-
Lesson OneThe God of the Old Testament: Problem, Approach, and Context3 Activities1 Assessment
-
Lesson TwoJoshua: Narrative and Legal Context3 Activities1 Assessment
-
Lesson ThreeJoshua and Jericho, Part I3 Activities1 Assessment
-
Lesson FourJoshua and Jericho, Part II3 Activities1 Assessment
-
Lesson FiveJoshua and Jericho, Part III3 Activities1 Assessment
-
Course Wrap-UpCourse Completion1 Activity1 Assessment
Participants 117
Discussion Questions
-
Explain, in your own words, what the story of the flood in Genesis reveals about God’s nature.
-
God saved the righteous from the evil. He protected Noah and preserved his family.
-
In God’s love He created humanity and put us over all of creation to tend for it. But since the fall of man to sin, man lost his way. Greed, violence, and all sorts of corruption entered into him. He placed himself and other things above God and did as he pleased. We became a stench in the nostrils of God and God decided to destroy the humanity bent on evil, but in His mercy God sought out a man (Noah) and his family who He saw as righteous to save from destruction. Through Noah, God gave humanity a second chance to be the people He created us to be. But God knew our hearts were inclined toward evil. He placed a rainbow in the sky as His pledge to never again destroy all humanity and all creation through a flood. But instead began His Plan to prepare a way of salvation to save us from eternal damnation. God does punish evil, but God also provides us a way of redemption.
-
Although the flood suggests universal destruction, the motive of God was actually preservation. Humanity had become so wicked that they were always thinking of doing evil all the time (Gen 6:5). The earth was full of violence (Gen 6:11,13). Already Gen 4 records how Cain and Lamech had been murderous and vengeful men. At the rate that it was going, one can imagine that men would continue to destroy themselves (and perhaps all life) if God had not intervened. At least the innocent would have been wiped out first by the wicked, and what a wicked world it would have become.
From this perspective, God’s flood was not only an execution of justice, but a plan of love to preserve an innocent man Noah and his descendants.
#Genocide -
God is love. He has been tolerating their behavior, but He saw that every inclination of their hearts were evil and that grieves him. Therefore he has to judge that generation but saved Noah and his family, because Noah is a righteous man. God is just and he will not punish the righteous with the wicked. God instructed Noah to build an Ark and brings a pair of every animals into the Ark together with his family to preserve the godly. Though on the surface God may look cruel to kill the whole earth of people with flood but we must remember that these people were wicked and they are also destroying themselves with their wickedness. God have to protect Noah from these people because Noah is righteous in God’s sight.
-
The story of the flood in Genesis reveals that God is a God of mercy by preserving the most righteous man and his family so as to continue the human race from the human race who’s heart was full of violence and murder that was leading to distruction.
