Key Players:  Noah and His Descendants; God

Read the Story Here: Genesis 8, 9:1-17, 11:1-8

Freedom!  I can imagine the relief Noah and his family felt as they walked down the exit ramp of the Ark after spending some 370 days on the water.  When you breathe the fresh air of spring, just think of how good it was to have fresh air after spending a year on a boat with so many animals and seven other people. The first thing Noah and his family did upon leaving the ark was to build an altar and worship God for His provision and for sparing their lives.  God loves a thankful heart, and His response to Noah is to promise He would never flood the entire earth again with water.  As a symbol of this promise, He set a rainbow in the sky as confirmation (Genesis 9:12-17).   

Keep in mind that Noah and his family were the only people on earth who were saved from the flood.  God gave them grace and showed them mercy because they were they only ones who followed and obeyed God before the flood.  Although they were followers of God, they were still sin cursed people who needed a Savior.  They were good by human standards but not so much by God’s standards.  God’s Words tells us there is no one who is good in themselves when compared to God’s righteousness (Romans 3:10-12).  We’re all cursed by the sin nature we carry as descendants of Adam, and we all need a Savior to rescue us from our sins. Although Noah’s family came through the flood, we soon see that sin nature revealed in a big way.

After the sacrifice, God told Noah’s family to disperse and replenish the earth.  So, in chapters 9-11 of Genesis, Noah’s descendants multiply into a great people, yet they have not dispersed as God told them to do.  In Genesis chapter 11, the sin nature, still alive in human hearts, shows itself in man’s attempt to “make a name for [themselves]” (Genesis 11:4).  Remember, God has told them to spread across the whole earth (Genesis 9:1), yet they were now attempting to build a great city and a tower that reaches to the skies—all to make a great name for themselves apart from God.  God’s remedy for this was to “confuse their languages” (Genesis 11:7) so they could no longer communicate and work together forcing them to disperse and cover the whole earth as God had instructed them to do (Read the story here in Genesis 11). 

Just as it is in our lives many times, their work was productive, and their plans were effective, but their motives were wrong.  They wanted to reach immortality, but they attempted to do so in their own abilities.  These people remind us of many people today who are attempting to work their way to heaven by doing good deeds and working hard to be righteous in their own good actions. Their plans to be good may help them be better people, and their methods of living righteous lives may help them feel better about themselves, but ultimately, they cannot live up to God’s standard of righteousness in their own strength (See Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:4-7).

After God stops the building of the Tower of Babel, the people finally spread out and multiply, just as God told them to do in the first place.  This dispersion fills the earth, fulfills God’s plan, and leads us into the rest of the Old Testament—the account of God’s chosen people of Israel.     

Key Players:  Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, sinful mankind, Noah, and God

Read the Story Here:  Genesis Chapters 4-11

We have sinned, now what?  Can you see Adam and Eve now as they leave the Garden of Eden God created as their home (Genesis 3:23-24)?  How sad that the first humans failed to trust God and failed to obey Him.  Sadly, our sin always affects others.  In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve sinned and brought about the curse of sin on all of creation, but their actions were spread to their children and all future generations.  Even today, we sin because we inherited the nature to sin from Adam. (see the previous blog post for more on Adam and Eve's fall into sin).

Genesis Chapters 4-11 hold the account of how quickly mankind fell from “calling upon the name of the Lord” (Genesis 4:26) to running away from God.  Adam and Eve’s first born son, Cain becomes the world’s first murderer when out of jealousy he kills his younger brother Abel (Genesis 4:1-16).  And as if that’s not bad enough, in Genesis 6:5 God’s Word states that mankind had come to the point that their every thought and intention was to do evil continually.  What was a holy God to do when his prize creation, made in His own image has turned their backs on Him?  How could these people that He loved and created only desire to sin and cause a flood of grief and suffering?  Enter a man named Noah...

It’s hard to find a person in our culture who does not know something about this man Noah who is found in
Genesis chapters 6-7.  As all of mankind rebels against God, Noah is the one man who has chosen to walk with God (Genesis 6:9).  God looks at the earth He created, sees the corruption in which sinful man has chosen to live, and His righteousness demands action.  God basically tells Noah, “I will destroy this earth with a flood of water and I will save you, your wife, and your three sons with their wives (see Genesis 6:11-22).”

Noah is the only one who believes God, and under God’s instruction he builds an ark for his family and the animals God would send into the ark. As he built the ark (a picture of God's salvation and grace), onlookers mock him and refuse to listen to his warnings about coming destruction.  All human and animal life outside the ark is destroyed by the flood, yet Noah and his family are safe inside.  For 150 days, water covers the face of the earth (Genesis 7:24).  The flood is later referred to in the New Testament in comparison to the coming of Christ.  Matthew 24:37-39 says, "When the Son of Man [Jesus] returns, it will be like it was in Noah's day.  In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat.  People didn't realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away.  That is the way it will be when the Son of Man [Jesus] comes (NLT)."  

What a sobering thought that these people who had been warned by Noah that a flood was coming, these people who saw Noah and his sons building this enormous boat day after day, would choose to ignore all the signs and continue to hold parties and banquets as if nothing was wrong.  I Peter 3:20 even says that God was patient during the time when the ark was being prepared, but only a few (8, to be exact) would listen and obey God.  Let this sink in today, and let's resolve not to be among the masses that will ignore the impending return of Christ, but among those who are ready to listen and obey.  If God is speaking to your heart about salvation or another spiritual issue, please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.

Key Players: 

• The Trinity:  God the Father, Jesus as Creator (John 1:3; Colossians 1:6; Hebrews 1:2), and the Holy Spirit
• Adam & Eve

Read the story here:  Genesis 1-2

GENESIS (means “beginning”)

Everything has to have a beginning, so we will really begin our study in the beginning of the Bible.  I just said that everything has a beginning, yet God is the exception to this rule and does not have a beginning—because He is God.  The Bible opens with an introduction to the eternal God who has always been and always will be.  He was not created by anyone, and He created everything from nothing.

The book of Genesis begins with God speaking everything into existence.  With little effort, God created everything over the span of six days, which I believe to be literal 24-hour days. He made the galaxies that make up all of outer space, the earth we live on, and all the plants and animals on this earth.  God then created mankind—His masterpiece—whom He formed into His own likeness with His own hands, and He breathed His breath of life into man (Gen. 2:7).

Mankind is set apart from the rest of creation by the fact that we are created in God’s image.  Like God, we have emotions, intellect, and creativity.  We’re made from dirt (Psalm 103:14) so our value is not found in our physical components that make up our bodies, but in the fact that we’re made in God’s image with an eternal soul. In Job 33:4, Job says, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”  You and I are special in God’s eyes because He made us in His image and desires to be in a personal relationship with each of us.

​These two chapters cover one week in time, but they are foundational in our understanding of who God is, where we come from, and who we are in God’s eyes.  For six days God simply spoke everything we see and so much more into existence. What God made in that week was perfect and in His words, “very good.”  The word “created” used in Gen.1:1 means “made without pre-existing material.”  God literally created everything out of nothing. This fact alone should leave us in awe of God’s amazing power and creativity!

​The Old Testament centers itself around the Old Covenant of works or the law made between God and mankind, which was given through God’s servant Moses (read the story of Moses receiving the Law here in Exodus 24). The word “testament” is actually interchangeable with the word “covenant.”  A covenant is an agreement between two parties which is based on faith and a blood sacrifice.  A covenant is a vow, and is stronger than a contract—for example, in the old testament, God’s law required the blood sacrifice of animals to pay for sins, or the breaking of God’s law.  These animal sacrifices, however, were insufficient and had to be offered over and over again, as a reminder of the sins of the people, according to Hebrews 10:1-4.  So, what is the purpose of this “Old Covenant?”  The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 3:24 that this Old Covenant was like a school teacher or guardian  that kept his students in line and taught them.  God uses this Old Covenant of rules and laws to show us that we cannot live up to God’s righteousness in our own power.  Over and over the people of the Old Testament failed to live up to God’s laws and failed to keep His commandments, and so proved that sinful man could never by his  works  reach God’s righteousness. So then, if mankind can’t keep the law, what is the hope to ever be right in God’s eyes?

​The answer is the New Testament which centers around a New Covenant. This “New Covenant”—we call it grace—is unconditional in that God says, "I will forgive you and I will see you as righteous even though you cannot keep My law (See Ephesians 2:8-9).”  How can this be possible?  Because the New Covenant comes through the sacrificial death of JESUS, the only one who ever lived that could and did keep all of the laws of God.  He fulfilled the Law (Matthew 5:17), and died once for all as the final blood sacrifice--the Lamb of God  (Hebrews 10:10). Jesus' fulfillment of the Law made the Old Testament obsolete, and replaced it with the new covenant of grace (Hebrews 8:13).  He lived as a man but without sin, and through His sinless life, his death, and his resurrection from the dead, we can enter into this New Covenant relationship with God. We can be covered by the righteousness of Jesus and we can be seen as righteous before God even though we fail to keep God’s laws (2 Corinthians 5:21).  That’s called grace!

In the Bible, the one message that everything in God’s Word points toward is JESUS—His life, death, and resurrection from the dead.  Although the majority of the Old Testament’s focus is on God’s chosen people of Israel, and the New Testament’s focus is mainly on the Church which is made up of Christians, the one Person it’s all about is Jesus.

To break the Bible down into even more manageable portions, the Old and New Testaments are recorded for us in several different sections.   Many people become confused by thinking the Bible is written in chronological order when it is not.  So, to read this book one needs to approach it differently than say a novel or a book on history.

The Old Testament is made up of different types of books— books of law, history, poetry, and prophecy. For example, the whole book of Psalms is a record of songs of worship and praise to God. 

The first four books, “the gospels” of the New Testament are made up of a record of the life of Christ on earth. There are many letters written to various churches (and even some letters written to individuals) and those books are called “epistles.”  The New Testament is a record of life after the coming of the Savior and a guide to righteousness for all who will follow the Savior.
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The Old Testament looks forward to the coming of the Savior (Messiah), Jesus Christ through God’s Chosen People, the people of Israel (also referred to as Israelites, Jews, or Hebrews throughout Scripture).  While the New Testament is about Christ coming to make a way for all mankind to be restored to a place of fellowship with God. Salvation is no longer just for God’s Chosen people, but to Gentiles (non-Jewish) people as well. The main character of the New Testament is. of course, JESUS.​

What is the Bible?  I believe that’s a legitimate question every person needs to ask themselves.  What is this book we call the Bible, and why should I care about it, and why should I read it, and why should I study and learn it, and why should I obey it and live according to its teachings?
Wow!  Now that’s a lot of “whys” isn’t it?

Let’s begin with looking at what the Bible is.  The Bible is a collection of 66 documents that have been preserved over thousands of years.  As Christians we hold to the belief these 66 documents were inspired by God; meaning they were given to man to write down as the very words of God for mankind. 2 Timothy 3:16 says it like this,“All Scripture is breathed out by God.” The Bible is a collection of God’s Words for us to base our very existence on.

Now, to pick up a Bible and say,“I’m going to read this book” is a huge undertaking for most people, so let me attempt to break this task down a little and give us hope that we can all read and understand and grow from knowing God’s Words.

The Bible is recorded in 66 books all broken down by chapters and verses.  These chapters and verses were not in the original documents but have been added to make referring to any portion of Scripture easier.  These 66 books are broken down into two large sections called the Old Testament, with 39, books and the New Testament, with 27 books.  The Old Testament begins with the creation of the universe and ends 400 years before the birth of Christ, while the New Testament begins with the birth of Christ and ends with God telling us about the future and eternity.​

With the New Year always comes a desire to do something new with our lives...to make a change.  Many times, for the Christian, this New Year's Resolution involves Bible reading or study.  Lots of times, well-meaning people who aren't used to reading the Bible on a regular basis will take on the goal of adopting a Bible reading plan to read through the Bible, only to get discouraged after several weeks and quit completely.  It's easy to just see the Bible as a large, complex book and become intimidated by the thought of studying it, learning from it, and letting it change our lives.

​Several of our church members have requested a "Bible Basics" course to help them understand a basic overview of the books of the Bible and their themes, along with some suggested readings to help encourage them in their Bible study.  I thought that this blog would be a good way of making this information available, and hopefully providing people with some common sense knowledge of the Bible.  I would encourage you to share this information with anyone who would find it helpful, and I would also hope that you would feel free to comment, have discussions and ask any questions you have, either by commenting here or private messaging or emailing me.

​I hope your New Year brings new life to your relationship with Christ and gives you a new hunger for His Word.  I would pray that the Bible would no longer be a big, intimidating book to you, but rather the living Word of our Father, infusing life and changing you from the inside out.