Genesis 9:18-11:9…
On either side of chapter 10 are two really interesting stories. The first one is seriously whacky. So, Noah gets drunk off of his own wine. Now, it doesn’t say so explicitly, but he must have had considerably more than the legal limit (not that there was a legal limit back then, but you know what I mean). You see, I’ve been out of an evening and had one or two glasses of wine but I’ve still been perfectly capable of returning home, brushing my teeth, folding the day’s garments and getting into my pyjamas. Noah, on the other hand – this guy who only a chapter or two ago was considered to be the only man of faith left on planet earth – has had so much of the stuff that he falls asleep naked in his tent. Now, I like to think that a combination of the heat of that part of the world and the intoxicating liquid meant that when his bedtime came he was just too knackered to get any further than undressing before falling asleep. The alternative is just a bit too disturbing: that Noah liked a glass or two in the buff. Let’s not go there.
So, anyway, here’s Noah snoozing in his birthday suit and Ham (and he might have had a glass or two when he gave him that name!) wanders in seemingly innocently and see’s bits of his dad that no child should ever have to see. But here’s the thing… Ham’s the one that gets in all the trouble. What on earth? Noah’s the one that got blazing drunk and decided to go to sleep in his tent with nothing on. And by my calculations Noah was a bit over 600 yeas old. Ham should have been sent for counselling let alone bound to be his brothers’ servant. Goodness me. Surely that’s the main reason Shem and Japheth walk in backwards to put a cover over their dad: Noah was shrivelled up like a prune! Who wouldn’t be at his age?
To tell you the truth, I don’t really know exactly what’s going on in this story. All I know is that it makes me laugh. And I guess, then, it’s alright to giggle at parts of the Bible as God’s obviously deemed it OK for this, frankly ridiculous, story to be part of his word! (If you want to know more, you probably want to ask someone like Jamie Grant or Hector Morrison.)
The Tower of Babel incident, on the other hand, isn’t funny in any way, shape or form. Humans just never seem to learn, even after all the scrapes their sinfulness has got them into. They opt to build this big city with a tower as high as the heavens in the middle. And God comes to check it out and is horrified. And he makes this statement: ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.’ And by that, I don’t think God’s scared that human beings could be equal with him or that he somehow doesn’t want to see us succeed and do amazing things. I think, out of concern for his people, he thinks they’re getting so full of themselves and wandering away from him that no sin, however horrid and vile, would be too far for them to go now. If they could think themselves up a tower as high as the heavens – as arrogant and offensive to God as that was – no sin would be impossible for them.
And so, in many ways, it’s for their own protection that God confuses their languages because too many humans, planning and conspiring away together, is a recipe for disaster in a serious way. So God makes sure that can’t happen and makes them need to rely and trust in him again. After all, that’s what he created us to do.
Matthew 4:23-5:20…
At the start of chapter 5 Jesus sits down on a mountainside to teach the vast crowds that were following him (because of everything that he’d been up to in 4:23-25). Funnily enough we call the next few chapters the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (he was on a mountainside, get it?). Anyway, the Sermon on the Mount speaks for itself, it lays down all of Jesus’ basic teaching.
I had a friend in the USA who went to a youth ministry conference. The guy doing the evening sermon was introduced and the conference were told he’d been asked to preach the best sermon he possibly could. So, everyone was excited and expecting something great. The guy made his way on to the stage, opened his Bible at Matthew 5 and started to read: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.’ He continued to read up till the end of chapter 7. Then he shut his Bible and walked off the stage. Some people got it. The best sermon the guy could preach was simply to repeat the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount – the best sermon ever. And that all I can really do… encourage you to read it and take it all in.
A couple of things though. We wondered what kind of King Jesus was going to be when we read of his childhood. Here, in the ‘Beatitudes’ (as 5:3-10 are known) we start wondering what sort of people his kingdom is for. Not the rich and the posh and the people that have it all together but the poor in spirit, the mourning, the persecuted and so the list goes on. Sounds like the sort of kingdom anyone – absolutely anyone – can be a part of if you ask me,
And the second thing is that when Jesus says that he is the fulfilment of the law and the prophets (5:17) he means that everything in the Old Testament points at him. In other words, Jesus is who the Bible is all about – from the first page to the last. So, as you read the passages from the Old Testament in the year ahead, be asking yourself how it points to Jesus. It’s not always easy to see but if you ask God to reveal it to you I think you’ll be amazed.
Psalm 4:1-8…
Great words. As Sunday draws to a close and the new week begins let’s have confidence in God just like the psalmist: ‘I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety’ (v.8).
On either side of chapter 10 are two really interesting stories. The first one is seriously whacky. So, Noah gets drunk off of his own wine. Now, it doesn’t say so explicitly, but he must have had considerably more than the legal limit (not that there was a legal limit back then, but you know what I mean). You see, I’ve been out of an evening and had one or two glasses of wine but I’ve still been perfectly capable of returning home, brushing my teeth, folding the day’s garments and getting into my pyjamas. Noah, on the other hand – this guy who only a chapter or two ago was considered to be the only man of faith left on planet earth – has had so much of the stuff that he falls asleep naked in his tent. Now, I like to think that a combination of the heat of that part of the world and the intoxicating liquid meant that when his bedtime came he was just too knackered to get any further than undressing before falling asleep. The alternative is just a bit too disturbing: that Noah liked a glass or two in the buff. Let’s not go there.
So, anyway, here’s Noah snoozing in his birthday suit and Ham (and he might have had a glass or two when he gave him that name!) wanders in seemingly innocently and see’s bits of his dad that no child should ever have to see. But here’s the thing… Ham’s the one that gets in all the trouble. What on earth? Noah’s the one that got blazing drunk and decided to go to sleep in his tent with nothing on. And by my calculations Noah was a bit over 600 yeas old. Ham should have been sent for counselling let alone bound to be his brothers’ servant. Goodness me. Surely that’s the main reason Shem and Japheth walk in backwards to put a cover over their dad: Noah was shrivelled up like a prune! Who wouldn’t be at his age?
To tell you the truth, I don’t really know exactly what’s going on in this story. All I know is that it makes me laugh. And I guess, then, it’s alright to giggle at parts of the Bible as God’s obviously deemed it OK for this, frankly ridiculous, story to be part of his word! (If you want to know more, you probably want to ask someone like Jamie Grant or Hector Morrison.)
The Tower of Babel incident, on the other hand, isn’t funny in any way, shape or form. Humans just never seem to learn, even after all the scrapes their sinfulness has got them into. They opt to build this big city with a tower as high as the heavens in the middle. And God comes to check it out and is horrified. And he makes this statement: ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.’ And by that, I don’t think God’s scared that human beings could be equal with him or that he somehow doesn’t want to see us succeed and do amazing things. I think, out of concern for his people, he thinks they’re getting so full of themselves and wandering away from him that no sin, however horrid and vile, would be too far for them to go now. If they could think themselves up a tower as high as the heavens – as arrogant and offensive to God as that was – no sin would be impossible for them.
And so, in many ways, it’s for their own protection that God confuses their languages because too many humans, planning and conspiring away together, is a recipe for disaster in a serious way. So God makes sure that can’t happen and makes them need to rely and trust in him again. After all, that’s what he created us to do.
Matthew 4:23-5:20…
At the start of chapter 5 Jesus sits down on a mountainside to teach the vast crowds that were following him (because of everything that he’d been up to in 4:23-25). Funnily enough we call the next few chapters the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (he was on a mountainside, get it?). Anyway, the Sermon on the Mount speaks for itself, it lays down all of Jesus’ basic teaching.
I had a friend in the USA who went to a youth ministry conference. The guy doing the evening sermon was introduced and the conference were told he’d been asked to preach the best sermon he possibly could. So, everyone was excited and expecting something great. The guy made his way on to the stage, opened his Bible at Matthew 5 and started to read: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.’ He continued to read up till the end of chapter 7. Then he shut his Bible and walked off the stage. Some people got it. The best sermon the guy could preach was simply to repeat the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount – the best sermon ever. And that all I can really do… encourage you to read it and take it all in.
A couple of things though. We wondered what kind of King Jesus was going to be when we read of his childhood. Here, in the ‘Beatitudes’ (as 5:3-10 are known) we start wondering what sort of people his kingdom is for. Not the rich and the posh and the people that have it all together but the poor in spirit, the mourning, the persecuted and so the list goes on. Sounds like the sort of kingdom anyone – absolutely anyone – can be a part of if you ask me,
And the second thing is that when Jesus says that he is the fulfilment of the law and the prophets (5:17) he means that everything in the Old Testament points at him. In other words, Jesus is who the Bible is all about – from the first page to the last. So, as you read the passages from the Old Testament in the year ahead, be asking yourself how it points to Jesus. It’s not always easy to see but if you ask God to reveal it to you I think you’ll be amazed.
Psalm 4:1-8…
Great words. As Sunday draws to a close and the new week begins let’s have confidence in God just like the psalmist: ‘I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety’ (v.8).
No comments:
Post a Comment