The People of God: The Story of the ChurchVoorbeeld

After yesterday’s reading showed how God meant for things to be in terms of relationship with humans, it doesn’t take long for things to take a bad turn.

Adam and Eve are banished from Eden, and community with God is broken. Although we seem to instinctively recognize that things shouldn’t be this way, we seem unable to stop the cycle. Noah is a symbol of hope; the ark in which he, his family, and the animals are placed in a small microcosm of Eden. However, even after ‘finding favor’ with God, Noah will ultimately also make mistakes.

The trajectory leads to the construction of the tower of Babel. Rather than humans seeking a return to community with God, we see an attempt to build a city without God. It is the agency that God gave human beings gone wrong. Many people trace the origins of the later Babylonian empire to this first city. This empire, along with others like Egypt and Rome at different points in the story, will come to represent empires that build kingdoms that are opposite to the kingdom of God. This is an important theme to pick up on as we go through the rest of the biblical narrative and the place of the people of God and, eventually, the church of Jesus.

Throughout the biblical story, we see how God is working to bring about redemption despite the Fall and sinfulness of humanity.