On holiday in Bristol last week, we went to see Brunel’s ship, ss Great Britain.
SS Great Britain was an advanced passenger steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Steamship Company’s transatlantic service between Bristol and New York. While other ships had previously been built of iron or equipped with a screw propeller, Great Britain was the first to combine these features in a large ocean-going ship. 98 metres long (322 feet) with a beam measuring 15.39 metres, the ship had an average speed of 10 to 11 knots and could carry over 300 passengers (later increasing this number to over 700) and 1,200 tons of cargo. The ship is now permanently in dry dock in Bristol, having been brought back from the Falkland Islands in 1970, and it was amazing to be able to tour it, looking at where all the cargo was stored and seeing how the first class passengers lived in style!
This triumph of engineering cannot compare, however, with the boat Stephen talked about on Sunday morning: Noah’s ark. God commanded Noah to build an ark 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high (Genesis 6:15), with lower, middle and upper decks. There would have been plenty of cargo on the ark, and certainly even more animals than were carried on ss Great Britain! Perhaps even more amazing than the actual construction of the ark, though, was the character of the man building it. Noah was courageous, God-fearing, righteous, faithful and obedient, doing what God said even though the idea must have seemed crazy at the time! “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.” (Hebrews 11:7)
Noah shows us how we should live to please God. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him, so may we all have the faith, courage, perseverance and steadfastness of Noah.