First Lesson: Genesis 9:8-17

Theme: God’s first universal covenant

Exegetical note: The covenant depicted in this priestly version of the flood story is unprecedented in the Old Testament with respect to its universal scope: it is made with "every living creature that is of all flesh upon the earth," which makes it to that extent a type for the New Covenant in Christ. (That aspect is more productive thematically than either the apparent overkill of the preceding flood, which presumably drowned some babies and infants as well as hardened sinners, or the limitation of the guarantees of the covenant to a single means of divine destruction, or the pre-scientific understanding of the rainbow phenomenon.)

Call to Worship
Leader: As in the days of Noah, wickedness still is widespread upon the …