January 3 – Genesis 8 – 11

Today’s reading comes from Genesis 8 – 11. Before reading I invite you to pray and asked God to speak to you as you read his word.

Today’s reading ends the first eleven chapters of Genesis. These eleven chapters are often the most highly debated chapters of the entire Bible. The reason is they tell the creation story. They tell what to many is a fanciful story that could not be true. To many they offer no scientific explanation for the world we see and experience. This is the view that those who doubt the Bible or who interpret it liberally hold.

These chapters tell of creation, long lives, a great flood, and God scrambling languages. In my mind it gives a solid explanation for the world we live in and why it exists as it does. Think about it, an explanation of how this world and all that inhabit it exists because of the creation story. An explanation is given for the death, disease, and destruction we see in our world today … sin. An explanation for the great multitude of fossils we find in the earth can be found in Noah’s flood. I am reminded of what Ken Ham, founder of Answer’s In Genesis and the Creation Museum says about Noah’s Flood … “If Noah’s flood were true you would expect to find millions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth, and what do we actually see in the fossil record? Millions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth!” In these eleven chapters we even find an explanation for the multitude of languages spoken on the earth.

Does it take faith to believe these eleven chapters of Genesis are true? Absolutely! But I would argue it takes just as much faith to believe they are not true and that some other force or course of action took place to arrive at where we are today. So where do you want to place your faith? In a loving God who offers salvation through his son Jesus Christ? In a loving God who does not forget you as he did not forget Noah and his family on the Ark (Genesis 8:1)? Or through random actions that offer no explanation to the meaning of life, why we exist, and what we exist for? I will take the explanation that gives life meaning and purpose.