Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

“these things happened as examples for us so that we would not choose evil as they did”.

My friend Frank makes fun of my bible study beginning in Genesis .  On asking, “Where else?”, believe it or not he suggested Deuteronomy!  I will leave that for another day.   Even so, after a bit of a rest, I want to continue on with Genesis.  Paul wrote those words above writing to the church at Corinth using the lessons of Moses in the wilderness to help the Corinthians choose good over evil (1st Corinthians ch 10).  The books of Paul’s bible were not just stories they were the experiences of a community which shaped their character, life, and purpose.  And these bible stories did yet more than that - these were not just character building experiences.  Moses’ sojourn in the desert isn’t just old school wilderness camping as an Eagle Scout might do today.  As Paul uses them we can see how they gave him a road map to understand the journey of our Lord Jesus as he walked on this earth.  More than that, the great stories of the Old Testament help Paul to guide and shape the early community of faith.  As he said, these things happened to the people of Israel for us, in other words so that we would understand something that would have been impossible without this experience.  So, back to Genesis.  I want to keep going because Genesis lays out big chunks of the foundations of our faith and shapes the language Paul uses to instruct us on how we should live given the fact of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  In saying that, Genesis is a long read.  So, rather than go through all the verses, let me try to bring out some of the themes of Genesis that form and shape our understanding of what God is doing with the world.   We have already seen that in the first few chapters God creates.  That sounds to the Christian like a statement of the obvious.  Yet, when we walk around in a world that assumes the origins of humanity lie in the process of evolution it takes a LOT of effort to think like we are “created”.  In the same way it takes a lot of work to think of sinfulness as almost an issue of location and not as the result of some human act.  We are outside of Eden and there is no way back.  At least, not under human power.   These two facts which emerged in the first three chapters of Genesis should shape how we view (for example) the status of a foetus and how we approach our fellow human beings.  We are created and we are all sinful.   That’s the thing about Genesis; it helps shape our mind to better understand what God is up to in the life and death of his Son, Jesus, and what He is up to in our world today. So, to the story of Noah and the flood.   The story of the flood begins with God remembering his covenant - a fact we often overlook.  I would go so far as to say that you don’t understand what God is doing in the world unless you understand the Old Testament word “covenant”.  In one sense covenants were as common in the days of Moses and the writers of the Old Testament as they are today.  If you have ever bought a house you have signed covenants that bind you to act in a certain way.  To use a topical example, in the case of a mortgage, both parties are bound together by mutual acts which fulfil the obligations of the covenant or promise.  The bank promises to give you the money; you promise to pay them back with a schedule of payments over years.  I am pretty sure that Moses did not walk along to Citizen’s Bank and take out a mortgage, but the people of his day still understood the concepts of mutual covenants and promises.  In the day of Moses people promised - you do this, I do that.  As you you look closely, however, this is different.   God’s covenant with his people is like a mortgage that God takes out on our behalf and then makes good on the payments.  There are lots of important parts of the story of the flood but you don’t really understand it at all unless you see this.  God watches the world going bad and chooses Noah as his own to make sure that the world continues.  In other words God acts, binds himself to the future of humanity, and God ultimately promises Noah that He will continue to act on behalf of the world.

17I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”  22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

 More on this next week.