I am writing this during our four hour layover in Amsterdam. Nothing quite like spending the night on an airplane. We are waiting for our flight to Nairobi. Sleep deprived, we are so looking forward to reaching Nairobi and a bed for tonight’s sleep.
Today’s readings: Genesis 9-11 & Luke 4
God has promised. Note that when creation is renewed, God gives even more to the man and woman than in the original creation. Now they can eat plants and animals. God establishes a covenant. God promises never again to destroy creation. God has promised. But then humanity continues to choose that which is not pleasing to God. This will be a recurring theme throughout the Bible – and our lives.
From Luke: temptation (interesting how the themes of the Old and New Testaments are linked together). Even Jesus is touched by temptation. Have you faced the kinds of temptation that Jesus faced? How does Jesus resist temptation? But Jesus will be visited by temptation later in Luke’s gospel. Temptation never ceases to be an issue in our lives.
From what we have been reading in Genesis about the rocky relationship between God and humanity, it does not seem surprising that Jesus is rejected by his own hometown. God sends Jesus and empowers Jesus. Then Jesus faces temptation and experiences rejection. Only then does his ministry of healing begin.
God, give us the wisdom to know what to do and the courage to do it.
Pastor Steve Richards 
Hi Steve,
I feel that Ham wasn’t treated fairly by Noah for what he did.
In Chapter 9 God is very much against killing. There have been very many wars and killings since this was written. Are soldiers condemned for what they have done? King David had people killed. What are your thoughts?
David
Genesis 9:22 seems to indicate that Ham’s sin was not in seeing his father’s condition but in telling his brothers about it. When we spread the news of another person’s sin, we have in fact sinned. I will admit that the punishment here appears out of proportion to the “crime”. But the story is making the point of the importance of keeping our relationship with others.
As for the wars and violences, we will see much of this as we read the Bible. I will comment more about this as we get to those passages. Because such passages appear in the Bible, many use the Bible to justify killing (note that Genesis 9:6 is sometimes used to justify capital punishment). It is difficult to lump all killing together with a simply justification.
Hang on to the question. Do others have a response?