Tag Archives: questioning

Day 3: What good is the flood?

Genesis 6-8; Matthew 3

Genesis 6-8 is the story of the flood. The idea of God destroying the earth causes me to wrestle… really wrestle with God’s goodness. I’ve struggled to see how God’s goodness is revealed in destroying every living thing on the earth (except those few on the ark). Seriously, what good is the flood?

I believe God has patiently endured my questioning and given me not just one, but several glimpses of his goodness in this passage of Scripture.

  • Firstly, I believe God gave the world the opportunity to repent and be saved. Think about it… It took Noah and his sons a VERY long time to build that ark. Scholars debate on the specifics, but it was somewhere between 75-100 years of building. Don’t you think news would have spread about this crazy guy building this humongous boat? Don’t you think Noah tried to warn people of the coming flood? They had a chance to repent, believe and be saved… But they didn’t. And they perished.
  • Secondly, (and this is a hard one for me) every living thing deserved to be destroyed. The bible says “every intention of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). God showed his grace by preserving a remnant.
  •  Thirdly, (and I love this) I see God’s tender, personal care for Noah and his family in verse 7:16, “And the Lord shut him in.” God, himself, shut the door to the arc and protected them from the deadly flood. He, personally, saved them.
  • And finally, Noah’s story is both a warning and a joyful proclamation to us. Just as those who were in the ark were saved from the flood… If we are found “in Christ” we will be saved from the judgment that is to come. God, in his mercy, warns repetitively throughout Scripture that there will be judgment for those who do not turn to Jesus for help. None of us are good enough to earn entrance into heaven. Jesus offers us a trade: we get his perfect record, and he gets our tarnished one. As a result, he received the punishment we deserve, and we get the reward that only he deserves. This is good news. This is the gospel.

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Day 2: A far reaching choice

Genesis 3-5; Matthew 2

To me, Genesis 3 is the saddest chapter in the whole bible. Adam and Eve’s disobedience destroyed the perfection God intended and now every human who has ever lived on this earth knows the “fallenness” that is this world. Theirs was a choice with far-reaching consequences.

But have you ever wondered… after Adam and Eve ate the fruit and were hiding from God in shame, why would God (who is all-knowing) ask, “Where are you?” Not to sound irreverent, but doesn’t that seem like a stupid question? God totally knew where they were. And then God goes on to ask more questions he already knows the answer to: “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

I’ve always wondered why God asks these questions, and not long ago, I was reading a book by Nancy Guthrie, and she gave me a very satisfying answer…

Here we see one of the first pictures in Scripture of what our God is like personally. He takes the initiative to seek after sinners. …God didn’t question the Serpent. There was no need for that since there was no possibility of his redemption (Guthrie, The Promised One, pp 74, 75).

God seeks after sinners because he longs for us to repent. He desired for Adam and Eve to repent, but “instead of making a brokenhearted confession, [Adam] offered an excuse” (Guthrie, The Promised One, p 75).

Amid this extreme sadness, however, God delivered a shocking promise –  that a descendent of the woman would defeat the serpent. This promise acts as a backdrop for the rest of the Old Testament. For the Old Testament can be read as the story of God preserving a family line from which Jesus would be born. Right from the beginning, we see this royal line threatened as Cain killed Abel and Cain walked away from God. But God’s plan was always that Jesus would not descend from Cain or Abel. God gave Adam and Eve a third son, Seth, and it was from him that the promised royal descendent would come!

In today’s New Testament reading, we see the promised descendent in danger of being killed by the evil king, Herod. But God, who purposed to preserve his royal line throughout the Old Testament was not thwarted by the plans of an evil king. He warned Joseph in a dream to escape south to Egypt until the threat had passed.

God’s plan of redemption could not – and will not – be overcome by the serpent. Jesus was born! Jesus was crucified. And Jesus will come again!