I’ve got a Church History exam in a few weeks’ time. Each time it gets towards the end of semester when I should start studying for an exam, I find these are the times when I become really interested in looking on the college’s website to see what subjects I could study next semester.

Should I do some rigorous theology? How many practical theology subjects can I still do before they ban me? Should I learn some Hebrew?

There’s a part of me that thinks I should just leave the languages for a while and another part of me that would really like to be able to pick up a few more things by reading the Old Testament in its original script.

Although that being said, even in English I’ve got a bit of a soapbox issue with people often not noticing some things in the Old Testament.

Even in the first chapter of the bible, I often here people saying how God just spoke and everything was created.

Well, yes, almost. But there is a point in the first chapter when the “And God said” anaphora drops out:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God used his hands to make humanity. God used his hands to make male and female. The first and ultimate artist did not speak gender into existence. He sculpted it.

And so, in my thinking, it is no little thing to play around with male and female and concepts of gender. Certainly it is no little thing to play around with anything in God’s creation. Yet the fact that God’s very hands have sculpted man and woman seems to put them in a sacred place. One with which only the very foolish would tamper.

Regardless, out modern society has tampered with it, well and truly. Whether altering gender, denying its existence or taking into our own hands the making of humanity and babies in laboratories, as a modern world we have given God the finger.

Only the very foolish think that he will just let this go unchecked.

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.

I don’t know how that would have been said in the original Hebrew but even in the, probably, toned down English version, the response from God is horrific.

God’s planet has ignored Him. Now God says he will wage war with his planet.

He will wipe them out, for he regrets what he has made.

Every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil all the time.

Now I’m a member of the human race, so this assessment includes me. Do I think that my thoughts are evil? Not usually.

However, I remind myself that any time I put something or someone before God, that is evil behaviour. Any time I move something else into first place instead of God, I commit idolatry. And idolatry is sin.

Even things that seem good can, in reality, be evil. Or evidence of evil in our own hearts as we seek to gain them.

That’s why I need to constantly keep my heart in check to see if it is in line with God’s ways. Because I know that my natural inclination is anything but.

Recently one of the other long-term residents in my apartment block bought a new car. I was a little disappointed by this as I think she used to have the best number plate – ARK.

Ark is a great word. Without ark there is no hope.

Because despite God’s declaration of war in Genesis above, the passage ends with a glimmer of hope – But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.

Noah. Of Noah and the ark fame.

Noah is a great archetype who sets a great precedent: whenever God brings destruction he always provides a way out. He always sends a messenger to guide the faithful to safety.

He did it through Noah. He did it through Moses (who had his own ark of another kind). He did it through the prophets. He did it through Jesus.

This is what our God is like for he never changes.

I don’t know any Hebrew but I do know that the Jews have a sacred name for the God of the Bible. So sacred that they refuse to write it in full instead writing it leaving out the vowels – YHWH.

The ancient Jews knew how sacred God and his ways were. Our progressive and idolatrous society has ignored this.

We should stand in fear before a holy God.

Yours aiming to keep in check,

Alison