My goal in this article is to convince them to preach throughout the book of Exodus. Apparently, there will be about 60 more articles in this series, each of which will advocate for another Bible book. So, people, it’s a win-win. There’s no bad car in the parking lot. That said, Exodus is what sells this item.
Here is my best attempt to summarize this book in one sentence: Exodus proclaims God’s great act to free his people from slavery, present their law, and invite them into intimate communion with themselves. Rescue, mission, communion. Egypt, Sinai, Tabernacle (Ex 1?18; 19?24; 25?40).
- I want to offer you four reasons to preach through Exodus.
- First.
- However.
- A brief warning: so far.
- I have only preached until chapter 13.
- About the first third of the book.
- Therefore.
- My reasons lean towards the initial part of the book.
First, Exodus proclaims the name of God. See in particular Exodus 3: 14-15; 6,2-8; 34. 6-7. In Exodus 3:14-15, God reveals to Moses his personal name, YHWH. The Israelites already knew this name, but they still didn’t know what it meant. They did not yet know the story that the name But when God redeemed them, they knew:
Therefore, say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will take them out of the burdens of Egypt, and deliver them from their bondage, and deliver them with an outstretched arm and with great manifestations of judgment. I will take you for my people and I will be your God; And will you know that I am the Lord, your God, that I will take you out of the burdens of Egypt?(6,6-7).
The exodus is one of the deepest sources of God’s doctrine in all of Scripture. The God proclaimed by exodus is totally holy (3. 5), self-sufficient and sufficient to save (3. 14), perfectly faithful (6. 4), severe in justice (10. 2). ) and abundant in compassion (34,6-7).
Preach in Exodus and bring your people face to face with your incomparable and inexhaustible God.
Second, exodus revolves around God’s promises. Even when exodus begins, with Israel on pilgrimage to Egypt, God keeps His promises (1. 1-7). His people were fruitful and multiplied; He made Abraham a great nation. And the rest of exodus is a great account of how God fulfilled promise after promise (for example, 2. 23-25; 3. 7-10; 3. 12; 6. 4; 12. 40-41; 13. 19).
One of the central challenges of Christian life is the struggle to trust in God’s promises. Few things strengthen and support our faith such as seeing God become ‘I did’.
One of the most devastating and deeply rooted lies in our culture is that of “free you?”That’s enough. We enjoy the freedom of tradition, restriction, laws, limits, obligations, nature. But true freedom always requires “freedom for. ” We are creatures with a purpose, an intrinsic purpose. True freedom lies only in voluntary submission to God.
God did not free Israel from Pharaoh’s slavery, so that they could invent their own identities and design their own ways of life; no, he released them to be his. The exodus was a transfer of ownership from one master to another. it is only in god’s total service that we can find perfect freedom. As Alastair Roberts and Andrew Wilson published in their excellent book Echoes of Exodus, “Those who serve Pharaoh become beasts and perish. Do those who serve the Lord become priests and prosper?? (147).
In the grammar of the exodus, “Let my people go”!It’s not a complete sentence. This sentence almost always ends with: “What good is it for me?(7. 16; 8. 1; 8. 30; 9. 1; 9. 13 etc. ).
Expose empty promises of? The freedom of? And the joy in the “freedom for” we encounter in serving God is one of the most urgent, crucial, and invigorating tasks facing the church today. Therefore, preach in Exodus and show your people that we are saved from slavery. (Ex 14. 1?15. 21), trust (15. 22?18 27), holiness (19. 1?20. 21), justice (20. 22?24. 18) and room with God (25?31). Yes, these are some of my next sermons, how did you find out?
Honestly, I think this reason is probably why a disproportionate number of you, dear readers-preachers, have already preached during exodus, but if you haven’t, go ahead. The exodus is the definitive paradigm of redemption through the Old Testament, later events such as the entry and conquest of the earth summarize it. The Psalms celebrate and reflect on this. Prophets forese a new normalized exodus after it (for example, Is 40:1-11). Crucial Terms of the New Testament such as? They come from Exodus, when God saved His people at the precisely calculated price of one lamb per family (Ex 12:1-13).
The whole plan of salvation of God is formed by the exodus, and all Scripture is formed by the exodus. So if you want virtually infinite opportunities in each sermon to help your people understand the Bible as a complete unit, preach through Exodus.
But you may be thinking, “How? If you have never preached in an Old Testament ledger like exodus before, it may seem intimidating. Your options appear to be large uncontrollable sections of text or an uncontrollable long series. I’m sure what I had planned can be improved, but that’s how I tried to divide that inequality, with eleven sermons throughout the book. This seems to be working so far:
Can some of them, anywhere in the text, be easily divided into several sermons?I’ll leave it to you. However, I hope you will soon include the Book of Exodus in your preaching program.
Two books on the Pentateal that I found useful are: first, The five books of Moses by the Jewish literary scholar Robert Alter, which offers a pure and vivid translation of the entire Pentateal, adding brief comments; and second, John Sailhamer’s Pentateuch as Narrative, which includes compact reviews with an overview of the entire exodus, which generally provide more complete information.
As for Exodus’ other resources, the highest honors in the category are for Andrew Wilson and Alastair Roberts’ new book Echoes of Exodus. Not only does the book come from exodus, but the entire Bible comes to life in a new way. , by Andrew Sach and Richard Aldridge, despite their terribly erroneous title, is actually a compact explanatory commentary on Exodus, which is often revealing. And finally, how to read Tremper Longman Exodus is useful to take a look before delving deeper.