Today’s podcast episode is a themed episode on water - full of spiritual symbolism and significance to the continuation of life on Earth.
Water is mysterious. It is cleansing, it is dangerous, and it is life-giving. In our everyday life we can tend to overlook just how fascinating and important water is. Water is interesting both scientifically and biblically, so it’s only fitting that we explore it. And in this episode we do just that.
Because this is a complex topic, we asked several experts to join us in this episode. You’ll hear from Kent Frens, Jenni Brandon, Sandra Postel, and Ben McFarland who each talk about water through their areas of expertise.
I’m looking forward to listening to this one today. I think water in the Bible is definitely interesting. Some of the things that has always stood out to me was the fact that in Genesis it starts out mentioning God was above the waters of the earth and it was formless prior to creation. Then with the ocean you see the root words for chaos and the ocean is associated with chaos. Which is why that seemingly weird verse ends up in revelation about there being no sea in heaven. It’s biblical language for no more chaos. It also mentions the big sea creatures which keeps getting redefined throughout scripture until the poetry lands on them being a multiheaded sea dragon that God battles and destroys.
But water is also showcased as a agent of cleansing the world. The flood wiped away the evil while the good were safely brought through. The Red Sea crushes in on the evil while the good got through. Then that motif is carried over through the act of baptism where someone is immersed and according to acts 2:38 it’s for the forgiveness of sins and to receive the Holy Spirit. But not only like touched on it but Paul in romans 6 and Peter went as far as to say, “ Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,“ in 1 Peter 3:21. So even just scripturally it brings up many neat things and then again in science it’s interesting as well. We are predominately made up of fluids on a planet that is predominantly water. Life evolved first in the oceans and overtime crept up on to land. Lots of interesting aspects and even if the pod cast goes in a completely different way I am looking forward to it.
Bumping this up, as we are re-running this episode today. Would love to hear reflections from @SkovandOfMitaze after listening twice now, since last time you just commented before you listened!
It’s a really good episode. Before listening to it I remember assuming it was probably going to be very similar to my initial thoughts just because it seems that Walton, Enns and Wright are fairly influential here and that’s where much of my beliefs are influenced by as well. Plus obviously Mackie’s work with the Bible project really dug into it. It’s still really cool to me that authors and editors over thousands of years seamed together the story of chaotic water and it’s monsters of chaos and how water represented washing away evil. It would be like if a Michael Meyer’s ( Halloween ) movie came out in 4000AD and seamed together incredibly with the ones from now and the 80s.
Kind of makes me think of Signs the Mel Gibson film where water there represented a weapon against aliens. It drove aware the evil,
Hopefully a plastic alternative will arise soon that’s better for the environment. Not sure what to say about the water conservation. I help build landscaping ponds. Though they do provide benefit for wildlife. We set up systems to use pond water 20% a week to feed irrigation lines. I think if more people visit their local lakes and creeks it will help get more people concerned about it.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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