Today, we enter a new phase of the story. How can you tell?
This is Scripture for Students. I’m Steve Whitacre, president of Trinity College and a pastor at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville. I want to help students build a daily habit for life-long Bible reading. Today is January 9, 2025 and this episode of Scripture for Students is called The Next Phase of the Story. Grab your Bible and let’s get started.
Our readings for today are Genesis 9–10, Matthew 9, and Ezra 9. Please open your Bibles to Genesis 9.
Someone once said that every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s hard to deny, but we could probably be a little more specific when we describe the phases of a story. During the last month or two of 2024, I reread all three books of the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Reading them back-to-back-to-back was really interesting because it got me thinking about the structure of the entire story. There are phases of the story that change at key moments in the plot: from the Shire to Rivendell to the breaking of the fellowship to the Battle of Helms Deep to Pelennor Fields to the final climactic battle at the Black Gate of Mordor to the tying up of all the loose ends. Each phase of the story has a different configuration of the fellowship, a different primary danger, and a different kind of deliverance. We read stories well when we think about what phase of the story we are in.
Today, our Scripture for students marks one of the key moments in the plot of the Bible: a change from one phase of the story to another. I’m going to read a little bit longer section today, and in order to do it justice, we need to back up into chapter 8. Please follow along as I read Genesis 8:20–9:17,
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.
3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,
9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you,
10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.
11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:
13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,
15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
May the Lord bless the reading and the hearing and the keeping of his Word.
The key word in this passage, the word that helps us know we are entering a new phase of the story, is “covenant.” You already know that the entire Bible is one big story. The Bible tells the story of how God is working the miracle of salvation for his people through the death of Jesus in the place of his people. And we can mark the progress of that plan of salvation by looking at the covenants God makes with his people. The covenants tell us what phase of the story we are in and in Genesis 9, God makes a covenant with Noah. This marks a new phase of the story. If we keep reading, God makes covenants with Abraham, with Moses, with David, and then comes the new covenant that he makes through Jesus Christ.
So this covenant in Genesis 9 is extremely important and we’re only going to be able to focus on a couple of things here.
First, did you notice that God repeats the command that he gave to Adam and Eve. In verse 7 he said, “And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” This teaches us that God is doing the same fundamental work among his people at each phase of the story. But the story also progresses: with the revealing of each covenant, we learn more about what God is doing.
One of the new things we learn in this covenant is that God commits to Noah to never again destroy all living things through a flood. He says that explicitly in verse 9. And then God makes a dramatic sign. He explains that this is what a rainbow is for: it is a reminder of God’s covenant, his commitment to never again destroy the creatures of the earth.
When I see a rainbow in the sky after a storm, I am reminded of Genesis 9. But what is amazing about this verse is that we are not the ones whom that reminder is for. In verse 16, God says that when he sees the rainbow, he will remember his covenant. It’s not that God is in any danger of forgetting. He cannot forget anything. But he can be reminded of his grace and mercy. It reminds me of Romans 2:4,
4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
In that verse, Paul is addressing non-Christians, but the verse reminds all of us that God has shown us kindness and forbearance and patience. And that kindness (as well as the forbearance and patience involved in not wiping out all of sinful humanity for our rebellion against him) is meant to lead us to repentance.
Have you ever thought about the kindness and patience of God in allowing us time to repent? God would have been justified to destroy every sinner immediately on the first sin. But he didn’t do that.
If you are a Christian, let’s take a moment to thank God today for his patience. And let’s remember Paul’s warning to not presume on the riches of his kindness. If there is any unconfessed sin in your life, anything you’ve been holding on to, don’t wait to repent of that, too. Confess it to God and confess it to your parents and then receive the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. And then the rainbow you see after a storm will be a reminder to you, too, of God’s riches of kindness and forbearance and patience.
That’s all for today. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with a friend and follow us on Apple Podcasts.
This content is sponsored by Trinity College of Louisville. We shape young men and young women for Christ and for the church. Learn more at TrinityCollegeLou.com. Until next time, keep growing!