Wrecked-How to Keep Success from Killing You (Intro)

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Wrecked!-How to Keep Success from Killing You & the People You Love

CHPT 1| Success is good, but dangerous

“Success is dangerous.” – Pablo Picasso

Success is good. Success is “winning in life” and we all want to win. We want it so bad that we can taste it. Success is a gift. To call it a gift is not to suggest that it doesn’t take effort, or that it comes easy, but to acknowledge that everything we have “earned” emerged from things we were given: intellect, good looks, personality, athletic strength, a stable family of origin, etc. That said, success requires more than just showing up. Doesn’t it? We work hard, showing up early and staying late. We avoid “losers” like the plague and surround ourselves with other go-getters. It doesn’t matter what field you’re in. Business go-getters watch Buffet and Dalio, church go-getters watch Andy Stanley, Hip Hop go-getters look to the likes of Jay-Z and Kanye. Where doesn’t Kanye look? Kanye looks in the mirror, because, as any fan knows, Kanye doesn’t “take advice from people less successful than me.” Turns out to be great advice! Life is hard and losing sucks! Any second grader can tell you that.

So, why am I spilling all this ink to tell you something every second grader knows? Because it’s what you don’t know about success that can kill you. Success is dangerous. Success can wreck you. You probably don’t believe that. Not really. You probably don’t believe it because none of the books, podcasts and seminars we consume tell us the truth about the dark side of success. Namely, that the raw pursuit of success can leave a trail of broken relationships behind you and the possession of success can leave you feeling empty inside. But we grab for it anyway, because winning is better losing. For example…

Winning in money is better for your marriage than losing in money. Our poets have taught us to associate money with problems. Reflecting on the dark side of money, the Notorious B.I.G sang, “Mo money more problems!” But don’t look to Biggy for relational advice. As it turns out, mo’ money in a marriage tends to result in a longer marriage. A recent study on divorce and median income revealed that families making less than $35,000 were more likely to file for the big “D” than couples with incomes of at least $75,000 a year. Couples may look back with nostalgia on how happy and poor they were in the early years, telling their kids, “We didn’t have a pot to pee in,” but in America, the longer a couple stays poor, the greater their chances of calling it quits.

Winning a fist fight is better than losing one. Clinical psychologist and internet sensation Jordan Petersen’s first rule for life is “STAND UP STRAIGHT WITH YOUR SHOULDERS BACK.” In a chapter largely devoted to exploring the neurochemistry of lobsters (which turned out to be a fascinating read), a single loss from a fight can reduce a once cocky lobster to a skulking shell of a crustacean with little life potential. Youtube’s favorite father figure writes, “Consider serotonin, the chemical that governs posture and escape in the lobster. Low-ranking lobsters produce relatively low levels of serotonin. This is also true of low-ranking human beings (and those low levels decrease more with each defeat)”. This is why every dad or uncle should enroll their kids and nephews in a local Jiu-Jitsu school’s bully-proofing program. Seriously! Every defeat lowers their shot at succeeding in this world.

Unchecked bullying can lower a kid’s serotonin levels and reduce him or her to a skulking shell of a person. Meanwhile, every bully needs to be regulated. Parents that fail to discipline their bullies for abusing their power are raising future wife-beaters and criminals. As a kid I moved around a lot, so every 2-3 years in my life some kid would try to steal my serotonin. My first fist fight took place in 2nd grade. I was riding the bus home and a kid named Jasper sat behind me. He kept reaching over the seat to flick my ear. The first time he did I puffed my chest out to take up more space and glared at him. It was my way of saying, “Don’t touch me again!” I settled back into my seat.

Flick!

He did it again! This time I craned my neck over the seat and said, “If you do that again, we’re going to fight!”

Flick!

The brakes squealed and the bus stopped, extending it’s arm and opening its double-doors to allow Jasper and I to file out. Word about the fight spread, so nearly everyone else on the route got off with us. I can’t remember how long the fight lasted. I only remember going into a clench and rolling around on the ground. After exchanging top and bottom positions a few times, no one willing to yield or able to knock the other out, I thought, “This is stupid!” So I reached down, grabbed Jasper by the balls and started to squeeze and twist. Fight over! Jasper writhed in pain and grabbed his crotch in the fetal position. He was crying. I stood up straight and pushed my shoulders back. Success in your first fist fight installs the kind of confidence that you’re going to need if you want to grab the world by the balls.

So, success is good. It’s not wrong to want it, but too much winning with too little character can kill you. Success is dangerous. It can wreck you. Every book on success should come with a warning label, “WARNING: May be hazardous to your soul!” “Handle with Care!” Perhaps this is why God does not give success to everyone.

Some of what makes success so dangerous is it’s power to seduce. Success is seductive. With the slickest of existential advertising, it promises us things that it cannot ultimately provide: security, status and a justification for our sorry existence. In the 1976 movie Rocky, the night before the big fight with Apollo Creed, our hero lies beside girlfriend Adrian and opens his sweaty heart. For Rocky, the fight isn’t about winning, its about going the distance:

“I just wanna prove somethin’—I ain’t no bum…It don’t matter if I lose…Don’t matter if he opens my head…The only thing I wanna do is go the distance—that’s all. Nobody’s ever gone fifteen rounds with Creed. If I go them fifteen rounds, an’ that bell rings an’ I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know then I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood.”

Having laid the existential ground work, the movie takes us to the fight. As one round blurs into the next, Rocky is pummeled and staggered, but somehow still standing! A fight commentator asks, “How is he still standing?” We all know the answer, having eavesdropped on the night before—standing justified his sorry existence. The final bell rings and the crowd goes wild. It’s a split decision in favor of Creed, but Rocky has won his own victory.

As a kid Rocky taught me two things: 1) Go the distance—don’t ever quit!; and 2) Push ups are good for you! But supposing Rocky got knocked out before the final round? Supposing he could not get up? What then? Well, no “Yo, Adrian, I did it!” (because that famous line comes from the sequel Rocky II). Come to think of it—no Rocky sequels at all! No Clubber Lang and no Ivan Drago, which would have seriously impoverished my teen years! But let’s push a little deeper. Supposing that Rocky was a real person, what then? Failure to go the distance would mean, at least to him, that he really was a “loser”, just another bum from block. Any one who builds their sense of significance and worth on “winning” will die a thousand deaths when they lose. Not if, but when.

Success is good, but once we have it, what then? Those who possess it discover it’s never enough! We reach the top and still feel empty inside, because it cannot deliver what only God can give. Music and business icon Louise Ciccone has made a career pushing boundaries. Her work spans decades. Many talk about her as the best-selling female recording artist in history. You’ve probably guessed that I’m talking about Madonna, but in a revealing moment in Vanity Fair (she’s certainly had plenty of those), the Material Girl revealed all:

“I have an iron will, and all of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy…I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being and then I get to another stage and think I’m mediocre and uninteresting…And that’s always pushing me. Because even though I’ve become Somebody, I still have to prove that I’m Somebody.”

Like Rocky, Madonna’s success is a garish attempt to justify her own sorry existence. It’s never going to be enough though, because success can only promise to make you a Somebody.

Do you see what I mean when I say that success is good, but dangerous?

Success is good, so it’s not wrong to want it, but not everyone can handle it. Perhaps this is why God grants worldly success to so few of His people, “He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are.”

Still want success? Sure you do! I do too! The big question is how to keep it from wrecking us and the people we love.

Still want to win in life? I do! But take care what you wish for, because you do not yet know the lengths God will go to keep it from killing you.

Let me tell you a story about one of the most successful men in the Bible and the hidden hand…

Why did the Prophet of Bethel Lie?

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Question: Why did the old prophet of Bethel lie to the prophet of Judah?  (1 Kings 13)

This question comes by way of Facebook. Why did the old prophet from Bethel deceive the man of God from Judah? This story comes from the book of 1 Kings, which is the original Game of Thrones, but without all the gratuitous smut. 1 & 2 Kings give us the history of the kings of Judah and Israel and show us what happens when a nation that forgets God.

Telling the Story Pt. 4: Win their Hearts

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Thanks for tuning into another episode of Ask Pastor Adam. We’re in a “how-to” series called Telling the Story of Jesus (Without Making it Weird) and today I want to go a little deeper into why developing a relationship matters. Deep relationships are going to cost us numerous cups of coffee, shared meals, sacrificial acts of service, but when we win their hearts, we win their ears.

The Relational Approach-Telling the Story Pt. 3

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Let’s push deeper into telling the story without making it weird. This episode looks at Jesus’ approach and will leave you with a simple, but effective missional challenge. Get yourself on mission and you will never lack for the Spirit’s power and joy.

Way To Make It Weird!-Telling the Story Pt. 2

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This episode looks at three ways that we make the gospel weird (as well as Paul’s strategy for telling the story of Jesus). My hope is that you’ll make the most of your windshield time or commute and get yourself equipped so that everyone, everywhere can hear the story of Jesus. Stay tuned for more!

Telling the Story of Jesus (Without Making it Weird) Pt.1

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One of the last things that Jesus said before taking His seat at the right hand of God was, “As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.” Jesus sent His church into the world to show and tell the story of Jesus, but how do we do that in a culture that thinks it’s wierd (at best) and pushy (at worst) to talk about spiritual things? This is the first of a series of podcasts designed to help you tell people the good news in a way that is authentic and non-gimmicky. If you find this helpful, please pass it on.

Genesis

Genesis series: Was Noah’s Flood Local or Global?

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Was Noah’s Flood Local or Global?

As a kid I loved reading the newspaper. I’d thumb through the soft pages of paper until I found the comics section. Sunday was the best, not because of all the coupons, but because the comics were printed in full color. My favorite comic strip was a single-panel series called The Far Side. The series ended in 1995 when cartoonist Gary Larson retired, but you can still laugh your butt off at a local Barnes and Noble. One of my favorite panels is a picture of Noah, standing at the door of the Ark with a long line of two-by-two animals waiting to get in. Noah yells, “Now listen up! We’re going to do this alphabetically,” and one of the zebra’s let’s the word “Damn!” slip out. Okay, maybe some of us would have preferred that the zebra said “dang,” but it’s still funny!

Larson credited his older brother’s dark sense of humor as a shaping influence, but his uneasy relationship with the Divine surfaces in his many attempts to lampoon God. It’s as if he’s taken the spiritual counsel of Martin Luther, who advised, “The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn” and turned it against God. But jeering at God will not drive Him away, because He is so long suffering. In any event, the God that Larson so often flouts bears little resemblance to the God of the Bible, but I digress.

All joking aside, the real story of the flood is no laughing matter. The story opens with great, heart-rending grief and overwhelming violence (Gen. 6:5-6). Though long suffering and patient, God puts an end to overwhelming sin. He can only stand by and watch injustice and brutality for so long before He says, “This far, and no further!” As C.S. Lewis reminded us, “Finality must come sometime, and it does not require a very robust faith to believe that omniscience knows when” (The Problem of Pain). So, God sent the rain upon the land to destroy the wicked and out of sheer mercy saved a man named Noah and his family. All but eight people were destroyed, no one else survived. That much is clear, but questions about the scope of the flood waters remain: Did the the deluge span the entire globe or was it limited to a smaller area inhabited by humanity? Was Noah’s flood global or local?

Like many secondary issues, the extent of the flood has substance, but it is not a litmus test for being a Christian. We should guard ourselves against a stingy-orthodoxy that automatically assigns a low view of Scripture to one side and a low-brow view of science to the other. If we assume the best of each reader, global proponents want to take science and archeology seriously and local adherents want to take the Bible seriously. True, some localists have given science the seat of honor over the Scriptures, but many globalists (I can’t think of a better word) have failed to appreciate how localized the word earth/land can be in Genesis. As I see it, my task is to lay out the main arguments for both sides and let you make up your own mind.

Biblical Arguments for a Global Flood
Most globalists (that word again!) find it impossible to read the text from a localist point of view. The language, as it is glossed in our English Bibles, exerts a strong pull into the global position. Take a moment and read through the following verses taken from the New American Standard Bible:

  • “…and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made” (7:4);
  • “…the flood waters came upon the earth/was upon the earth” (7:6, 10, 12, 17);
  • “the water prevailed more and more so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens (lit. which were under all the heavens) were covered” (7:19);
  • “All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit life, died” (7:21-22).
  • “The water decreased steadily…the tops of the mountains became visible” (8:5).

See what I mean? The surface-reading sounds so global. Moreover, if the flood was only localized, why didn’t God simply tell Noah to migrate? Even at a slow pace, you could probably hike out of the Mediterranean Basin over the span of 120 years. Abraham and his family migrated; Lot and his daughters walked out of Sodom before the judgment fell. Could it be that there was no place to migrate to because the whole earth was covered with water? One last jab at the localists, why go through the trouble of building a big boat when all Noah needed to do was slip on his big boots and walk away?

Scientific Arguments for a Global Flood
The best evidence for a global flood is the presence of fossils in unexpected places. Marine fossils can be found all over the planet miles above sea level. How did they get there? Dr. Andrew Snelling from Answers in Genesis notes:

Marine fossils are also found high in the Himalayas, the world’s tallest mountain range, reaching up to 29,029 feet (8,848 m) above sea level.3 For example, fossil ammonites (coiled marine cephalopods) are found in limestone beds in the Himalayas of Nepal. All geologists agree that ocean waters must have buried these marine fossils in these limestone beds. So how did these marine limestone beds get high up in the Himalayas?

We must remember that the rock layers in the Himalayas and other mountain ranges around the globe were deposited during the Flood, well before these mountains were formed. In fact, many of these mountain ranges were pushed up by earth movements to their present high elevations at the end of the Flood. This is recorded in Psalm 104:8, where the Flood waters are described as eroding and retreating down valleys as the mountains rose at the end of the Flood.

 

You can read more about the science behind a global flood by visiting the Answers in Genesis website: https://answersingenesis.org/fossils/fossil-record/high-dry-sea-creatures/.

Difficulties with the Global View

Biblical Difficulties with the Global View
The biggest roadblock to the global view is the fact that so much of the earth/land in Genesis is localized. As I argued in the chapter on pre-understanding, we tend to import our mental stock photos of planet earth into the word earth/land. There is good evidence that the word land/earth (eretz) is more local than global. Moreover, the word “earth” tends to be more people-focused than place-focused (6:5, 11-12; 11:1; 18:25). For example, after judgment falls on Cain, he complains that God has treated him unfairly, “Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground” (4:14). This is the exact phrase used in 7:4’s, “I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing I have made” (emphasis mine). Cain is not banished from the planet, but instead from people and occupation. Might we not also read the flood narrative with less of a focus on place and more of a focus on people? Remember, before the flood humanity was more local than global. Within the story of Genesis, people do not spread out until after the flood (10:32; 11:8-9).

What about the migration issue? True, God could have commanded Noah to migrate out of the flood zone, but this argument misses the big-heartedness of God. Peter tells us, in agreement with earlier Jewish sources, that God sent Noah to preach a message of righteousness (2 Pet. 2:4-5). Instead of grabbing his boots, Noah grabbed his megaphone, but the people would not listen! This is why C.S. Lewis wrote, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it” (The Great Divorce). Noah lived his life saying, “Thy will be done” to God. In the end, he and his family was saved. After 120 years of patience, with much sorrow, God let the rest of humanity go their own way.

Scientific Difficulties with the Global View
The scientific problems with a global flood are numerous. For the sake of simplicity, I will simply bullet point a few of them:

  • Short of God working a water miracle, the earth does not have sufficient water volume to blanket the planet. According to Jeff Zweerink of Reasons To Believe, “Although 71 percent of the planet’s surface is covered by oceans, only about 0.1 percent of Earth’s volume is water.” He goes on to do the math with numbers provided by the U.S. Geological Survey and the earth’s radius and concludes that, “A sphere containing all of Earth’s water would be about 860 miles in diameter, approximately the distance between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Topeka, Kansas” (http://reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/tnrtb/2015/09/21/is-a-global-flood-scientifically-possible).
  • In order to flood the entire planet, the oceans would have had to triple in volume in only 150 days and then quickly shrink back to normal. Where would the 630 million cubic miles of water go during the second 150 days? There is no where an ocean can drain to, because the oceans already fill the lowest places on the planet (John H. Walton’s The NIV Application Commentary, p. 322).
  • In Gen. 8:11 we read about a dove that is released and returns with an olive leaf. The dove flew down into a valley to get an olive leaf (which only grows in low elevations) and then flew back up the mountain. How did it manage to fly back up to 17,000 feet to the ark? Doves are not physically equipped to fly at those altitudes (John H. Walton’s The NIV Application Commentary, p. 324).

Biblical Arguments for a Local Flood
Localists argue that a careful reading of the flood demands a localized, but universal deluge. Once again, the flood is universal in that all of humanity is blotted out (save Noah and his family), but since people had not yet spread out (Gen. 10:32), the flood was more local than global. For many localists, it’s not so much that they cannot get their head around the volume of water required to cover the high mountains, but that the word earth/land tends to be used in Genesis in a localized way:

  • In the first chapter of Genesis, land/earth is used as habitable space (i.e. dry ground) and is contrasted with water and sky/expanse (1:9-10)—think dirt, not globe;
  • In the rest of the Pentateuch land normally refers to the Promised Land (Gen. 15:18; Deut. 1:8)—again, not planetary;
  • The boundaries of Eden described in Genesis 2 roughly match the boundaries of the Promised Land (Gen. 2:10-14; 15:18). The focus of Genesis seems to be absorbed with a specific land that God wanted to give His people—think local, not global.

Perhaps the reason the flood story sounds so global its is because it is universal in its scope (all people but Noah and family). Try re-reading the story, but every time you come across the word earth think “land” instead of “planet”. It works, doesn’t it? Beyond this exercise, several passages in Genesis only make sense if you translate the Hebrew word eretz with the word “land”:

  • “The name of the first is the Pishon, it flows around the whole land of Havilah where there is gold” (Gen. 2:11);
  • “Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me…” (Gen. 13:9);
  • “The people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the earth” (Gen. 41:57).

What about the high mountains of 7:19?
“The water prevailed more and more on the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.”

The above verse is the most difficult for the localist to explain. Some of the difficulties disappear when we gloss the Hebrew word eretz with “land,” 7:19 reads, “The water prevailed more and more on the land, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.” The phrase “under all the heavens” may just be a way of talking about all the sky above the land (possibly using phenomenological language).

If the land is more local than global, then the “high mountains” may not be referring to places like the Himalayas. In addition, the Mount Ararat of Genesis may not be the same crag as the 16, 854 ft. behemoth that we know as Mount Ararat. The present day Mount Ararat was called “Masis” in the original language of the Armenians and named after a local king Amasya. In classical antiquity, the mount’s two peaks were called Abos and Nibaros. If Wikipedia is to be trusted, it was not until the 11th-12th centuries that the modern Mount Ararat became associated with the Ararat in Genesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Ararat).

Scientific Arguments for a Local Flood:
Once dismissed as myth, scientists are now beginning to uncover evidence for a massive flood that could be related to the deluge in Genesis. The story starts about 20,000 years ago during the last ice age. Thick layers of ice reached deep into North America and Europe. The conditions for the making of a massive flood were at hand:

…as time went on, the world warmed, the glaciers retreated and meltwater from the European glaciers began to flow north into the North Sea, depriving the Black Sea of its main source of replenishment. The level of the Black Sea began to drop, and most of the area around its northern boundary — the area adjacent to present-day Crimea and the Sea of Azov — became dry land. At this point, the level of the Black Sea was several hundred feet below that of the Mediterranean, and the two were separated by the barrier of the Bosporus, then dry land. This situation, with the world ocean rising while the Black Sea was falling, could not last forever. Eventually, like a bathtub overflowing, the Mediterranean had to pour through into the Black Sea basin….When the Mediterranean began to flow northward, it “popped the plug” and pushed those sediments into a “tongue” of loose sediment on the bottom of what would become the present-day Black Sea (this tongue can still be seen in cores taken from the ocean bottom in that area). As the flow of water increased, it began to cut into the bedrock itself….The incoming water eventually dug a channel more than 300 feet deep as it poured into the Black Sea basin, changing it from a freshwater lake to a saltwater ocean….The salt water poured through the deepening channel, creating a waterfall 200 times the volume of Niagara Falls (anyone who has ever traveled to the base of the falls on the Maid of the Mist will have a sense of the power involved). In a single day enough water came through the channel to cover Manhattan to a depth at least two times the height of the World Trade Center, and the roar of the cascading water would have been audible at least 100 miles away. Anyone living in the fertile farmlands on the northern rim of the sea would have had the harrowing experience of seeing the boundary of the ocean move inland at the rate of a mile a day.

Read More: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/evidence-for-a-flood-102813115/#5lZBpYeFom1dPKrD.99.

This flood may or may not be related to the deluge in Genesis. I have included because it helps us better understand the kinds of forces at God’s disposal during Noah’s flood. Science is now demonstrating the possibility of what readers of Genesis have believed for centuries.

Does the Localist View Display a Bias Against the Supernatural?
All Christians believe in a God of miracles. A miracle is a “less common kind of God’s activity in which He arouses people’s awe and wonder and break witness to Himself” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 355). If you think about it, both camps demand a belief in the miraculous. The rain doesn’t just happen. God sends it (2:5; 7:4). Even if God used natural things like the shifting of tectonic plates and the emptying of ocean basins, God is the one directing them to fulfill His purposes. The massive door to the ark does not close by human hands, instead God shuts them in (7:16). The waters need a place to run off to, but they don’t just recede, God sends a wind and the water subsides (8:1). Both globalists an localists read the story with a mixture of divine province and miraculous activity.

Putting it all Together:
The flood story points forward to the ultimate rescue that God provides through Jesus Christ. In Christ alone, God is establishing a worshipping community and will bring them to a New Heaven and a New Earth. Through the perfect righteousness of His Son, God brings rescue to every person that calls on His name. The deluge also prepares us for a future time of judgment. This present heavens and earth will be destroyed, not with a torrent of water, but instead with intense fire and heat (2 Pet. 3:5-7). In Noah’s day, God waited 120 years for people to repent, but instead they mocked the message of Noah. In an even greater display of patience, God has put off the day of judgment and destruction, not wishing that any should perish, but for all to come to repentance. May we not mistake the patience of God for tardiness or sloth.

Genesis

Genesis Series: Noah’s Flood-A Story about Judgment and Grace

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Noah’s Flood: A Story about Judgment and Scandalous Grace
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD (Gen. 6:5-8).

Nearly every culture surrounding the ancient Hebrews told their own flood stories. The similarities are interesting: a flood sent by the gods, a guy and his family that find favor and a boat that comes to rest on a mountain. It’s all pretty similar, until you get to the story behind the deluge. In the Bible, God sends the flood because people refuse to turn away from violence and corruption and turn back to God. God sends Noah to point people back to Him, but the people are hard-hearted and refuse (2 Pet. 2:5). So, a heart-broken God sends the rains to scour the earth clean from runaway violence and injustice.

Contrast the Bible’s story with other ANE Flood stories (Ancient Near East). In the Atrahasis Epic, the elder gods force the younger gods to dig out the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, but disliking manual labor, they rebel. Enki, the god of wisdom, suggests that the gods create man as a labor force. At first the gods enjoy their life of leisure, but soon the people become prolific and make too much noise. Enlil, the king of the gods, is so annoyed by the racket that he sends famine and plagues to destroy humanity, but Enki helps the people out. Having failed to thin the herd, the king of the gods sends a worldwide deluge to wipe out all of humanity. Utnapishtim (the “Noah” in this story) and his relatives are saved, but the rest of humanity perishes in the Flood, leaving the gods without farmers to feed them and serve them beer—which they greatly lament (Joshua J. Mark, The Atrahasis Epic: the Great Flood and the Meaning of Suffering https://www.ancient.eu/article/227/the-atrahasis-epic-the-great-flood–the-meaning-of/). When I read this story, I am reminded how much the gods of the ANE were super-sized projections of humanity: fickle, capricious, prone to lashing out in anger and missing their beer! How different the God of the Bible!

Why the Flood?
When we look at the Bible, we see that the reason God brings judgment is because sin has reached critical mass:

Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth (Gen. 6:11-12).

Overwhelming corruption and violence had become the norm, “…all flesh had corrupted their way” (6:11-12). Regardless of your position on the extent of the flood (local or global), the Bible is clear that the judgment was universal. Think about it, there were no survivors except for Noah and his family. If you were to read Genesis 6 side-by-side with Genesis 7, you would see that the punishment, though severe, fits the crime: Emphases mine

“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great (Heb. raba) on the earth…” (6:5)

“The water prevailed and increased greatly (rabab) upon the earth…” (7:18)

“…Those were the mighty men (gibborim) who were of old, men of renown” (6:4)

“The water prevailed (gabar) and increased greatly upon the earth…”” (7:18)

The waters were great because the wickedness was great; the water prevailed because injustice prevailed. The judgment was universal.

In the next post we’ll explore views on the extent of the Flood, but before we do that, let’s try to understand the point of the story. Two timeless truths tend to get lost in the shuffle of our questions about the scope of the flood: 1) A grieving God will judge people for ruining His good creation with sin; and 2) A gracious God provides a way for sinners to be rescued from His judgment. If you forced me to summarize the point of the Flood story so that it fit on a t-shirt, my t-shirt would read: God destroys the wicked and out of sheer grace establishes a worshiping community on a new earth. Let’s push a little deeper into the story.

God’s Grief:
God has a big heart. He’s not only all-powerful and all-wise, but He is all-good. The goodness of God comes through the beauty of creation. Note the constant refrain of “it was good” and “it was very good” in the first chapter of Genesis (1:12, 18, 21, 25, 31). God created a perfect environment for Adam and Eve to flourish in. More than that, He so loved them that He gave them the greatest gift He could give—Himself. Genesis talks about this sacred intimacy with the phrase “walking with God” (3:8; 5:22; 6:9; 17:1; 24:40; 48:15). Adam and Eve enjoyed this intimacy until it was shattered by sin.

This is probably a good time to hit the pause button and ask, “What is sin anyway?” If we get this wrong, we’re likely to think that the God of the Bible is a tantrum throwing bully (like the gods of the ANE). If an all-good, all-wise and all-powerful God judges sin this way, then sin must be pretty serious!

Most people think of sin as “rule-breaking” (like doing 50 mph in a 35 mph zone), but that’s not how the Bible first talks about it. Sin is more about breaking relationships than it is about breaking rules. In Genesis, the first relationship to be broken by sin is the one between God and man. Adam and Eve were made to “walk with God”, but after sinning we find them hiding from the presence of God (Gen. 3:8).

Broken relationships are always a consequence of sin, but that still leaves us without a clear definition of sin. What is sin? I have found it helpful to define sin as rebellion against a good God. I say “good” God, because I’m an American and rebellion sounds heroic to me. Every 4th of July I risk blowing my fingers off to celebrate the rebellion against King George III. I watch every Star Wars movie because I support the Rebel Alliance against the evil Emperor. See what I mean? But what does it say about us that we rebel against a good and kind God?

Rebellion is not without consequences. Death follows sin and sucks the life out of us. Few things are as de-humanizing as sin. Sin exerts a corrupting influence on all good things. Let me illustrate this. Take a moment and circle or identify the sin or sins in the list below:

  • Sex
  • Chocolate
  • Beer
  • Coffee
  • Dancing
  • Bourbon
  • Lingerie
  • Smoking

How many sins did you identify? In my opinion, none of the above are in and of themselves sin. Every single item on the list is good in its proper context. Sex is good inside marriage. God wants married couples to have a lot of it! Chocolate is good (no argument there). Beer, wine and bourbon are good. The Bible actually says that God made wine to make the hearts of men glad (Psalm 104:15). Dancing? True, some of us should avoid doing it in public, but spontaneously doing the robot might make the world a better place. Smoking is probably the only item on the list that I would be tempted to circle, but even here there is no thou shall not command in Scripture. It’s probably better to think of it as foolish.

So why is it that some of us were tempted to circle some of the good things on the list? Many of us may have circled things like beer or sex because we have seen it abused. Alcohol is good, but it has turned many men and women into a violent jerks. What about sex? Sex is God’s wedding gift to a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage, but sex outside of God’s plan ruins marriages and fuels things like the human trafficking industry. Sin de-goods God’s good creation and ruins humanity. This is why I say that few things are as de-humanizing as sin.

In Genesis 6, God does triage on the human heart and finds it hopelessly de-humanized,“…every intent of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Notice that sin is not just outside of us—it’s in us! Russian novelist and Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has his finger on the pulsating throb of the human heart:

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts (The Gulag Archipelago).

Once the glory of the universe, sin had so overwhelmed the human heart and ruined creation that God was grieved. In love He sent Noah to urge people to turn away from sin, but they would not budge (2 Pet. 2:5). It is not that people could not repent, but that they would not. This is comic treason. When the mercies of God are repeatedly scorned, what is left but certain judgment?

God’s Grace:
The whole flood story is built with God’s scandalous grace at the center: “God remembers Noah” (8:1). The God with a broken heart is also a God of grace and mercy. In fact, in the Bible God is repeatedly shown to be “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness” (Exod. 34:6). Judgment is His “strange” work, because He would rather bless people (Isa. 28:21). He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 18:23). Contrast this with another flood story from the ANE. In the Gilgamesh Epic, the “Noah” of the story (i.e. Utnapishtim) and his god mislead the people about the coming Flood. They’re afraid that when they hear about the deluge, they will repent and want on the boat, so when they ask Utnapishtim why he’s building a boat, he contrives a story about a private quest to stay on good terms with his god (Walton, Genesis p. 318).

How different the God of Noah! He not only sends Noah to preach (2 Pet. 2:5), but Noah’s name was like a Broadway sign flashing the word comfort and reminding people that God had promised to send someone to free humanity from the curse. When Noah was born, his Dad said, “This one will comfort us in our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD had cursed” (5:29). Like Jesus, who’s name is basically the same as Joshua, meaning “Yahweh is salvation”, Noah’s name was a sign urging people to find their way back to God.

Why save Buck-naked Noah?
Of all humanity, only Noah “walked with God” (6:9), but this does not mean that he was perfect! Just turn a page or two and you will see him buck-naked and “three sheets to the wind” (9:21). “Three sheets to the wind” is a nautical phrase for unsecured rope and sail snapping wildly in the wind. One sheet to the wind is bad, but three could result in shipwreck. What a vivid way to describe intoxication! But Noah is not just a drunk, he’s a naked drunk! How is it that the Bible could stick a label like “righteous” on a man like that? Grace is a scandalous thing!

It’s important to note that Noah is not earning God’s favor or receiving His grace because he’s a good person. He may have been a “good” person compared to his neighbors, but the full story reveals that he was not without sin. In fact, Noah’s righteousness is a qualified righteousness, “Then the LORD said to Noah, ‘Enter the ark, you and your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this generation” (7:1). I’m not trying to disparage Noah, but one wonders if he would be a stand out in a more godly generation. In the land of the morally-blind, even a man with one good eye can be king.

Putting it all Together:
Let’s get back to the big idea of the flood story: God destroys the wicked and out of sheer grace establishes a worshiping community on a new earth. Noah was a man who took God at His word and walked with Him. He was rightly related to God by faith and demonstrated his faith by doing what God told him to do (6:13-22; 7:5). Like everyone else in Genesis and beyond, he is justified because he believes God (15:6), but like every other flawed hero, he leaves us longing for the Greater Comforter—Jesus Christ. There is one other Gospel-motif that I want to leave you to reflect on. In the story of Noah, one man’s qualified righteousness results in the salvation of others. How much more will the perfect righteousness of Jesus, the gifted-righteousness that comes from God by faith, save us?

Next Time: The Extent of the Flood

Genesis

Genesis Series: A (Mercifully) Short Word about a Big Problem

/in /by

Noah’s Flood: A (Mercifully) Short Word about a Big Problem
The waters first began to churn over the Bahamas as tropical forces combined to produce one of the most devastating tropical storms in recent history. Katrina made landfall as a tropical three hurricane on August 29th, 2005 in Southeast Louisiana. Poorly maintained levees failed and the storm surge punched its way 6-12 miles inland, destroying property and claiming the lives of 1,245 people. Water, so necessary to life and well-being, can sometimes become an obstacle to human flourishing.

Like the destructive churn of Katrina, the first time that “water” is mentioned in the Bible it is an obstacle that must be removed in order for humanity to flourish. The land is covered and uninhabitable, so God gathers the waters into seas and lakes and prepares a good place for people to live in (Gen. 1:2, 10). The land is good. The proud waves, now hemmed in, are good. In fact, everything is “very good” (1:31), but generations later the land is corrupted by sin and a grieving God sends rain upon the earth, unleashing catastrophic judgment in the frothy waters of the Flood:

Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth. The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. The water prevailed more and more upon the earth so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered….all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died….and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark. The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days (Gen. 7:17-24).

A Story Flooded with the Problem of Preunderstanding
I don’t know how long Christians have debated the extent of the Flood. Was it a local flood, perhaps confined to the Mediterranean basin, or was it a global event? Part of the challenge in interpretation lies in the fact that we are separated by thousands of years from the actual event. More than that, we are also separated from the original readers by worldview differences. For instance, the face-value reading suggests, at least to my mind, that the Flood was a planetary event, “The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered” (Gen. 7:19). I read “planetary” into the text because when I see the word earth I think of a globe floating in space. Then, thanks to high school geography, I remember that Mt. Everest is the highest mountain range on the earth and thanks to Google, I also know that Everest reaches 8,848 meters into the heavens. So, when I read, “…all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered,” I imagine the waters punching up into places where the air is too thin to breathe.

So far so good, but do you see how much preunderstanding I have brought with me into the passage? A great deal of my mental images of the Flood are shaped by stuff that the first readers of Genesis would not have had access to, things like:

  • Modern geography
  • The internet and Google
  • Satellite photos of the Blue Planet

All of us bring preunderstanding with us when we open the Bible. In their excellent book on interpreting Scripture, Scott Duvall and Daniel Hays define preunderstanding as “all our preconceived notions and understanding that we bring to the text, which have been formulated, both consciously and subconsciously, before we actually study the text in detail” (Grasping God’s Word, 139.). While we cannot erase our preunderstanding, we can be honest about it and hold onto it with an open hand, allowing the text to add or subtract to our understanding.

My mental image of a planet-wide Flood might very well be the best interpretation of Gen. 7:19, but I should be honest about how much preunderstanding I’m bringing into the text with me. Here’s another example. When I read the word earth in Genesis I bring mental stock photos of our planet with me, but when the first readers saw the word earth/land they probably had a more localized and covenant-driven understanding of the Hebrew word eretz (i.e. land). If so, then it’s possible that the land (eretz) described in the Flood account is less than global in its scope. It could be a universal judgment (in the sense that there were no survivors other than Noah and his family), but local in that waters covered a large but limited geographic area. See what I mean?

A (Mercifully) Short Reading Exercise
After spending some time in prayer, and perhaps with a good cup of coffee or tea at hand, read through the Flood story and try to identify all the preunderstanding that you’re bringing with you into the text. I gave you an example of the kinds of things that I tend to bring with me into the text. Next, as an exercise in the hermeneutics of humility (i.e. approaching the task of interpretation with a humble heart), try reading the story of the Flood from both global and local perspectives. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each position? Put yourself in the shoes of the other reader while assuming the best of the them (i.e. that they have a high view of God’s Word).

Next Time: What’s the point of the Flood story?