Shannon Popkin (00:03) Well, we have Lindsay shot back with us here in the studio and she’s no stranger to live like it’s true. Lindsay has been here several times and all of her episodes are some of our favorites. We just love hearing from Lindsay. So let me tell you a little bit about her first before we hand her the mic. Lindsay is a watercolorist. She’s a women’s ministry teacher at Stonegate Church in…

Texas. She’s the co-founder of Teach Equip, which is a ministry dear to my heart. ⁓ And she loves for women to know the scripture and experience deep transformation in relationship with Jesus. Lindsay, welcome back to Live Like It’s True.

Lindsay Schott (00:44) Thank you, Shannon. I love doing this with you. It’s so much fun.

Shannon Popkin (00:48) It’s so great. It really is. It’s one of our favorite things, isn’t it, to talk about the Bible together.

Lindsay Schott (00:53) It just feels like, I get together with a friend and do my favorite thing? Of course, of course you can.

Shannon Popkin (00:56) I know, right,

I know, I know. so, well, ⁓ we’re in this series on judging, judgy, judgy girl stuff. And so I think, you know, this chapter, we’re gonna be talking today about Noah. And I am opening the book with the story of Noah, because I think it answers some of the big questions that we have. I think we gotta start big before we, you I think when we think about

Lindsay Schott (01:14) Yes.

.

Shannon Popkin (01:25) being a judgy person, a judgmental wife, mom, Christian, whatever, we have all these questions about, when is it right to judge and what am I supposed to do? Well, I think we gotta lay some foundations first before we can get there. And first we’ve gotta start with, well, who is the judge? Who decides right from wrong? And what happens to people who cross over into the wrong territory? And so,

⁓ I think that the flood answers some of those questions for us, right? It’s really establishing who’s the judge of the world, who is it? And it’s not so much using those words, but it’s putting it in the form of a narrative where we get those answers when we see what happens. But I think that the flood story, I can’t think of a story that people would be more offended by in the Bible than the flood. Do agree?

Lindsay Schott (01:57) Yeah, yes.

Yeah, God swoops in and literally just decimates it all. And in the flood, it’s the most like, the whole world gets inundated. And so we put it on, you know, kids’ Bibles and

Shannon Popkin (02:29) catastrophic.

Lindsay Schott (02:36) murals in kids rooms because it’s snowing the animals, but this is global devastation and God saying, I’m done, you’re done. This is over.

Shannon Popkin (02:48) Yeah, yeah, if God can just wipe out everyone at once, know, if he is, is he entitled to do that? Is that right for him to do that? If that is okay, then I think maybe, the underlying, the follow-up question is if he could do that, well, then maybe this other story about more coming judgment.

He could do that too, and that terrifies me.

Lindsay Schott (03:07) I think there’s a lot of people going, I don’t really like that God’s doing that. That makes me uncomfortable. It seems like God’s just flying off a handle. It seems like people aren’t being real great. ⁓ But I thought He was supposed to be forgiving, but now He’s just ending everybody. And it feels incongruent with with them Jesus coming and saving. But then that feels confusing because

Shannon Popkin (03:16) Yeah.

I feel it.

Lindsay Schott (03:30) Hmm… No.

Shannon Popkin (03:31) And ⁓

Lindsay Schott (03:33) you see Jesus coming into the world. Sinners are flocking to Him.

wanting to turn from their sin and even children and women feel safe around him. And what’s interesting is we take that Jesus, we like that Jesus sometimes, or we don’t know how to put that Jesus in Genesis where God is destroying the world and he’s one left, right? It’s like that God and that Jesus, they seem like two different people. Did God go through some kind of anger management class?

Shannon Popkin (03:48) Yeah, right.

Okay, there you go.

Lindsay Schott (04:07) in between the testaments. And it’s like, what is happening? But I think Genesis 6 is a great portrait of God and his power and his authority over the world to be the judge, but it also expresses his mercy to the world. It just doesn’t seem like a merciful call, but…

Shannon Popkin (04:12) Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Schott (04:33) It is showing that God is grieved over sin, right? He’s grieved, he’s sad, and then he reacts ⁓ in judgment against sin, but also he does want human thriving. And humans have gotten so bad that there is no human thriving. And so now God responds. ⁓ Because the wickedness of men expands and they’re violent. I think it’s really important to notice that they’re violent.

We’re reading Noah and we are picturing our suburbs. You know, I can leave my van outside and I have before and left the door open. Nothing happened. Thank the Lord. This is not that ⁓ Noah’s time is a little more akin to like Mad Max. And so there’s violence everywhere. And the two edges on the sword of violence are violence and suffering. There’s people being victimized. People are being hurt, brutalized.

And all we see is God’s judgment of like, he’s just coming against what’s wrong and why is he doing that? Because people are also suffering terribly and he is not for that. And what’s happened is now as humans are spreading over the face of the earth from Cain’s fall till this moment, all the story is telling you is the more people increased, the more sin increases, spreading, curse is going everywhere. And now…

Shannon Popkin (05:43) Right, yeah, yes.

Yes. Yes. ⁓

Lindsay Schott (06:00) Everything is violence and evil continually. And since God is holy and also infinitely kind, He cannot let this persist. And so He acts. And so God is actually here mercifully and kindly acting out against suffering and violence and victimization. ⁓ And it does remind us He has every right to. As the Creator, He has every right to make that call.

Shannon Popkin (06:11) Hmm.

Hmm. Yeah. Yep.

Yes.

Yes. that’s so good, Lindsay. Let’s read a couple of those verses where we’re just right here in the beginning of Genesis six. And we see like it starts with mankind began to multiply on the earth. ⁓ And so we’re seeing, like you said, sin is what is spreading. This is not, know, in the previous, know, Genesis is built around these Toledotes, these, ⁓ what do call that? ⁓

not generation, what is it called? Like a list of, what is it? Genealogies. Thank you for that word. I couldn’t think of it. We’ll cut that part out. So Genesis is built around these toll adult lists, these genealogies. And so what we’ve seen in Genesis four and five is you’ve got this righteous line that is coming, that’s, you know, we’re like thankful, finally. Seth, starts with,

This is the family records of Adam on the day that God created man, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female. When they were created, he blessed them and he called them mankind. So it’s like we’ve got a reset on creation. It’s like here, this sounds a lot like Genesis 1. This sounds like a lot about, know, here this is man created in God’s image. Then they talk about Seth. Adam was 130 years old when he fathered a son.

in his likeness according to his image and named him Seth. So you’ve got like this is what it’s supposed to be like. We were God’s children and we’re supposed to look like God and finally Adam is apparently righteous and he has a son that looks like him and we’re starting over with this righteous line because before the genealogy before was Cain and everything from Cain has been wickedness. But then you see in Genesis chapter six these two lines the righteous line and the wicked line.

They’re merging together with weddings. They’re merging together. And now all we have all over the world is evil spreading. And then would you just read five through eight in Genesis six?

Lindsay Schott (08:39) Yes, five through eight. The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, manned and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens for I’m sorry that I’ve made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Shannon Popkin (09:10) So we’re looking, I think it’s interesting that we’re looking at this through God’s eyes, right? It’s a top down view, right? It’s almost like we are getting this aerial perspective of evil spreading. What’s surprising or interesting about that?

Lindsay Schott (09:15) Bye.

Mm-hmm.

What’s surprising to me is ⁓ if we’re talking about the agency of human authors, we agree that the spirit breathed it out, but like the perspective that a human was given was God saying, let me tell you how I see it, right? Which also is like a helpful, like if we’re gonna talk about issues of justice, like what’s right and what’s okay, maybe our perspective isn’t the best one. Maybe we don’t actually know.

Shannon Popkin (09:44) Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (09:57) about justice and righteousness like we think we do, or if we’re going to, let’s learn. And so we need to see it from God’s perspective. Who has been the main actor since Genesis 1? Like, He created everything, and He’s still the one who’s the main actor, so let’s see it from His point of view. It’s interesting that since He’s the one who made man and put His image in man, He’s now the one making the decision that I have

Shannon Popkin (10:06) Right?

Lindsay Schott (10:26) It grieves me so much that I regret that they’re here.

Shannon Popkin (10:31) Right. Well, and you were just talking earlier about how we have these different views of God, you know, our New Testament God, like there is this holiness and humbleness. I love how you put those together. Right here, are we, I think when we look at God and like that viewpoint that I mentioned earlier, like,

could a good God wipe everybody out like this? It’s almost like we flipped the roles and we’re judging God now and we feel entitled to do that. Like we look at this story, like this isn’t right. And we’re banging the gavel, we’re drawing the lines, we’re saying God has crossed the line. And then also we look at Christians, judgy Christians, and we’re like, they’re wrong. They’re banging gavels. Like that woman that I was saying that told you, your biggest regret is you’re not gonna be able to come.

Lindsay Schott (11:04) Absolutely.

Shannon Popkin (11:27) come down and say, told you to those of us in hell. Like we look at that, we look at a God, an angry God banging his gavel, angry Christians who think they’re right, banging their gavel. And we think that is all just wrong. But I think we have it flipped backwards. Like we haven’t looked from that aerial view. We haven’t looked from the perspective that you’re giving us as God is looking down and he is seeing evil spreading. And is he sort of just like, okay, that’s enough?

Like is that, is he just exercising his position here? His authority, do you think?

Lindsay Schott (12:01) Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think it’s always yes. In some ways, that’s what he says. Like I’ve regretted it, grieved him. So he said, I’m going to block them out. This is enough. I want you to see it from my perspective that I know that every intention, every motive, every thought is so contrary to him, to God, that he’s going to blot it out. And some of the narrative, ⁓ some of the

There’s a false narrative that works its way through ⁓ Cain, well, know, Adam’s fall, Cain, Babel, and it’s we as humans can thrive, build society and have a great life without God. And that is so far from the truth. So the further you get from God, ⁓ acknowledging him, knowing him, seeking him, calling on him and him being the center of everything, the more human thriving actually falls.

apart. Human thriving just falls apart. And so as humans have gravitated farther and farther away from God, it makes sense that wickedness increased. If we’re asserting that God is a source of everything good, God is a source of everything wonderful, then the farther you get from Him, the worse things get. And so when God sees them straying from Him, only evil continually, He knows that His glory and Him being in charge is the greatest good humans could ever

Shannon Popkin (13:28) That’s right.

Lindsay Schott (13:28) And so the option here is go nuclear, literally, and get them all out. But similarly, when the curse went out and there was this little hope of a snake crusher, there’s this sentence that God’s like, I’m going to blot out everything, including the animals. And then you have this, but Noah found favor with the Lord. So it’s all happening again. It’s like there is judgment. The judgment’s right.

You don’t want a cosmic power who is mediocre about justice or indifferent. I don’t really care because there are things that when we see him in the world and we rightly go, that’s awful, I hate that. God says, it is awful, I hate it too. So you don’t want a God who is indifferent, detached or doesn’t care about issues of justice. ⁓ But he is that and he’s giving, he’s

Shannon Popkin (14:04) Or indifferent, like yeah, indifferent,

Lindsay Schott (14:28) This is the promise happening again. This is, am coming in judgment and I’m leaving room, one for this human, Noah and his family, who also saved some animals, but Noah is pointing to someone else. It’s gonna come from him. Noah’s name was, it sounds like the word for rest. And they thought, this is it, this is the guy. Noah is gonna be the one to give us rest, eternal rest. ⁓ And in a way,

Shannon Popkin (14:43) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yep.

Lindsay Schott (14:57) Noah is like that, but Noah is pointing to someone else. That God’s judgment and mercy are mingled in the same moment. And that’s what’s happening even with the flood. in his judgment, all could be lost on the face of the earth. But in his mercy, one man, Noah, found favor with God. And the favor of Noah blessed his family, even the animals, and from that the whole earth was allowed to begin again.

Shannon Popkin (15:00) Yeah.

Yes.

Lindsay Schott (15:27) So

that tie is Jesus again, right?

Shannon Popkin (15:31) Yes.

Well, in the narrative, we talk about the rising action, right? The rising, what’s coming to the surface, what’s being brought. And like, we literally have the rise of the ark in this story. It’s like the rising action is God’s mercy. And I think it’s interesting, know, like whenever there’s a hurricane or something, the news cycle will go again and again, show it to you all the disaster.

Lindsay Schott (15:50) Right.

Shannon Popkin (15:59) This story, if you look at how much, it’s a long story, Genesis 8 and 9, and there’s some chiastic structure going on there. So you’ve got like these brackets and it’s repeating things. that’s why it’s saying a lot of things twice because of the literary structure, the devices that are being used, but it’s a really long story. And if you were to ration or look at the proportions,

Lindsay Schott (16:04) Yeah.

Shannon Popkin (16:28) the most proportion is given to the Ark and how the story is going to move forward. All of the attention, all of the focus, all of the ink is given to this one man, not the evil, know, like we’re not looking in, I love that you said there’s two sides of the sword and how there are all of these suffering people, like that is, God takes no pleasure in us dwelling on the evil. What his pleasure is,

Lindsay Schott (16:34) Bye.

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Popkin (16:58) what he wants us to focus on, what he wants us to see in this story is the ark, is the animals, is the preservation, is the creation 2.0 story that’s happening. Like the whole story is actually a de-creation story and God is going to recreate using this one little family and that’s where all 100 % of the attention goes. I just love that and I think ⁓ what’s interesting is we tend to focus where God doesn’t.

in this story, like where the lens doesn’t go, where the ink isn’t spilled. Like that’s all of us, like all of those people have a problem with Genesis or with the flood story. They’re all looking at those people who are outside of the ark. You know, they’re pounding on the door. saying, let me in. Well, they aren’t mentioned in this text, right? They’re not, they’re not, that’s not who the, that God wants us to focus on. And I just think it’s interesting that he starts by giving us God’s perspective. A little later we’ll shift

Lindsay Schott (17:29) Yes.

Shannon Popkin (17:57) to the perspective of those who are on the ark, but from the beginning, it’s like God saw human wickedness. And it’s almost like I think we’re meant, the author, Moses and God, they’re trying to help us have this empathy for God. you know, like seeing it from his perspective, which is not natural for us.

Lindsay Schott (18:14) Mm-hmm.

Now,

it’s supernatural. ⁓ It absolutely is. And that’s like, God is consistently doing that through his people. And Moses arguably is probably the first prophet. But every prophet is given the perspective of God on the world and reality. Not just the prophets, because they’ll do that, but every single one of the prophets is going to now see Israel, the world, whatever’s happening through God’s eyes.

Shannon Popkin (18:24) It’s supernatural.

Lindsay Schott (18:49) which is why the prophets are so like hair on fire about like justice and righteousness and oppression and your spiritual adultery. It’s like seeing it from God’s perspective is the other side of the story. I mean, how many little kid arguments do you walk into and they’re like, they did this, they did this. And you hear the two sides of the story, but for the parent who was watching the whole time, they’re like, let me tell you what I saw.

Shannon Popkin (18:53) Mm-hmm.

it’s so true. It’s so true. You know, I actually ⁓

Jesus talks about the story of the ark Jesus says in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and then they were unaware until the flood.

came and swept them all away. So you get this different viewpoint. Like Jesus is giving us the view on the ground level. These are the same, only, always evil, what was that verse? Every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time. These are the same people, but they do not see it. They do not see their evilness. And so here they’re having engagement parties.

what I see in that is just two completely different worldviews of what is evil.

Lindsay Schott (19:58) Yeah.

Shannon Popkin (20:00) what deserves judgment, what is right and wrong, you know, when you’re right and who gets to decide that? It’s not us. It’s a very disorienting idea.

Lindsay Schott (20:02) Mm-hmm.

right.

Yeah,

very disorienting idea. And it seems that it sounds at first like I’m going to go ahead and go through life living like what instinctually intuitively seems right to me. And at first that feels like, sure, seems like a good idea. But I love history. So like, I like thinking about human movement and changes throughout history. But the the slightly the shifting saying element about humans is what humans have felt and thought was right throughout generations has completely changed.

And it’s not stable. There are whole generations of Western civilization who felt that slavery was totally acceptable. Now we’re super offended by it. And we think that our offense against slavery comes up because something in us is a good compass. And we just really know what’s wrong. No, you don’t. You’re just on this side of history. That’s the only reason you feel that opinion. And what it does, I love history because it unearths all these things that we think about ourselves.

Shannon Popkin (20:53) Yeah, I thought about that. Uh-huh.

sure.

Right.

Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (21:14) We would just know that’s wrong. No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t do anything. And so

it does beg for an anchor point. It begs for some standard of rightness and goodness because as humans, we’re always changing it. We usually want justice for someone else and mercy for ourselves. All of it is like changing. mean, that C.S. Lewis is great thing in mere Christianity is like,

Shannon Popkin (21:27) Yes.

That’s so true.

Lindsay Schott (21:42) Where do you think the idea of we should be moral even comes from? Given human propensity to be amoral, it has to come from someone bigger than us, wiser than us, stronger than us, or else the orientation to find what’s right or wrong doesn’t make any sense. Why would we do that? ⁓ It’s gotta come from someone because when it’s based in us, like if it is based in us, Noah’s right here in the story, no, you’re gonna see how it goes. The crowd ethic.

Shannon Popkin (21:49) night.

Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (22:12) is not a good ethic. It is bad and causes human suffering.

Shannon Popkin (22:16) Yes.

Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. So I think though, Lindsay, even with all that we’ve just said, like saying we want for there to be a higher standard than ourselves, someone else other than us deciding right and wrong, we want for someone to deal with the other side of the sword, you know, where we’re the one suffering. We want for God ⁓

to be powerful enough to not be indifferent. We want all of those things. And yet we still look at this story and we think that is just, he was ⁓ too harsh. It was too much. This was overload. Like he went nuclear instead of just responding, I don’t know, friendly fire or whatever. ⁓ And so.

I wonder about your view of God. you have you ever struggled with seeing God as angry and, you know, harsh and judgmental?

Lindsay Schott (23:21) yeah, mean for me like, so for me, ⁓ I resonated more with this point of view of God being angry and vengeful than I did of him being kind. ⁓ I feel like that’s probably not the norm. So some of that might be upbringing, some of that is the youth group I was in. mean, our youth pastor just perished at us, right?

Shannon Popkin (23:37) That’s interesting.

Lindsay Schott (23:49) And I’m like a good kid in suburban Texas. I’m, I don’t know, the miracles that I believed in my need for a savior at all. But I attached to that easier. And I think there’s a few reasons for that for me. I attached the idea of God being angry and vengeful and reactive because I had seen anger in my household. I had seen quick reactive anger in my household. And so I was like, why did I get that, you know?

And my solution as a kid, and that was all I have to do is just try and be good and fly under that radar. And then ⁓ I’m good. And so that just translated into a relationship with God where I was like, ⁓ you’re reacting like that, I understand. And all I gotta do is be good and fly under the radar. I do believe that I really was saved and yet that paradigm was just still in there. It was still like,

Now the Holy Spirit is going to come in my life and he’s going to help me do even better and fly under God’s radar. And it was like, that’s actually not the gospel of Jesus.

Shannon Popkin (25:00) Well,

and did that translate, you because I think what happens for good church girls is it translates into kind of a judgy attitude where I’m doing it right and you should just do it right too. Did you see that?

Lindsay Schott (25:10) Oh,

I mean I I was saved at 15 and by 18 I graduated knowing all of the answers of the universe like I knew my Bible which at 18 I just knew it better than a few other people which is nothing Okay, I mean 18 I had the answers folks. They’re right here in this Bible You’ve got to read this Bible and you need to stop making excuses and I I mean that’s what it was I mean my college years I was probably pretty insufferable and

Shannon Popkin (25:19) good. Good.

What?

Lindsay Schott (25:40) And I did injure a lot of friendships. At that, I would say that was probably the climax of my own judginess of like, you’re obviously partying and making bad life decisions and it’s because you don’t know God and you need to repent. And on some level, nah, probably true. They were doing that. What I obviously wasn’t living out was the reality of the patience and the kindness and the mercy of Jesus that is very real.

than obvious in the scripture. But of course, now it makes sense. It’s like, I didn’t even know that part about Jesus. I was still living, like, it’s up to me. All you gotta do is fly under his anger radar. And obviously, we just use the Bible to do that. So get your act together. That, really betrayed my own immaturity that was like, you, Lindsay, don’t understand that you are entirely.

worthy of His wrath just from your own sin. And what God has done is said, I love you. I love you and every day I love to pour out mercy on you. And He was patient with me every day as I grew. And that’s the perspective I lacked. But it was also the only way that I saw God. And it took seeing and knowing Him differently for that to then change in how I treated people, right?

Shannon Popkin (27:07) So how did that shift happen? What did he show you or what was the experience?

Lindsay Schott (27:13) Several things happened. One, like I said, I ruined friendships. I had more than one friendship ⁓ in those college years who those people just were like, I don’t want to be your friend anymore. I don’t want to be your

Shannon Popkin (27:23) Can you give me a story or an example? Like what was something that you confronted someone or I don’t know.

Lindsay Schott (27:31) Yeah, so I had a friend from high school who then we were in college. We were roommates one year or a couple of years. And for me in college, I was kind of like, you go to college and then you need to be in Christian clubs, sharing the gospel with people. Dating is a waste of your time and going out with people is even a bigger waste of your time. And I don’t know why your Christianity doesn’t look like me.

And so with this friend, I would be real unsupportive of her. She’s like, I’m going to join this, I’m going join a real estate club because she’s interested in real estate. And I’m pretty sure I said something that was like, why? What a waste. ⁓ She had a boyfriend at the time. And I was like, in my opinion, he wasn’t real great at walking with God. He’s a nice guy. Nice guy. Who is great at walking with God at 20? Nice guy. But I was like, no, this man does not read his Bible every day.

He’s obviously not headed into ministry and I think he wastes your time. I think he’s the worst. And I was really vocal about all of those things. And it wasn’t a conversation. It wasn’t like, how are you doing? Where are you with your office? God, where is he? It was just me telling you those things are dumb because they’re not spiritual enough. So too bad. And obviously that girl was like, I don’t think Lindsay’s a good friend. And I wasn’t. I wasn’t.

I thought, well, you know, this is how you should walk with God and I don’t know why you’re just not doing it. All the while, bad pride is like a bad smell. It’s like everyone can smell it on you, but you’re like, what? That’s so awful. And so that friend eventually, like later on, I got engaged. I think I had asked her to be a bridesmaid or like be involved. And she was like, I’m not coming to your wedding. I’m not going to be bridesmaid.

Shannon Popkin (29:09) you

Lindsay Schott (29:24) I don’t want to be around you. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. So that was that friendship.

Shannon Popkin (29:31) Wow. And that probably hurt. That probably is like, did you feel like you were suffering for injustice? suffering.

Lindsay Schott (29:37) There

was a moment that was like, ⁓ no, ⁓ I’m suffering because I stood up for the right things. And then God in His patient conviction with me was like, you’re not suffering for the right things. You didn’t even love someone who was willing to love you. know, when Jesus is like, you know, it’s easy for you to love people who love you. You need to love your enemies. And at this point, it was like, can’t even love someone who’s willing to love you. It’s like, ⁓

Shannon Popkin (29:58) Right.

Lindsay Schott (30:07) so it was that conviction that I’m, I might have been, I might have loved righteousness in a way, although slightly misguided, but what I didn’t love was compassion and, and loving someone, which is, which is scathing when it comes out of Jesus’s mouth to the Pharisees as go learn what this means. I don’t want sacrifice. I want you to learn compassion, learn compassion. And I, I needed to learn that that friendship was what

⁓ began that process of, I may have been doing this wrong. I think I may have been doing this wrong. The other things that happened to undo a lot of that was my… ⁓

Shannon Popkin (30:51) Did

you just hear that? Okay, I just, I don’t know, but keep going. I’m just like, I don’t know if that’s on my side or yours. I don’t see any. that’s okay. We’ll just edit that out. if so, if you say, if something, if that happens again, just restate whatever. So, Yeah, no worries.

Lindsay Schott (30:53) I did, I think it might be sleeping on mine. How do I stop that?

think it’s funny that I don’t know how to take it off.

Thanks, so cool.

Other things that to happen that helped undo that was my own struggles and suffering and loneliness. Eventually when you are so principled and focused on righteousness and everything that you get right, that means you’re just alone with all your principles. And it’s very lonely. It’s like, I love all my principles and I everything around me to be exactly right. It’s like, well, then you have decided to be around no one because nothing is all right.

Shannon Popkin (31:28) It’s so true!

Lindsay Schott (31:41) Right? No one and nothing is all right. And so as I became increasingly lonely with all my principles and I did get married and getting married has its own difficulty and later me and my husband traveled through infertility, all of those things, one humbled me. I saw my own, the poverty and shallowness of my soul that made me go, God, I’m so sorry. And knowing that he forgave me, he’s like, I forgive you. I forgive you that he’s patient with me.

Shannon Popkin (32:09) Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (32:11) and then leaning on people in my own difficulties, needing, really needing people to love me, to care for me, to be patient with me, to forgive me. All of that ⁓ changed in how I am treating people. And I had significant moments with God where if I was reading something like Noah, I would pray and talk to him and be like, sometimes I just am really afraid.

that you’re really angry at me and it’s up to me to make you not angry at me. And I don’t think, and I don’t know how to do that. And it was really this process of prayer being like, he already dealt with that, right? I think that we do really come to Jesus. I think that I was really saved and yet the reality of the goodness of the gospel of Jesus has to get worked into these layers of our life that are deeper and deeper and that layer just needed to get addressed. ⁓

Shannon Popkin (33:07) Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (33:07) For me to see God, for who he really is in the scripture, for who he is as expressed in Jesus, and less as the human examples that I knew of and say, no, he’s better than everyone, was so freeing for me, was so freeing for me to go, I had originally thought you to be one way, I’m seeing you now a different way. that who God is would come to me as from his word and from the person of Jesus.

Shannon Popkin (33:29) Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (33:37) because that’s accurate, you know, and not just some of my perceptions or who I might be running with. Yeah.

Shannon Popkin (33:38) Mm-hmm.

Right. Well,

I that you talked about that standalone, you know, righteousness, because I think that’s the impression that some people get of Noah from this text. And I think it’s wrong. Let me tell you why. Right. I can see why we get the impression because it says, verse six, Noah, however, found favor with the Lord. These are family records of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among his contemporaries. And we stop there.

And I think we live in this individualistic culture where we look at that and we live in a culture that rewards like standalone. We look at that, we’re like, he did the right thing and he’s getting rewarded. He’s the only one in his own culture who made the right choices. He stood apart from evil. He’s the good guy. He’s the only good guy in the story. He stood for righteousness and God is rewarding that. That’s how we look at that story. But I think

the Middle Eastern perspective is so different. It’s a collectivist culture. And they put so much more emphasis on how we influence one another. And so think a Middle Eastern person reads this story and they immediately, they’re like, okay, there’s only one who stands apart. There’s all of this evil spreading. All the generations are merging. There’s only always evil all the time. And there is one guy who’s not falling to that.

their impression would be, that guy must have outside help. Because you can’t do that. Like you cannot do that. You cannot be good in a world that is evil. And that is where I think the emphasis goes to the next verse, where it says Noah walked with God. Noah walked with God. I think that was the difference in Noah’s life. Not that he had all of this standout righteousness. Because we’re going to see at the end of the story, Noah’s going to fall just like everybody else. Right?

Lindsay Schott (35:23) Yeah. ⁓

That’s right. That’s right.

Shannon Popkin (35:35) There’s, cause I think you may go into the story thinking, this is the one. This is the snake crusher. You know, this is the one he was born. You know that his name meant rest. Like he’s going to be the good guy. Finally we have him and he’s come from the line of Seth. think I, and yes, he’s come from Seth’s line. Here he is. And God sees it too. God saves him. God, you know, has him build an ark. Like God wants to save this man because of his righteousness. He gets off the boat and he completely blows it. He.

like gets drunk, he gets naked, he’s, ⁓ you know, there’s this shame, there’s a curse. And we are just basically repeating Genesis three. There’s, you know, wine and fruit, there’s disobedience, there’s nakedness, nakedness, there’s shame, hiding, curse, you know, it’s all there. And we’re just like, ⁓ no, you know, I thought there was going to be this preservation of righteousness, like they were going to be encapsulated in this arc, like,

Lindsay Schott (36:15) This is

Shannon Popkin (36:34) Goodness was going be preserved, rising above all the evil. No, what’s happening in this story is not righteousness being elevated over unrighteousness. What’s happening is mercy is being elevated over his judgment. This is a man who walks with God and is receiving God’s mercy.

Lindsay Schott (36:58) Right. even here you see sort of like, you know, when the Bible says he was a righteous man, blameless, ⁓ we start to think he’s obviously been righteous and blameless, even though in a few chapters he’s about to really blow it. ⁓ That God’s like, here’s what actually mattered about Noah. He walked with me. And even like in some of the names that are mentioned in that genealogy before it was like, you know, Enoch, Enoch just walked with God. That’s…

That’s the statement. And so what matters here with these characters is who had faith in the Almighty, who walked with him, who knew him, who believed him. And in God’s mind, that’s actually, that’s blameless. That’s righteous. Cause same with Abraham, right? Abraham messes up a lot. He’s called a man of righteousness that is based in faith, which is what Paul will revisit later, that God is setting out.

Shannon Popkin (37:34) Yeah, yeah.

yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (37:55) What matters to me right now when I’m looking down is who is walking with me. Who knows me? Who cares about me? And my perspective of what the world looks like.

Shannon Popkin (38:06) So what are the false narratives that this story corrects?

Lindsay Schott (38:11) I think this corrects ⁓ who is God to judge the world. It just reiterates the creator of the whole world. It also corrects the narrative that’s like, he’s distant, uncaring, won’t act. That’s not true at all. He knows everything that’s going on in the actions and the intent, like the motive of the human heart. God is well aware he is not distant.

Shannon Popkin (38:30) Yeah. Nope.

Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (38:41) He is not unaware and it’s not that he won’t take action either. So any narrative of God being distant, detached, hands off is absolutely not true here, which can actually be kind of comforting that that’s not true. And it also kicks against a narrative that if God is judge the way that he’s judged. So there could be a narrative that’s like God’s an uncaring judge, untrue. He was grieved, deeply grieved to his heart.

Shannon Popkin (39:05) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Lindsay Schott (39:11) grieved and sad as he judges. So it’s not a cold, calculated, unfeeling judgment. There is grief and mourning.

Shannon Popkin (39:18) Well,

or an angry, impetuous, like, just going to wipe them out. Like this, there’s a timeline here in his grief. He waited and, know, I mean, probably took 70 some years or more to build this arc. I’ve heard different things. And so all that time, evil is still spreading. And so God was not impetuous. He didn’t just get angry. He’s grieving this whole time and ⁓ wanting.

providing a way to show his mercy.

Lindsay Schott (39:50) I think too, we kind of mentioned it, but it’s maybe a little indirect, but the lie that we can create a life and create human thriving and create a humanity without God and outside of God that’s going to do well, that’s going to thrive and be great. It’s like, probably not. You can’t.

Shannon Popkin (40:05) Yes, yeah, we can’t.

And so to counteract that, what we need to do is walk with God, because walking with God is learning his ways. His law, it’s not like we think we have such a negative impression of law, but law was for the Hebrew mindset, this was like life and flourishing. This is the way to work with creation and to have a human flourishing. The law provided for that.

And it’s a gift to us. that’s walking with God is knowing Him, knowing the law flows from Him. It’s who He is. And so this is how we can’t do that on our own. You know, a society built around anything but God and His laws and His ways, you’re exactly right. It’s just going to diminish.

Lindsay Schott (40:52) Yeah, human thriving won’t go well. It won’t do good. ⁓ I think narratives for us, like you had just said it, that God’s mercy and justice is all mingled in this. like, it’s not like this time he worked in justice and then that time he worked in mercy. But justice and his mercy are one movement in God that he isn’t

Shannon Popkin (40:54) Yep.

Lindsay Schott (41:17) compartmentalized in the thing that he’s doing, because right in the moment that he declares, like, I am now going to bring judgment, is the moment we hear about Noah, who is the way of, ⁓ he’s a metaphor for escape, the ark is a metaphor for also for escape from judgment, and the world will start over with Noah. And so in the same, in the same ⁓ breath, God is justice and mercy happening in at the same time. And all of his works are full of both.

that he is both, not just, sometimes he’s wrathful and sometimes he’s merciful and we don’t know why and when he chooses either, he’s always both.

Shannon Popkin (41:56) That’s so good. And do you see that too in the way that he will judge the world, the final judgment?

Lindsay Schott (42:02) Hmm.

Yeah, mean, some like the the articulation we see in the New Testament of justice and mercy happening at the same time as Jesus on the cross, right? Justice is poured out on sin. ⁓ It kills someone who’s innocent. It’s a total tragedy. And yet this is the moment that now opens the way for people to be saved and reconciled to God. Right. This horrible injustice, ⁓ judgment against sin is also the

the reason we have mercy from God. And so similarly, when God comes in judgment again, whenever that is, He is already saying, I have offered a way out of judgment. the terms of the agreement are absurdly in our favor. The terms of escaping His judgment are believe in the one He sent, believe in the Son that He sent.

Shannon Popkin (42:50) Yes.

Lindsay Schott (42:57) believe that that son has lived in your place, died in your place, and now you get the favor of God, the way that Noah had favor with God. You now have favor with God because of what Jesus earned, and you don’t earn it. But you’ve got to surrender your rights to yourself, which you don’t, you know, I want my rights to myself, and yet I don’t even love myself right, right? We talk about loving ourselves. It’s so sad because it’s like, what’s sad about that message is we can’t even love ourselves right. Like, I can’t even love myself

Shannon Popkin (43:09) Mm-hmm, wow.

huh. Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (43:27) And so

it’s like, obviously need someone else to love me right. Because I can’t. And then God’s offering it in Jesus. And so when judgment comes, similar with Noah, God’s judgment of all things will be a ⁓ right judgment against grotesque sin and a right judgment against violence and victimization and all human suffering.

Shannon Popkin (43:31) Yeah, you need outside help. You need outside help, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (43:52) I actually just recently listened to this quote, so it’s not mine. I got to give credit where credit’s due. It’s Keller. But he’s saying, Jesus came so that in the end, when God judges all sin and makes an end to all suffering, that he can end all sin and all suffering without having to also end us.

Shannon Popkin (44:11) That’s really good. That’s so good. Well, we’re going to have you back and talk about all those things with ⁓ another episode on Jesus and the cross and all of the implications for judgment and mercy in that scene.

Lindsay Schott (44:14) That’s the mercy we offered.

Thank you.

Shannon Popkin (44:26) But how do we take that idea that God is both a God who is the judge, like this was right for him to respond in the flood? How do we respond to that and live like it’s true?

Lindsay Schott (44:31) Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I think one thing we can do, and it’s so simple, is I think God is still so patient that when we read this and we are offended, to go to Him, tell Him that, and say, teach me to trust you. On some level, it’s admitting, He knows more than me. He knows more than me. He’s wiser than I am. And trusting Him at His word that if God really is

Shannon Popkin (45:03) Yeah.

Lindsay Schott (45:12) slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness. If that’s reality, the Bible says it is, then that means if a God who’s slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness was pushed to this moment, he did it right. Like he wasn’t suddenly pushed, it was totally elicited and it was right, But it leads to trust him and to admit, I am not the source of justice or wisdom or righteousness. He is.

Shannon Popkin (45:26) Right, yes. Yes.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, if it, I think what you’re getting at is if it says that he was deeply grieved, then that means it was deeply grievous. It was like, he does not overreact. He is the, he exacts justice correctly. He sees good and evil in the way that we’re flawed, we don’t. And so yeah, we can trust him with that.

Lindsay Schott (46:02) Yeah, I think sometimes we live a little bit like ⁓ I’m not that bad. It’s not that bad. I’m not that bad. But also God’s not that good. Like if you think about think about a person who is the most kind, patient, loving person you’ve ever experienced where you go, wow. ⁓ Imagine pushing that person to looking at you and being like, I’m done with you.

Shannon Popkin (46:09) Yeah.

Hmm.

Lindsay Schott (46:30) It’s more like that. It’s like God is so kind and so patient and so good and so for us that even that all of our selfish sin is even more grievous because he is so patient, kind, good and wonderful that all of our ugliness looks even by comparison even more ugly. But we kind of live with this. He’s not that good and I’m not that bad. And it’s like it’s significantly much worse than you thought. Really is so good. We are that bad.

Shannon Popkin (46:49) Yeah.

Yeah, the dichotomy is even wider than we ever imagined. And so yeah, like when we look at the story of the flood, we might think these people weren’t that bad, but we can’t trust ourselves to know that. And the fact that God was pushed to this extreme response, ⁓ it shows just how bad it was, but how good he is. That heat, yeah, the difference. I love that. Thank you so much, Lindsay.

Lindsay Schott (47:21) Yeah.

Shannon Popkin (47:27) This has been such a rich conversation as I knew it would be. Thank you for coming back.

Lindsay Schott (47:31) Yes, I love

you. I love Tiger Shannon. We’re gonna talk again. can’t wait.

Shannon Popkin (47:35) Me too.