The Rainbow: God's Promises for the Future
Genesis 8:1 - 9:17
How do you feel when you see the long-awaited fulfillment of one of God's promises? To what extent is your response similar to that of Noah and his family?
GROUP DISCUSSION. If you were onboard the ark, how would you feel form the time God shut the door to about a year later when he said, "Come out on deck"?
PERSONAL REFLECTION. Think of a time when you were called to step out in faith on a risky venture in service to the Lord.
In this study we see how God fulfills his promise to Noah, providing an example for us today.
Read Genesis 8.
1. How is God's concern for his people expressed in 8:1-5?
2. What initiative does Noah take during this period (8:6-14)?
3. In what way can his example help us understand our responsibility during a period when we are depending on God to work?
4. In 8:15-19 how does God's instruction show his continuing concern for the voyagers?
5. What does Noah's first action after emptying the ark (8:20) reveal about his priorities in what must have been an incredibly busy time?
6. What aspect of Noah's example - obedience, faith, courage, patience - is most meaningful to you in a situation you are facing?
7. How does the Lord respond to Noah's sacrifice (8:21-11)?
8. Why is his promise especially remarkable in view of the continuing sinfulness of human nature?
9. Read Genesis 9:1-17. What commission does God give to Noah and his family in 9:1-7?
10. Where do you see differences from the original command to Adam in 1:27-30?
11. In 9:8-17 how is the sign of the rainbow especially appropriate to God's promise?
12. In what ways has God's grace been evident throughout this passage?
13. How have you seen his grace at work in your life?
Spend some time in prayer thanking God for his grace to us who don't deserve it.
Now or Later
Write down some instances of God's grace in answer to your prayer for others in your life.
How do you feel when you see the long-awaited fulfillment of one of God's promises? To what extent is your response similar to that of Noah and his family?
GROUP DISCUSSION. If you were onboard the ark, how would you feel form the time God shut the door to about a year later when he said, "Come out on deck"?
PERSONAL REFLECTION. Think of a time when you were called to step out in faith on a risky venture in service to the Lord.
In this study we see how God fulfills his promise to Noah, providing an example for us today.
Read Genesis 8.
1. How is God's concern for his people expressed in 8:1-5?
2. What initiative does Noah take during this period (8:6-14)?
3. In what way can his example help us understand our responsibility during a period when we are depending on God to work?
4. In 8:15-19 how does God's instruction show his continuing concern for the voyagers?
5. What does Noah's first action after emptying the ark (8:20) reveal about his priorities in what must have been an incredibly busy time?
6. What aspect of Noah's example - obedience, faith, courage, patience - is most meaningful to you in a situation you are facing?
7. How does the Lord respond to Noah's sacrifice (8:21-11)?
8. Why is his promise especially remarkable in view of the continuing sinfulness of human nature?
9. Read Genesis 9:1-17. What commission does God give to Noah and his family in 9:1-7?
10. Where do you see differences from the original command to Adam in 1:27-30?
11. In 9:8-17 how is the sign of the rainbow especially appropriate to God's promise?
12. In what ways has God's grace been evident throughout this passage?
13. How have you seen his grace at work in your life?
Spend some time in prayer thanking God for his grace to us who don't deserve it.
Now or Later
Write down some instances of God's grace in answer to your prayer for others in your life.
posted by Christinewjc at
3:29 PM
5 Comments:
Genesis 8:1 - 9:17
How do you feel when you see the long-awaited fulfillment of one of God's promises?
Answer: That is when I know that He keeps his promises. His timing may not be what I would have wanted, e.g., I want it now!, but His timing is perfect. I have learned patience and have gained a more steadfast faith through times of waiting on the Lord than I would have if the prayer (promise) was answered sooner.
To what extent is your response similar to that of Noah and his family?
Answer: Noah needed to show patience when the dove he sent out returned to the ark because it could not find dry land. He repeated this action waiting additional days until the dove returned with an olive leaf. This was progress. The next time the dove was sent out, it didn't return. Then Noah and his family knew the waters receded and soon they could leave the ark.
GROUP DISCUSSION. If you were onboard the ark, how would you feel from the time God shut the door to about a year later when he said, "Come out on deck"?
I probably would have been impatient to get off the ark! But, knowing the fate of those who weren't safely inside, would make my anxiousness return to relief for God's mercy and grace upon me and my family.
PERSONAL REFLECTION. Think of a time when you were called to step out in faith on a risky venture in service to the Lord.
The time I flew across the country to witness to my dad who was dying from inoperable lung cancer. I felt totally inadequate sharing the gospel with him, but the Lord was faithful and helped point me to the Scripture verses I should share with him. The result was I am now certain that my dad is in heaven with Jesus! What a blessing this was for him and me!! I had worried about my dad's salvation since I was 7 years old. My prayer was answered 32 years later! Praise God! And, being an instrument in my dad's salvation showed me that prayer can be answered, even if it happens years and years later.
In this study we see how God fulfills his promise to Noah, providing an example for us today.
Read Genesis 8.
1. How is God's concern for his people expressed in 8:1-5?
Answer: God remembered Noah and the waters receded, and the ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat.
2. What initiative does Noah take during this period (8:6-14)?
Answer: He sent out a raven and then a dove to see when the waters receded enough to come out of the ark.
3. In what way can his example help us understand our responsibility during a period when we are depending on God to work?
Answer: Sometimes we need to work too! Not only prayer, but use of our lives in service to God.
4. In 8:15-19 how does God's instruction show his continuing concern for the voyagers?
Answer: He instructed Noah and family to come out and lead the animals out too.
5. What does Noah's first action after emptying the ark (8:20) reveal about his priorities in what must have been an incredibly busy time?
Answer: He built an altar and sacrificed clean animals on it for the Lord.
6. What aspect of Noah's example - obedience, faith, courage, patience - is most meaningful to you in a situation you are facing?
His faith was most meaningful because all the rest (obedience, courage, patience) were exhibited as a result of his deep faith.
7. How does the Lord respond to Noah's sacrifice (8:21-22)?
Answer: He was pleased by it and God vowed never to flood the entire surface of the earth again.
8. Why is his promise especially remarkable in view of the continuing sinfulness of human nature?
Answer: Even though God knew that "every inclination of man's heart is evil from childhood," God made a covenant with Noah and his sons.
9. Read Genesis 9:1-17. What commission does God give to Noah and his family in 9:1-7?
Answer: To be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
10. Where do you see differences from the original command to Adam in 1:27-30?
The animals will have fear and dread of man. Man can eat meat now.
11. In 9:8-17 how is the sign of the rainbow especially appropriate to God's promise?
Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.
12. In what ways has God's grace been evident throughout this passage?
Despite the fact that man's heart is still evil, God graciously makes a new covenant with man out of love and mercy for his creation.
13. How have you seen his grace at work in your life?
Many times! To numerous to list!
Spend some time in prayer thanking God for his grace to us who don't deserve it.
Now or Later
Write down some instances of God's grace in answer to your prayer for others in your life.
My dad, husband, children and friends coming to the saving grace of Jesus Christ after years of prayer!
By
Christinewjc, at 4:09 PM
Some questions I have about this section of the bible:
How long did the flood last?
150 days? (Gen 7:24 and 8:3)
40 days? (Gen 7:17)
Genesis 8:20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
But if Noah only took a pair of each species of animal on the ark with him, then wouldn't his sacrifice of all clean beasts have made them all extinct, and left only "dirty" beasts on the Earth? That seems quite odd.
Did Noah actually only take a pair, or were there more? Compare Genesis 7:2-3 with 7:8-9 and 6:19. How is this reconciled?
I think 8:21 is a little strange, too:
And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
Help me understand this. God killed all living things because humans are evil (See 6:5). Then, later, God promises not to do it again (see above) because humans are evil. God seems like a tempermental and, frankly, unlikeable character.
By
Einzige, at 2:20 PM
einzige,
Some of your questions here are, quite frankly, directed at the trivial aspects of this portion of Scripture. Such insignificant challenges pale in comparison to the ultimate purpose of why Noah's Ark occurred in history. Focusing on incidental things (which skeptics often do) shows that you misunderstand such purpose regarding God's promises for the future.
This portion of Simon Greenleaf's Testimony of the Evangelists deals with the reasons why Noah's Ark happened as well as some of your questions.
"How it came to pass that man, originally taught, as we doubt not he was, to know and to worship the true Jehovah, is found, at so early a period of his history, a worshiper of baser objects, it is foreign to our present purpose to inquire. But the fact is lamentably true, that he soon became an idolater, a worshiper of moral abominations. The Scythians and Northmen adored the impersonations of heroic valor and of bloodthirsty and cruel revenge. The mythology of Greece and of Rome, though it exhibited a few examples of virtue and goodness, abounded in others of gross licentiousness and vice. The gods of Egypt were reptiles, and beasts and birds. The religion of Central and Eastern Asia was polluted with lust and cruelty, and smeared with blood, rioting, in deadly triumph, over all the tender affections of the human heart and all the convictions of the human understanding. Western and Southern Africa and Polynesia are, to this day, the abodes of frightful idolatry, cannibalism, and cruelty; and the aborigines of both the Americas are examples of the depths of superstition to which the human mind may be debased. In every quarter of the world, however, there is a striking uniformity seen in all the features of paganism. The ruling is lewd and cruel. Whatever of purity the earlier forms of paganism may have possessed, it is evident from history that it was of brief duration. Every form, which history has preserved, grew rapidly and steadily worse and more corrupt, until the entire heathen world, before the coming of Christ, was infected with that loathsome leprosy by St. Paul, in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans.
So general and decided was this proclivity to the worship of strange gods, that, at the time of the deluge, only one family remained faithful to Jehovah; and this was a family which had been favored with his special revelation. Indeed it is evident that nothing but a revelation from God could raise men from the degradation of pagan idolatry, because nothing else has ever had that effect. If man could achieve his own freedom from this bondage, he would long since have been free. But instead of this, the increase of light and civilization and refinement in the pagan world has but multiplied the objects of his worship, added voluptuous refinements to its ritual, and thus increased the number and weight of his chains. In this respect there is no difference in their moral condition, between the barbarous Scythian and the learned Egyptian or Roman of ancient times, nor between the ignorant African and the polished Hindu of our own day. The only method, which has been successfully employed to deliver man from the idolatry, is that of presenting to the eye of his soul an object of worship perfectly holy and pure, directly opposite, in moral character, to the gods he had formerly adored. He could not transfer to his deities a better character than he himself possessed. He must forever remain enslaved to his idols, unless a new and pure object of worship were revealed to him, with a display of superior power sufficient to overcome his former faith and present fears, to detach his affections from grosser objects, and to fix them upon that which alone is worthy. This is precisely what God, as stated in the Holy Scriptures, has done. He rescued one family from idolatry in the Old World, by the revelation of himself to Noah; he called a distinct branch of this family to the knowledge of himself, in the person of Abraham and his sons; he extended this favor to a whole nation, through the ministry of Moses; but it was through that of Jesus Christ alone that it was communicated to the whole world. In Egypt, by the destruction of all of the Israelites that he alone was the self-existent Almighty. At the Red Sea, he emphatically showed his people. At Sinai, he revealed himself as the righteous Governor, who required implicit obedience from men, and taught them, by the strongly-marked distinctions of the ceremonial law, that he was a holy Being, of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that could not look upon iniquity. The demerit of sin was inculcated by the solemn infliction of death upon every animal, offered as a propitiatory sacrifice. And when, by this system of instruction, he had prepared a people to receive the perfect revelation of the character of God, of the nature of his worship and of the way of restoration to his image and favor, this also was expressly revealed by the mission of his Son."
By
Christinewjc, at 4:04 PM
One more thing. I noticed that you have a link to the "Skeptics Annotated Bible" at your blog.
Are you aware of the website that completely refutes the SAB false claims?
By
Christinewjc, at 4:10 PM
I was not aware of that, but I will check it out! I appreciate the link.
By
Einzige, at 6:26 PM
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