I was seated in the balcony of our church when God’s call came to me. Father Mike was waxing eloquent about the end of the liturgical church year and the beginning of a new one. Thoughts of endings and beginnings began to float through my stream of consciousness. Then, clear as a bell, I heard an inaudible voice say, “I am giving you a new ministry. I want you to bring Community Bible Study to Lenawee County.”
At that moment, I’m sure all the color drained from my face. As a reality check, I looked over at my young teenage son sitting next to me. “Are you alright, Momma?” he said. “You look like a prophet.”
I thought perhaps he meant I looked as white as a ghost. Confused, I tried to process what had just happened. I had not attended Community Bible Study for over ten years, and this was totally not on my radar. I was very involved in another ministry I loved. Immediately, a flood of objections concerning why I should not do this swirled through my mind. Thinking of Noah, I wonder if he had a similar reaction when God called him to build the ark.
A simple greatness exists in the command, process, and completion of Noah and the rest of those entering the ark. For example, not all of the wild animals needed to be included. Their pre-flood variety exceeded that which would be necessary afterwards. After doing all that the Lord commanded him to do, God shut the door to the ark to secure Noah and keep him safe, and also to keep all the others out. From beginning to end, the whole work was obviously the Lord’s doing.
Noah became the special object of God’s divine care and protection. The last to enter the ark, Noah could not so easily shut himself in as could the Lord or his angels. Some scholars have thought that it was not so much the door of the ark that was shut, but rather the way in. Was the hanging bridge, necessary for the creatures to enter but not joined to the ark, carried away by the force of the waters? With access to the ark removed, could God have shut the door against the fury of both the violent waters and the people?
Our Christian privilege and responsibility can be observed in Noah’s safety in the ark. For one, it is our great duty, by way of faith in Christ, to obediently come to the salvation which God has provided to us. Those coming into the ark should, by giving good instructions and showing good examples, bring with them as many others as they can. When God brings souls to Christ, as when he put Noah into the ark, their salvation is sure. This is not in our own keeping, but in our Shepherd’s hand. The door of mercy will be shut, however, against those that make light of it. We would do well to knock now while the door can still be opened.
I followed through with God’s leading to bring Community Bible Study to my locale. I faced a lot of opposition during the process, but all the while I also realized that God was providing everyone and everything needed in order to do what he had asked of me. In time, I was blessed to know that on Wednesday mornings over 100 women and 125 of their children attended Community Bible Study in Lenawee County, Michigan.
Becoming Biblical 