Imagine there was an ancient teaching that could help you navigate the chaos of modern life. It sounds obscure, but hidden within the Bible, Christians point to a pattern of chaos and order that holds tremendous value for your life.
It is an ancient pattern repeated not in just one or two Bible stories—but within the whole biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation.
It makes stories like Noah or Jonah come alive, and, ultimately, it reveals the secret meaning behind one of Jesus’ core choices: why did He choose fisherman to be his disciples?
What begins as a simple pattern in the Bible becomes a profound Christian insight into why the soul should not fear chaos—and even dive into it…
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The Primordial Pattern of Chaos and Life
In the beginning of the Bible, it states that after God made the heavens and the earth, the earth was in a primal state, covered completely in water, and “darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Yet, above these primordial depths fluttered the Spirit of God (Gen 1:1-2).
The story goes on to speak about the creation of the world—but Christians already see a mystery here. God did not need to first create an earth covered in water. He creates ex nihilo or “out of nothing.”
Why create an earth plunged in primordial depths first?
Christians see this as God giving humanity a sign—a powerful narrative of drawing order from disorder, life from death, and beauty from ugliness. God first showed mankind a primeval, chaotic world of darkness and water—and then showed how He could bring forth a beautiful creation.
Christians see this as a pattern written upon the face of reality itself—a pattern of how God moves both in salvation history and in your own life.
Chaos: A Biblical Pattern in the Old Testament
Noah’s ark repeats this ancient pattern. Humanity falls into significant depravity, and God calls forth the primordial waters of Creation to return and retake the earth. It is a new creation narrative. God starts the world again. But notice that once again, out of the death and chaos of the flood, God starts humanity anew with Noah and his family.
Christians call this type of reading, with its signs and symbols, typology. In short, one thing serves a type of another—it is a study or logos of types and signs. It observes patterns throughout all of the Christian Bible.
Understanding water as an ancient symbol for death and chaos completely unlocks the story of Moses. First, as Noah had his ark, Moses had his basket—he was set upon the Nile River as an infant. What should have been his death becomes his salvation—as he was found by the Egyptian princess and raised in the house of Pharaoh. Even his name, Moses, means “to draw out.”
And as Moses was “drawn out” of the Nile River, he too would “draw out” Israel from Egypt. He would deliver them from being slaves and lead them to a Promised Land. Yet, once again water appears as death, as Israel becomes trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the banks of the Red Sea, but God turns what should have been death into life by allowing Moses to part the Red Sea so Israel could safely cross.
Christians also note well the fate of the Egyptians who attempted to cross the Red Sea after Israel but without God—they were swallowed up in a watery death. It is a warning of what happens if the soul attempts to traverse the chaos of this life without God.
There are many examples of water serving as a sign of chaos and death and God pulling salvation from it in the Old Testament. Christians would point to the crossing of Jordan River to enter the Promise Land, the healing of Naaman, and, of course, Jonah being cast into the sea and swallowed by the great fish.
But where things become really interesting is in the New Testament and the ministry of Jesus Christ.
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