If you are like me when you run into a chapter that has genealogies you might have a temptation to skip ahead or at least skim through (I would NEVER do that, can you smell the sarcasm). Well Genesis chapter 5 has all the descendants of Adam down to Noah. Now I will confess I was doing a little bit of skimming until I got to the last verse,

32 Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Innocent enough right? So Noah was really old when he had his sons, but then something else hit me. I know what happens in chapters 6 & 7(Flood) and I looked back up to verses 28-31,

28 Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son. 29 Now he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.” 30 Then Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters. 31 So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died.

So my point, Noah had a family, it said he had brothers, he obviously at one point had a mom and a dad. Noah's wife had to have had at least a mom and a dad, maybe some siblings, grandparents aunts/uncles etc. Noah's daughter-in-laws had families too. So I quickly skipped ahead to make sure, yup only the 8 of them entered the Ark. Not only did God tell Noah to build something no one had ever heard of and be the laughing stock of...well...the world, but he ultimately said

"Let the dead bury the dead" (paraphrased Luke 9:60). To build the Ark was something I had heard all my life and yeah Noah had great faith, but this took it to another level for me, it wasn't just pride he was risking. God was asking him to leave his mother and father behind, his brothers, to be destroyed by the flood! That is crazy to me(yes I know some might wish their family would get washed away but..you got issues. :-)

Today I watched a disturbing video where a man got beheaded (in a very messed up way) because he was a Christian, worst part is they made him swear allegiance to Allah. He denied his faith in face of death, Noah knew death was coming for his extended family, yet he knew he could trust God, he knew God was worthy to be followed. Wonder what it would look like if I lived with that type of faith.

-Eric House