The story of Noah's Ark in Genesis Chapter 6 is one of the most famous stories of all time. What's it really about? In the story, Noah represents a church - not a building with a steeple - but a group of people with a set of spiritual beliefs and practices. It's basically a good church, and the people in it are open to spiritual influx from God.

When God tells Noah to build an ark, the inner meaning is that God is telling the people of this church to get ready to protect the good loves and true ideas of their way of life, because a flood of evil and falsity will otherwise sweep them away.

By doing this, Noah, his children, and their descendants form the nucleus of a new church - what Swedenborg terms the Ancient Church, which kept a spiritual church alive on earth. This Ancient Church spread across much of the world, and there are many traces of its influence, even today. For example, the flood myth is common in many cultures, and the names given to God - Zeus Pater in Greek, Jupiter in Latin, Daus Peter in the Rig Vedas - are similar across a lot of Eurasia.

The details of the story are important - the ark itself, its construction of gopher wood, the animals and birds, the 40 days and 40 nights of rain and flood, the dove, the olive branch, the rainbow, Noah's three sons. In Arcana Coelestia, these details are explained in depth. The key passages are linked in.

The Noah's Ark story is not only a story about the spiritual history of the human race. There's another layer of meaning, too. It's applicable to our lives. We have to listen to the Lord, even when people might think we're stupid to do so. We need to protect the goods and truths that we have from being swept away. We need to take the steps that are needed to allow a new church - a new spiritual life - be formed in us. We need to emerge from states of temptation and struggle into states of thankfulness and peace.