Links for today’s readings:
Read: Genesis 7 Listen: (3:18), Read: John 7 Listen: (5:53)
Scripture Focus: Genesis 7.21-23
21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
Reflection: When the World Goes Wrong
By John Tillman
Why does the world go wrong? Because humans go wrong.
Someone once asked C.S. Lewis, “Why did God make a creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong?” Lewis responded to the question in Mere Christianity: “The better stuff a creature is made of—the cleverer and stronger and freer it is—then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong. A cow cannot be very good or very bad; a dog can be both better and worse; a child better and worse still; an ordinary man, still more so; a man of genius, still more so…”
Humanity is potentially good, not basically good. Abilities that make possible great good, make possible great wrongs. Made a little lower than angels, humans can delve nearly demon-deep in evil.
When we are surprised by the world going wrong, we have forgotten what the world, and humans, are like. We underestimate our wickedness and overestimate our righteousness.
One reason the flood seems horrific is our assumption that Noah’s contemporaries were, like us, “basically good.” Scripture says the pre-flood world was uniquely evil and grew that way by degrees. The flood was not a snap judgment on an average day, condemning average people. Generation after generation grew progressively worse. Every thought and action was evil. Every street ran with blood. Every sky echoed victims’ cries. When victims cry out and human justice fails, God will act both to save and to punish.
Earth’s evil before the flood and now demonstrates the greatness of humanity going greatly wrong and our need for salvation and judgment. Those killed by the flood were not “basically good” but neither was Noah and neither are we. God has forsworn another flood of water, but there are other judgments. As for salvation, there is only one.
If the state of our souls was basically good, Jesus wouldn’t have had to die. Those saved by the Ark or the cross are saved by grace. The Ark’s salvation was limited to Noah’s construction ability, but Jesus worked salvation on the cross.
In a sin-flooded world, we need not build an Ark, but we must take up the cross. Unlike Noah’s Ark, there is room at the cross for all who will join us. When the world goes wrong, take up and share the cross.
Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Out of Zion, perfect in its beauty, God reveals himself in glory. — Psalm 50.2
– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.
Read more: Two Lamechs
The literal sons of Cain’s Lamech died in the flood…his ideological descendants abound…those who multiply and escalate violence
Read The Bible With Us
Don’t let culture swamp your faith. Drop anchor in our sustainably-paced Bible reading plan and cultivate faith that thrives.
