Posted on

Every tongue (Genesis 11)

“Come, let us build a city. In the center of the city we’ll construct a magnificent monument, a tower that will reach to the sky. Our city will become famous; it’s population will increase beyond measure!”

Such were the dreams of those descendants of Noah who settled in Babylonia, to the east. All of them (in fact all people everywhere) spoke the same language.

And they would have, no doubt, realized their dreams if the LORD hadn’t stepped in and confused their language.

There must have been something about their lofty dreams that displeased the LORD, but it had to have been more than that. After all, he could have done any number of things to thwart their efforts.

But by confusing their language, he forced mankind to scatter across the earth, as was in keeping with his command to Adam and again to Noah to “replenish” the earth and subdue it.

God may have also done this so as to retard the natural advancement of knowledge, as if God were making a cosmic calibration adjustment. His purpose may have also been to slow the advancement of wickedness in the world.

In any case we know that every tongue – every English tongue, every foreign tongue – will one day confess the name of him who was prophesied to crush the serpent’s head, a prophesy given to Adam and Eve even before they were driven out of the garden.

Posted on

It’s not about my father (Genesis 10)

Although impossible to trace, each of us has a genealogy that goes all the way back to one of the three sons of Noah.

Cain’s living descendants would have all perished in the great flood. Seth’s descendants likewise, except for Noah and his family. (It is highly likely that Noah and his sons would have found wives among their own clan.)

It’s a long train that winds back to Japheth, who almost certainly was my progenitor. But it’s not about my great-grandfather; it’s not about my father. Ham’s transgression was not overlooked because he was Noah’s boy. If anything, he was judged more harshly because he was the son of such a godly man, and should have learned from his example.

No, if the God of Genesis isn’t my Father, my human lineage, no matter what it is, can never make up for it.

Posted on

His righteous expectation (Genesis 9)

They walked out of the ark and into a new world. Noah and his family alone were saved from the flood’s destruction. Noah built an altar and offered burnt sacrifices, humbly acknowledging the power and protection of the God of all creation.

There was (or should have been) with all of them a deepened understanding of God’s righteousness, and his righteous expectation for their lives. He established a new covenant with them, one that required a respect for human life as made in God’s image.

When Ham told his brothers about their father lying naked in the tent in a drunken stupor, he must have done so in a way that was highly disrespectful and offensive. We don’t know what God thought of Noah’s actions, but Ham’s actions must have violated the spirit of this new covenant, because the judgment was severe.

Posted on

Rain (Genesis 8)

The sun rises every morning, and sets every evening. The moon and the stars come out each night. The seasons change one after another, year after year. Automatically.

Why is this the case? The answer goes beyond our scientific understanding of nature to reveal something about the character of the God behind it. In judgment, He had sent a life-ending rain in mighty torrents, preserving the just but destroying the unjust. Now henceforth, in mercy, he would send a life-giving rain on the just and unjust alike.

Posted on

Now turned Destroyer (Genesis 7)

On the seventeenth day of the second month, when Noah was exactly 600 years old, it began to rain. In mighty torrents. In time and space. Forty days and forty nights, until the waters rose to a level twenty-two feet above the highest mountain peaks. Every bird, every animal, every human outside the ark was destroyed.

This was no accident. Thatit happened, and when it happened and how it happened was just as God the Creator (now turned Destroyer) planned it.

Posted on

Less than God (Genesis 6)

How could God, knowing the end from the beginning, be sorry that he ever made man? Did the human race let him down? Wasn’t the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world?

It is a mystery. I don’t have a tidy explanation. God is not just a lab-coated Creator. He is personally, emotionally invested in us. So much so, in fact, that at times God appears to be less than God. After all, how else do we begin to comprehend the Incarnation?

Posted on

O wretched consequence (Genesis 4)

Consumed with jealousy, Cain murdered his brother Abel. The pristine earth God created just a few chapters ago is now a ball of confusion. All these thousands of years later, we are all too familiar with murder. But this was the first. It had never happened before. “Cain, what have you done?” Adam, what have youdone? O wretched consequence!

Posted on

So briefly conveyed (Genesis 3)

I have read the story of the Fall dozens of times, and still don’t comprehend it. It seems highly condensed. A whole book, even a volume could surely have been written to explain what really happened here, instead of just one chapter.

And yet the Bible is that volume – unfolding for us in book after book, chapter after chapter, verse after verse, the eternal import of the events that are here so briefly conveyed.

Posted on

Two trees (Genesis 2)

Two trees in the center of the garden. Very similar in appearance. The fruit may have been similar as well. But one was off limits. What was God up to? After all, He didn’t have to create that tree in the first place.

Adam had been free to give names to all the animals. And the names didn’t matter. “If you want to name this one, Dog, God said, “then Dog it shall be.” Now, all of a sudden, choices had consequences. Unlike the names given to the animals, this choice really mattered to God.