This week, I began seminary classes at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. In my Old Testament class, I was challenged to read blocks of Scripture as a unified whole. We will have an assignment every class period to have written a reflection paper on the selected text. I thought it might be a good idea to share my reflections of these passages on this blog. As I learn and grow in the Scriptures, I want to share that with you. Hopefully, this will also mean that I will post on this blog more regularly, at least during class terms.
I think by understanding the formation of this assignment, you will gain a better understanding of what is going on in each of these posts. There are three parts to the assignment. The first part is to write a well-written, graduate level response to the passage. The second part is to rewrite it so that a child could understand it. The final part is to answer how this applies to me individually.
This week we began at the beginning. That makes sense, right? Genesis chapters 1-11.
Reading Genesis 1-11 as a unified whole, one finds a narrative stretching from the creation of all things to the rise of Abram. We know that with Abram, God would create a special covenant that would eventually lead to the birth of Jesus Christ. Within this overall narrative, there are two main themes that are apparent to the reader.
The first theme is that of judgment. God created all things and it was good, but by man’s disobedience, sin entered the world. God cast His holy judgment on Adam and Eve by casting them out of Paradise. When Cain murdered his brother, God’s judgment caused Cain to be an outcast. As mankind’s sin spiraled out of control, the wrath of God’s judgment was poured out on the people in Noah’s lifetime. Even following the flood, man’s sin continued to build, this time literally. Their sin led them to build a tower to show how great they were. Yet God’s holiness caused Him to judge the sins of the people and led to the confusion of language. God’s judgment against sin is evident.
Yet even in His judgment, one can also see God’s grace. God continued to provide for Adam and Eve after casting them from the garden. He protected Cain after he murdered his brother. Even amid horrible destruction and mass death, God provided redemptive hope for mankind through Noah and his family. Following the judgment on the people in the tower of Babel, we see Abram coming. Through Abram’s family, the Savior will come to provide redemption for all people. God brings judgment against sin, but He also provides hope and salvation from His judgment.
Our God is a special being. He has our best interests in mind. He doesn’t like when people go against what He tells them because He knows it will hurt them or people around them. When we do go against God, He cannot stand by and watch. He must act. When Adam and Eve sinned, God kicked them out of the garden. When Cain killed His brother, God kicked him out of the land. When all the people were bad, He killed all of them in a flood. When the new people built a tower, God made it so they could not talk to one another. But even though God doesn’t like sin and punishes the people who do things God doesn’t like, He also loves people. He always gives hope in the hopeless situations. He took care of Adam and Eve after they had to leave the garden. He took care of Cain. He took care of Noah and His family. He even took care of you. At the end we read about Abram. God makes a promise to Abram that hope would come from Abram’s family. Did you know that Jesus came from Abram’s family? Abram was Jesus’s many times great-grandfather. Jesus gives us hope.
It is all too easy to look at the condition of the world around us and see all the evil. Yet God has always provided hope and redemption to His people. Do I live as a person living in despair? Or do I live as a person with the hope of heaven in my life?
Joel McReynolds 
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