Noah's Ark

Anyone who has ever been in either my office or my home knows that I love Noah's Ark and collect ark's in all shapes and sizes.  So it was fun to cover that story in Bible study - and appropriate given the weather right now.

A few points - if you want to read along the story is found in Genesis 6:5 - 9:17

First notice that God is sorry that he created human beings at all - and decides to get rid of not only them but all animals - but then God thinks about Noah and decides to save him.  This is one of the first places in Scripture that God changes his mind.

Then notice that Noah takes not only the "two by two" that we are familar with but seven pairs of the "clean" animals, that is the ones we can eat.

The main part of the story you are probably familar with - it rains for 40 days and nights and finally stops.  But after it stops raining there is this wonderful sentence.  "And God remembered Noah"  In Hebrew the word for life and the word for remember are very closly linked and in Hebrew thought - as long as you are remembered you continue to exist.  So for God to remember you is a big deal.

At the end of the story God sets out a fresh Covenant with Noah and his sons and begins the process of distinguishing between human justice and God's justice.  God makes a promise that he won't destroy the earth with flood and uses the rainbow as a sign.  Notice that word remember again.  God will remember his covenant with Noah every time a rainbow appears in the sky.

From Adam to the flood

Chapters 4 and 5 of Genesis are the ones that usually stop people who are trying to read through the Bible from beginning to end.

In the beginning of Chapter 4 you have the story of Cain and Abel - where evil really enters the world.  Then we have the listing of the descendants of Cain - and how some of them became hearders and others musicians and others metal workers.

Then we get the 10 generations from Adam to Noah - it's an interesting list - note especially that of all 10 - only Enoch "walked with the Lord" and while all of the others die, Enoch is taken by God.

It ends with the odd paragraph about the sons of God - that is "Elohim" which Hebrew uses for both the God of Israel and all other gods - having relations with the daughters of men and spawning the Nephalim- the giants. 

All of that gets us ready for the flood story - that is coming in two weeks, stay tuned.

Reflecting on Creation Stories

Some additional questions about the two creation stories:

1. What does it mean that human beings are made in the image of God?
2. What does it mean to have dominion over creation?
3. What does it mean that God says "it is not good for the man to be alone?"
4. Why would God want to keep human beings from knowing good and evil?

Bible study is taking a break next week - we'll be back in two weeks with the Cain and Abel story.

The second creation story

Last week we covered the first creation story - the one with seven days and God resting on the 7th day.

This week we get the second creation story:

It doesn't quite fit with the other one.  In this one God starts with the plants - he brings forth water and with the water he tills the ground and brings forth plants - including the trees of life and of the knowledge of good and evil.

Then we get man made from the earth and placed in the garden and told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Then God wants a companion for the man and brings every creature on earth past the man - but the man doesn't find a fit companion - so God makes woman.

Now enter the snake - who talks the woman into eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the woman gets the man to eat and God comes and they all get expelled from the garden so that they don't eat from the tree of life and live forever.

A couple of points:
1. Human beings are created to be in relationship - "It is not good for the man to be alone"  We are created to interact with one another.
2.  It is doubt (in the story introduced by the snake) that causes the problems - and that is true in our relationship with God and in our relationship with each other - when we doubt the problems come
3. In this story God is both singular "he" and plural "we"  God is not confined by our grammatical constructs
4. It is doubt and disobediance that causes humans relationships with God to be broken - both for Adam and Eve and for us.

Genesis Chapter 1

The first chapter of Genesis contains one of the two stories of creation that are found in the book.

I love the first couple of verses of this:  In the beginning when God was creating the heavens and the earth.  The earth was a formless void and the breath of God moved over the face of the waters.

There are a few things about this creation story to note:

1. The days are evening and morning - this is still the way that both Judaism and the Catholic and Episcopal churches count the days - from sundown to sun up  rather than the Roman way from sun up to sundown.

2. God refers to himself in the plural - let us make

3. God refers to the creation as good or pleasant but not perfect

4. God creates human kind - literally earth beings - in his own image.  The verses read:  "So God created humankind in his image, in teh image of God he created them; male and female he created them."  - We are made in the image of God

5. And God rests on the seventh day.

Genesis - in the beginning

This year in Bible Study we are studying the book of Genesis.  We are trying an experiment and in addition to our Monday morning class we will have a monthly evening class and every monday I will post a synopsis here and on our Facebook page. 

You can comment or ask questions in a comment here and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

So - Genesis - the first book of the Bible.  You probably know some of the stories, and there are some you think you know and some that you have never heard before.

To start - Genesis is actually a Greek title that was given to the book by Christians in days of the Christian church.  The Hebrew title is the first word of the book - Barashet - which litterally means "in the beginning"

Genesis is made up of really ancient stories that have been told and retold for countless generations.  The final editing of the book happened in the 6th century B.C. - so the book, pretty much as we have it, has been in existance since 600 years before Christ.

There are two interconnected themes in the book.
1. God calls the world into being
2. God calls human beings into relationship with him.

Those calls and the responses to them make up the core of Genesis.  We'll be exploring them until June - come along for the journey.

Mission Trip

A group of us from St. Paul's went on Mission Trip to Elyria, Ohio last week.  Three adults and five teenagers spent a week building handicapped access ramps to allow people to get into and out of their homes and also making new friends and having fun.

In the sermon that they preached at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Elyria on Sunday some of the youth said that just like Jesus used the little that he had (five loaves and two fish) we used the little that we had (some skills and experiance and few tools and some wood) to change the lives of people and our own.

I can't think of a better sermon than that.  Ask Haley, Dan, Mary Frances, Timmy, Steven, Jason or Brian about their week - they have stories to tell.