Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 6 verses 5 through 8:
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ 8But Noah found favour in the sight of the Lord.
This is really a horrifying story if you think about it. Even more horrifying is the fact that so many children’s Sunday School rooms are decorated with scenes from the Noah’s Ark. They are all scenes from above the water.
If we are to hold onto this story we have to discover new ways to read it. Actually, we have to rediscover very old ways of reading it.
St. Augustine, before he was a saint, was so disturbed by this other similar stories in the Bible that he refused to convert to Christianity. It was St. Ambrose who taught him that when incongruent with what we know of God’s love these stories must be read allegorically.
It was actually a Biblical way read. Read 1 Peter 3:18-22 and you’ll see that a New Testament writer actually reads this story allegorically — interpreting it as a prefigurement of Baptism.
One of the greatest stumbling blocks to our faith, and most serious psychological dissonance producing aspects for Christians are these stories which on surface read contrary to what we know and believe about God.
We need to give ourselves permission to ourselves to read allegorically. We need to give permission to others to find the hidden symbolic also.
The meaning of the flood story is not the surface reading! We have to look deeper into the hidden meaning of the story.
This story, and many others.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas?
No comments:
Post a Comment