For All Generations To Come

Genesis 9 & 10

Trish Haq

January 21, 2024

With a friend, your family or in your small group, discuss the following questions:

1. Take some time to reflect on our Genesis series so far. What have you enjoyed or found meaningful in the sermons, scripture readings, and discussions over the past couple of weeks? What do you find challenging about the flood narrative we have been immersed in this January? (Genesis 6-9).
2. Have you ever experienced deep loss, or significant changes in your life that required you to start over in some way? What do you remember about how it felt, and how you handled those challenging times? Does this help you to relate to what Noah and his family might have experienced?
3. Read Genesis 8:18-22. What does scripture tell us about what happened when Noah, his family, and all the animals disembarked from the ark after the flood waters had subsided? What do we learn about Noah? What do these verses tell us about God?
4. Look through the entire passage. What words and phrases do you recognize that can be found in earlier chapters of Genesis? (hints: have a look at Genesis 1:2, 1:27-28, 6:5-6, 6:18, 7:2, 8:1). Share your thoughts on the significance of these repetitions.
5. Why is it significant that Noah made a burnt offering, and that it was an aroma that was pleasing to God? What hope does this point towards? (hint: read Ephesians 5:2). How does God’s response to Noah’s offering help us to understand God’s covenant promise to never again flood the earth because of humanity’s sinfulness?
6. Reflect on the Genesis story we have covered so far. What do you notice about the movements of creation, decreation, and recreation covered throughout Genesis 1-9?

  7.  God, through his covenant promise, has made a commitment not to continue the cycle of decreation. Even so, humans are still                      capable of decreation through the destructive patterns of sin. What chaos do you see in our culture, and throughout the world, that are        in need of God’s work of recreation and renewal? In what ways are you longing for God to bring order to the chaos sin creates in our            world?

 8.  Are there areas in your own life where you recognize that sin has the potential to lead you down a path of decreation? What can you           do to open yourself up to God’s work of recreation and renewal?



Pray for each other out of the points discussed. Pray that God would give wisdom and insight for you to recognize areas in your own lives where sin may have the power to lead you down a path of decreation. Pray also for the ways in which you see the chaos of sin impacting our culture and our world. Pray for God’s work of recreation and renewal to bring order to that chaos. Ask God to reveal ways that you individually, as well as us as a community, can participate in God’s redemptive plans for the earth.