We've Missed the Story of Noah

Remember in Sunday School, when they told you that while Noah was building the ark, people thought he was crazy? They made fun of him? They were invited into repentance and they refused because their hearts were hardened? He gave them every opportunity to join him in the ark and be saved from the flood, but instead, they continued to mock and scorn him even until the last animal was on the boat?

Prepare for your mind to be blown: That never happened.

Seriously.

Go look it up (Genesis 6-9). I will wait for you.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Noah interacted with any other human being outside of his family. The Bible never says that he was made fun of or scorned while building the ark. The Bible never says he tried his hardest to convince people to join him on the ark and be saved. Those of us who were taught this version of Noah's story were not only taught a fallacy, but we were taught to completely miss the point. 

This story was never about looking for pieces of a boat on faraway mountains. It was never about calculating the amount of rain that fell. It was never about pondering the dinosaur or the dolphin. It was never about destroying the world because God couldn't stand his wretched kids anymore.  And it was never about Noah's neighbors and all the horrible stuff they must've been doing.

In fact, the only sin mentioned in the entire account of the flood was violence. 

I'm gonna say that one more time because I believe God was very intentional with this: The only sin mentioned in the entire account of the flood was violence. 

No, this story wasn't about a laundry list of stuff that humanity was getting wrong and how God drowned them all because he was so fed up with them. 

This story was about a love that rescues us from ourselves and calls us "righteous" even though we're broken. When we make the story about destruction instead of redemption, that is a tragic exercise in missing the point. 

When you read Noah, don't look for retribution. Look for restoration.

Look for this truth: God sees you. He chooses you. He has made a way for you. Jump on the boat. Let Him bathe you in newness. When you land on your own Mount Ararat, you are permanently delivered from the world you sailed away from. You are a new creation because your past no longer defines you - its as if it never existed. Even when you get it wrong (and Noah got drunk and splayed out naked on the ground after the ark...he definitely still got it wrong!), the Promise stands: You are in a new place. Restoration is the point. Redemption is the point. Love is the point. Don't miss it.

[cf. Genesis 6-9; 1 Peter 3:8-22]