You often hear people saying that God is love. That God loves all people unconditionally.

Unfortunatley this is a God that is formed entirely in their imagination.

If they had paid attention in Sunday school, they would have learnt about Noah and the Flood.

You only have to read 6 chapters into the bible to find out all about Noah.

In case you are unfamiliar – God destroys every man woman and child on the planet except for 8 people (Noah’s family)

Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence.... God said "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.”

Noah, on the other hand gets rescued.

So God said to Noah... make yourself an ark... and Noah did everything just as God commanded him....

The LORD then said to Noah, Go into the ark .. and Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.

If we leave emotions to the side and look at what actually happened – I would say that God loved Noah but it would be a stretch to say he loved the rest.

As Paul says in one of his letters:

Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.

It’s almost Christmas. For the less religious of you, there will be pain as you make the once a year visit to a church. Of course you have to go, Gran will be expecting it and little Charlie is in the nativity play. You may experience a climax of tedium when Christ’s lengthy genealogy is read (Matthew 1).

The main point of the genealogy is to show that Jesus is a descendant of King David.

But here are some observations that might make it slightly more interesting.

It’s a long list of men but – but there are 4 women specifically mentioned – two of these are Rahab and Bathsheba. Rahab is a prostitute – you can read all about it here (Joshua 2:1-24 ) and Bathsheba committed adultery. (2 Samuel 11:1-27)

Now the vicar has probably been reading it once a year for most of his life, but maybe he hasn’t spotted these colorful characters – after the service you can ask him if he has any prostitutes in the family tree – when he becomes enraged you can hit him with a bible.

Why does the author make a point of specifically including these two women? It doesn’t really say, so I’m not sure – perhaps to make the point that God achieves his purpose in ways and through people you would not expect.

What did the Zen Buddhist Monk say to the Hotdog Vender?...

Make me One with everything.