Genesis 9: 1 - 29

 ¹And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
 ²And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
 ³Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
 ⁴But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
 ⁵And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.
 ⁶Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
 ⁷And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
 ⁸And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
 ⁹And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
 ¹⁰And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
 ¹¹And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
 ¹²And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
 ¹³I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
 ¹⁴And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
 ¹⁵And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
 ¹⁶And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
 ¹⁷And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
 ¹⁸And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
 ¹⁹These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
 ²⁰And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
 ²¹And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
 ²²And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
 ²³And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
 ²⁴And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
 ²⁵And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
 ²⁶And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
 ²⁷God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
 ²⁸And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.
 ²⁹And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.

Okay, we are going to do another whole chapter of the bible. It isn't that long and is good practice for you to start reading the bible on your own and then coming back here to see what I had said and then maybe even you writing a comment to my post. Lets have a conversation.

Chapter 9 begins with God blessing Noah and his family, this is the first time I can think of when anyone in the bible is specifically "blessed". Others were "cursed", in each case it is God predetermining an aspect of someone's life. Let us consider what the individual blessings were.
1. That man would be fruitful and multiply on the earth (mission accomplished, 7 billion people will be on the earth within the next week.
2. We are told that the animals will fear us. We are the only animal that is feared by every animal on the earth and lately they have stopped fearing us, I would say that this was accomplished also.
3. God says that if a man is killed, the life of a man will be taken and that it can happen in any manner and by any beast. God says that all that kill will lose their life. We are not to kill, not for any reason unless we are willing to lose our own lives. I want to talk about this, it comes up a lot.

It is wrong to kill, if we kill then our lives are given in exchange. It also says that he who gives his life for another gives the greatest gift of all. If I knowingly kill another in order to save lives and knowingly thereby give up my own life, can I still be saved? The answer is yes. Is it greater to refuse to ever kill or kill one who would otherwise kill others? This is one of the hardest questions we ever have to face in our lives. It challenges us because we know that Jesus would not kill another; but, it requires a very great faith in God and that takes time.

God makes a promise to humans, he promises to never destroy the earth with a flood again. He does not promise to never destroy it again, he promises to never totally flood it again and kill everyone. God promised these things to us humans and created the rainbow so that everytime we see one we will know that we shall never face another flood that would kill all the earth.

This chapter discusses how Noah began a vineyard and turned the grapes into wine. This is the first time wine is mentioned in the bible and it comes up many times more. Now, Noah had taken a pretty hard road, he had a tough job, lost almost everyone he knew and had done as God had asked him. The wine must have come out well because Noah passed out naked in his tent. There are those who try and say that Noah can be forgiven for getting drunk because he didn't understand what the wine would do; but, there is no evidence or justification for taking such an approach, it is unbiblical and not very kind. Noah had done what God asked and his work was done, he probably needed the wine.

There is something else, one of Noah's sons went in the tent and saw Noah naked and passed out in his drunkeness. Ham, the son in question, became the father of the nation of Canaan. After seeing his father naked, Ham did not cover him, instead he told his brothers. Basically, it is believed he did not respect his father's privacy and because of that Noah cursed him that his children would be servants to his other brothers.

The story of Noah is the story of humanities second chance; but, it is also the story of a man and when we read it we shouldn't expect too much of people. Noah was righteous according to God; but, he was still a human. Jesus' first miracle was to turn water into wine and it was the best wine you could have. I am not saying people should drink; but, they should not try and change the meaning either. We should also remember that Jesus had the apostles drink wine in rememberance of his losing his life and that it represented his blood.

Wine is significant in the bible. Red wine is good for the blood, can help people with bad stomachs (Paul tells Timothy to have some mixed with water to help with his stomach problems) and wine can ease the pain sometimes. Noah did not eat the grapes, he fermented them and made wine, he knew exactly what he was doing and God did not condemn him for it. When we read the bible it is important to see these people as people, to understand that they were people who had to deal with real difficulties and that they are not unlike people today with the same ambitions and the same pain.