I love to learn new things and with the Christian faith there is always more to learn. However, with learning new things you have to be careful. I have learnt, as much as possible, to test everything. This is imperative when the teaching comes from a new source, but also with teaching from trusted sources.
The other day I was listening on-line to a sermon about Noah. The preacher stated that we had been led astray by teaching on Noah. He said we’re told in our Sunday Schools and Churches the following story of Noah...
God had created man who had sinned and was cast out of the garden of Eden. Man was left to his own devises and became more and more wicked. This was of course apart from Noah who was the only righteous man. God decided to wipe man from the earth but to save Noah as he was the only righteous man to be found along with his wife, children and their wives.
He continued to say that we therefore see a story about the wrath of God punishing man and God’s justice in saving the one righteous man. He said that he believes that our misreading of the story helps us to massively miss the point. That the story of Noah is a story of God’s grace. This is because, he says, the Bible doesn’t say that Noah was a righteous man, but that Noah found favour in God’s eyes and the word for favour used was the word for Grace.
For days I thought this was great. A story that I had always considered to be about God’s anger and might was actually about His incredible saving Grace. I had even started to write something about it. I then decided to check it out before I went further. The first thing I read was “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among people of his time....” So, his theory of the Bible not saying Noah was a righteous man is immediately blown out of the water. It only took a minute, but, as can be seen, was worth the effort.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Hi Nathan, you should contact the preacher and point out the big blunder. I remember being at Greenbelt back in the early 90s and John Smith the Australian biker activist/teacher was ploughing into modern church songs. He quoted a Graham Kendrick song "it was for freedom that Christ has set us free" and described it as rubbish theology. Woops, he obviously hadn't been reading Galatians 5 lately. I'm sure we can all make mistakes though eh ;)
ReplyDeleteRich
Good digging! As a preacher it is good to have people around checking up on what I say. Nobody has accused me of heresy yet but there is always a first time. People in the pews need to be more active in searching the scriptures and not just accepting what they are told. I do when I sit and listen. Nobody has all the answers and nobody has a monopoly on truth. Every one should be digging in and getting to the meat of the Word.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Noah isn't "righteous" in one of the more modern translations, enough said I won't get on my soap box, today, anyway.
Mark I'm really glad to hear that you encourage digging around - i really wish more people would do it and not just sit back and receive a "whatever is put on your plate" account of scripture.
ReplyDeleteIf you know of a modern version where Noah is not described as righteous (or blameless, pure etc.) I'd love to know. Biblegateway has about 20 english versions of the Bible and in all of them Noah is described as Righteous or blameless. I did try to give him the benefit of the doubt!!!