Genesis 9:5-6

The very first ethic given to Noah and his family for dwelling on the earth is an ethic of flourishing in a world of non-violence. The flood was to be a new beginning for humanity, a new beginning without the violence of the past.

The Biblical flood account of the flood continues to set the record straight in our day. Did God flood the earth because He hates people? Was this a hate crime?

What God hated was the violence people committed against one another. Had he hated people we would just be talking about the flood, and not Noah’s ark. Of course we would not be talking at all for humanity would have ceased then and there! God would have acted in complete justice to end all life at that flood.

. . . the wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23

But instead there was a new beginning, and a promise of mercy. This is not a story of God hating people, but of God heading down the road of loving and loyal relationship.

Most translations have “bow” where we expect “rainbow”. This is on purpose for the Hebrew word behind “bow” literally is the kind of bow used to fire arrows. The bow is a weapon. Some Bible teachers have pointed out that when God puts the bow in the sky, it is symbolic of how He is hanging up his weapon. God is refusing to use a weapon to bring about justice. He is giving mercy rather than letting His perfect justice roll.

A rainbow is a very fitting symbol for God’s love and mercy. To have a rainbow you need just the right amount of light and moisture. To have the existence of life itself requires just the right amounts of light and moisture. God commits to keep providing both. Jesus speaks of light and moisture when He teaches about love:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. Matthew 5:43-45

God has been keeping His promise. He has been holding back the immediate execution of His justice. He has been merciful to every generation.

As Bible teachers have pointed out, if mercy is not being treated as we deserve, then grace is being treated as we do not deserve. The Biblical account of the flood is a prelude to grace. God hung up His bow, His weapon, and called for humanity to do the same. But then God came to us in Jesus and we hung Him up on our weapon of choice for violent execution. God Himself was the One to suffer human violence in Jesus. If ever a worldwide flood was appropriate it was as Jesus hung on a cross. But instead of letting justice roll, God let forgiveness flow:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23

If the flood account in Genesis is setting the record straight as to what God is like, how much more is Jesus Christ setting the record straight as to what God is like.

“God is love” 1 John 4:16

Far too many people think they are rejecting God when they are rejecting an image of God created in their own minds or in the minds of others. Let God speak for Himself. Let Scripture set the record straight. Let Jesus set the record straight. Let us not create an image of God according to our own way of thinking, but look to God to set the record straight on His Justice, His mercy, and His grace. The Biblical account of the flood sets the record straight on these things, Jesus Christ does even more so.

Was the flood a hate crime? It was the justice of God rolled out upon a hate filled world. The fact that humanity is still around speaks of God’s mercy. The offer of eternal life in Jesus speaks of God’s amazing grace.

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For more, be sure to visit Clarke’s blog at ClarkeDixon.wordpress.com

The Canaanite Curse

^{Genesis 9.24} When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵ he said,

“Cursed be Canaan!
    The lowest of slaves
    will he be to his brothers.”

²⁶ He also said,

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem!
    May Canaan be the slave of Shem.

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^{Deut. 20.16} However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. ¹⁷ Completely destroy^[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹⁸ Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.

Today we pay a return visit with Peter Enns whose writing is always thought-provoking. Click the title below to read at source.

Looks Like the Canaanites Got a Raw Deal

God’s command to exterminate the Canaanites (along with everything else that breathes) remains one of the more gruesome stories in the Bible (see Deuteronomy 20:16-20).

This story presents readers with a real—not imagined—moral and theological dilemma, but my point isn’t to get into all that here. [You can read more here and also in The Bible Tells Me So, where I take a whole chapter laying out the issues.]

Here I just want to say that this command wasn’t an afterthought. As the Israelites tell the story, the Canaanites were doomed from the start for something that happened nearly at the beginning of human history—Noah and the great Flood.

This flood killed every living creature; only Noah and his family were saved in a big boat, along with enough animals (1) to repopulate the earth later and (2) to sacrifice to appease God.

After the waters subsided and everyone de-arked, Noah planted the first vineyard, made wine, and got drunk. Like a state college freshman, he collapsed naked inside his tent in a drunken coma.

His youngest son, Ham, went into the tent, saw him his father lying there naked, and went out to tell his brothers, Shem and Japheth. Rather than gawking, the two brothers walked backwards into the tent and covered their father with a garment.

It’s hard to know exactly what’s going on here, but, apparently, the two brothers handled the situation correctly whereas Ham didn’t. So, when Noah woke up, he did what any normal father would do with when faced with the same dilemma—he cursed Ham’s descendants forever.

Three guesses who Ham’s descendants are (and the first two don’t count): the Canaanites.

It strikes me that the very first words out of Noah’s mouth after he woke up weren’t, “What a night! What was I thinking!? I’ll never do that again!”

Not even, “Ham! Get in here! How dare you look upon my nakedness?!”

Instead he said,

“Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”

Not, “Cursed be Ham,” or “Cursed be Ham and all his descendants,” but “Cursed be the line of one of Ham’s sons—Canaan.”

Ham has four sons, yet only Canaan and his entire bloodline are doomed—which seems a bit extreme, given the fact that he himself hadn’t done anything.

Plus, two of Noah’s other sons are Cush and Mizraim, the ancestors of the Egyptians who held the Israelites in slavery. So how about cursing their bloodlines?

But no. Only this one son of Ham has his descendants consigned to a perpetual subhuman legacy of enslavement to the descendants of his brothers—namely the descendants of Shem, from which come the Israelites.

It looks like whoever wrote this story has a bone to pick with the Canaanites.

If we read this in another ancient book, we’d call it propaganda—a story to justify, not explain, hatred of the Canaanites. At least that’s what it looks like.

Israel’s later sworn enemies, the Canaanites, are set up as failures from the beginning, and no treatment—not even extermination—is too harsh for these people whose ancestor’s father saw his father drunk and naked.

This isn’t going to end well for the Canaanites.

 

The Old Testament Affirmed in the New Testament

If you spend any amount of time on what I would term “The Christian Internet,” you see much being written about how we are to read the book of Genesis. As we have become more enamored with science, it has become fashionable, even among Evangelicals, to second-guess the Bible’s creation account, or at least what we were taught the Genesis account was saying.

The problem here is that we might tend to toss everything out all at once. Noah’s ark? To a scientific mind it seems unlikely. Balaam’s donkey? Seems impossible to many. And on and on it goes until there’s nothing left to unravel except for the centerpiece of the Christian Bible, the resurrection of Christ.

That’s why I think it’s so important to remember that Jesus affirmed several Old Testament stories. My favorite is always:

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.  – Matthew 12:40

He doesn’t try to argue the merits of what so many today consider an improbable story. He simply takes it as a given. Now I realize you could read this, ‘Just as in the story of Jonah he was three days and nights in the fish, so also will…’ In other words, you could say that Jesus was drawing a parallel between his coming death and resurrection and the tale of Jonah, but the text certainly seems to take Jonah’s fish incarceration is not just a part of their literature, but it’s being cited as a given; something that really happened.

Last week Daily Encouragement ran a 4-part series on the city of Sodom and the last part‘s key verse was:

“Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17:32,33)

The story is that Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back. Many find such a story totally fanciful. But here again, the story is taken as a given. Jesus doesn’t say, ‘Remember that crazy story about Lot’s wife? Well we all know the moral of that story, and so I’m telling you now that…’

The New Testament writers also allude to various OT passages. At the website Bible Study Tools:

…The word often used to describe this treatment of the Old Testament is “typology.” This technique may be illustrated by the use made of the Exodus, which receives frequent typological treatment.

• Matthew suggestively applies Hosea 11:1 to Jesus’ return from Egypt ( 2:15 ), highlighting the parallel between Israel, who failed the temptations in the wilderness, and Jesus, who came through them victoriously to form the heart of a renewed people of God.
• John 6 presents the feeding of the five thousand as a glorious repetition of the manna miracle, signaling a greater exodus from sin and death.
• Paul applies the exodus themes of “slavery” and “redemption” spiritually to the work of the cross (e.g., Rom 3:24 ;8:23 ; Ephesians 1:7 Ephesians 1:14 ), and finds in the wilderness wanderings several typological foreshadowings of Christ and the church ( 1 Cor 10:1-13 ).
• Hebrews develops the theme of the political “rest” enjoyed by Israel in the promised land and applies it typologically to that spiritual sharing of the life of God himself, which is the fruit of the work of Christ for all believers (3:1-4:13).
• First Peter 2:9-10 uses Exodus 19:5-6, a central statement of exodus theology, to make Israel a type of the church.
• Revelation uses the Egyptian plagues typologically ( 8:7-12 ), and applies the numbering of the exodus tribes to the church ( 7:4-8 ).

There are also a host of places where the OT is quoted in the NT.  You can read a brief overview of this topic at Theopedia or in this various-authors discussion of the topic in the Zondervan Counterpoints Series.

I know that some people are not attracted to a mentality of “The Bible says it, that’s settles it, I believe it.” But I think it’s important to make a distinction concerning the OT stories the NT affirms.

~PW

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I was thinking of this song while reading the series at Daily Encouragement. We’ve used it here 2 years ago, but some of you may not have seen it. The singer is Marty McCall from the band Fireworks.

 

As it Was in the Days of Noah

^{NIV Gen 9:8}  Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: ⁹ “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you ¹⁰ and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. ¹¹ I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³ I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶ Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

¹⁷ So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

I was thinking of this scripture over the last several days.  God linked his promise not to ever again flood the earth to a sign, a covenant sign, a rainbow.   And yet, we see unprecidented flooding across the midwest United States and the Canadian province of Manitoba.  As with New Orleans, which was built on a delta, much of the land mass of middle America was built in a flood plain, and again this year, the rivers crested, the rain poured down.

But the storms were nothing compared to the “perfect storm” created on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning when the arctic shelf of cold air in the north met with the warmer 80-degree air (28° C) to form the perfect conditions for tornadoes.   164 tornadoes in 24 hours with speeds up to 100 miles-per-hour (160 km/hr) and all the expected loss of life that comes with this weather across many U.S. states.

Was God’s promise an across-the-board promise not to use weather to bring judgment, or does it only apply to global flooding?

I’m not even sure that’s the right question.  I’m not sure questions are the right response.  I’m also acutely aware that anything I write here stands the risk or stands the test of being read by family of people who have lost homes, possessions and even loved ones.

Instead, my mind went to the liturgical phrase, kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy.  As I researched this phrase both in religious websites and in blogs, it occurred to me that this is the phrase we can say when there is nothing left to say.  It is the phrase voiced by desperate people in desperate times.

And so I end with a prayer today:  God, please have mercy on the people of the United States and Manitoba.  Yes, use the weather to draw people to yourself and to tremble at the power of creation itself, but at the same time, we petition you for intervention that would decrease the horror and pain that is being experienced right now.  You are God, you are Holy, your ways are higher than ours, but remember your covenant between yourself and all living creatures.  Lord, have mercy.

The form, Kyrie Eleison occurs in the New Testament here: Matthew 9:27, 20:30, 15:22; Mark 10:47; Luke 16:24, 17:13, and in the Old Testament here: Psalm 4:2, 6:3, 9:14, 25:11, 121:3; Isaiah 33:2

Re-reading Noah

I spent a number of years attending an Assemblies of God type of church in Canada, where the AG is known as the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.   It was also the denomination my wife grew up in.

As a result — and don’t ask me why this is — she has a much better handle on parts of the Old Testament than I do.   In the short time I attended a PAOC church in Toronto, most Sunday mornings we opened our Bibles to O. T. texts.

And oh… what great messages they were able to derive from those texts!  (My non-Pentecostal friends might say, “Where did they get that from?”)  If you haven’t been exposed to Pentecostal preaching, there ain’t nothing like it.

I was reminded of that today as I read this post on the blog, Thoughts for Daily Devotions.

“The flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth” (Gen 7:17).

When Noah obeyed God’s Word and entered into the ark, it gradually lifted him up from the earth. This is amazingly true in our spiritual life also. Our ark is Christ. As we respond to the gospel-call and enter into Christ or as Christ enters into our life, He lifts us up from the earthly sphere to heavenly heights. The higher we rise the smaller the things of the world seem. The things of the earth no longer seem glamorous and attractive. Things which once held us in allure now hold little appeal for us. “The more of heaven we cherish, the less of earth we covet.”

The more the ark was lifted up, the higher Noah went. Similarly, the more we lift up Christ, the more we are lifted up for the glory of God. We become the light of the world, a ‘city set on a hill’; seeing our light, men glorify the father in heaven (Matt 5:14,16).

“The mountains were covered.” As we go higher in our spiritual life, the mountain-like problems that once loomed large before us, disappear from our view. Our life is now a joyful song – a song of worship, praise and adoration.