9:18 The sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was peopled. 20 Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. 21 He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said, “Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.” 26 He also said, “Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem; and let Canaan be his slave. 27 May God make space for Japheth, and let him live in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave.”
Genesis 9:18-27
Note: This sermon is part of an ongoing series tracing “The Book of J” strand of Genesis. A link to previous entries in this series can be found at the bottom of each post. Also see the notes at the end for introductory information.
Many of you know that as an undergraduate I attended Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. For
the most part I am proud to be associated with one of our nation’s top liberal arts colleges, but history buffs know that there is at least one major skeleton in Furman’s closet. Furman University is the namesake of Richard Furman (1755-1825), who is arguably the most important Baptist leader in the early 19th century. He began preaching at age 16, and ascended to the pastorate of First Baptist Church in Charleston, a flagship congregation. He was also the first president of the Triennial Convention, the first national body of Baptists in America, founded in 1814, decades before the Southern Baptist Convention was formed in 1845.
As some of you can likely guess, the Southern Baptist Convention was originally formed as an alternative to the Triennial Convention for one main reason — the same reason that many religious denominations split in the mid-19th century and the same reason that our country almost split in two — a controversy over slavery. Many southern churches wanted the Triennial Convention to fund missionaries who taught that the Bible supported slavery. But many abolitionist northern churches did not want to their mission dollars financing pro-slavery missionaries. This controversy led to a schism in which the southern churches broke away from the larger, national body of the Triennial Convention to form the Southern Baptist Convention. Those abolitionist, mostly northern churches who remained became the predecessors of today’s American Baptist Churches, USA.
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