Our congregation's Vacation Bible School ended last night. The theme this year was "After the Garden." We had five classrooms that were decorated with the topics of "Adam and Eve after the garden," "Cain and Abel and Cain's exile," "The pre-flood world," "Noah, the flood, and afterwards," and finally my class on the "Tower of Babel." If anyone is interested in seeing what the classrooms looked like, you can click HERE to see them, but now back to my story.
All week long I had been telling the separate age groups the two commands that God gave to Noah after they got off the ark."So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.'" (Genesis 9:1) And how the people during the time of the Tower of Babel, who were obviously the direct descendents of Noah and his sons, were deliberately disobeying God and not filling the earth, but staying in one spot to make a name for themselves, at which point God stepped in, confused their language (that is, made up a whole bunch of different ones) and scattered them Himself. "So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth." (Genesis 11:8).
All week long I had been telling the kids this without really giving it much thought as to why God commanded just not Noah, but many others mentioned in the Bible to multiply, and then others He promised that he would multiply their descendents Himself. And the idea of scattering and filling the whole earth? I figured God had a good enough reason and that was okay with me.
I never really gave these two commands much thought or the logic behind them until this morning when one of the other teachers at our VBS and friend of mine sent me this, and then it just smacked me right upside the head. Oh, yeah, I get it now. And guess what, Folks? We haven't been doing it, but this group sure has, and it may be time for us Christians to once again start multiplying before we're forced to scatter and this time not by God.
All week long I had been telling the separate age groups the two commands that God gave to Noah after they got off the ark."So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.'" (Genesis 9:1) And how the people during the time of the Tower of Babel, who were obviously the direct descendents of Noah and his sons, were deliberately disobeying God and not filling the earth, but staying in one spot to make a name for themselves, at which point God stepped in, confused their language (that is, made up a whole bunch of different ones) and scattered them Himself. "So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth." (Genesis 11:8).
All week long I had been telling the kids this without really giving it much thought as to why God commanded just not Noah, but many others mentioned in the Bible to multiply, and then others He promised that he would multiply their descendents Himself. And the idea of scattering and filling the whole earth? I figured God had a good enough reason and that was okay with me.
I never really gave these two commands much thought or the logic behind them until this morning when one of the other teachers at our VBS and friend of mine sent me this, and then it just smacked me right upside the head. Oh, yeah, I get it now. And guess what, Folks? We haven't been doing it, but this group sure has, and it may be time for us Christians to once again start multiplying before we're forced to scatter and this time not by God.
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