Viewing entries tagged
Exodus
In today’s study, we’ll continue to unpack Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. The first part of the study will trace the idea of covenant ministry from the perspective of redemptive history. The second half will build on that foundation to work out the practical outcomes.
This is the last study in our Doctrine of Scripture series. We started our series with a speaking God, and we went through some of the attributes of Scripture — sufficient, clear, authoritative and necessary. Then we studied about the Canon of the Bible, how we have the set of books in our bibles today. Last week, we spoke about how Scripture cannot be broken. And we come to this week, where we want to trace the storyline of the Bible, because we know that what God says will come to pass!
In this series, we’re going to focus on why and how we can trust Scripture to be reliable and trustworthy. We’ll examine what Scripture says about itself, but today, we’re going to begin by looking at the God of Scripture. Our goal in this series is not to get more information but to learn about what Christians through the ages have believed about God and His word!
This is the last study in our Lent series, and we will be taking a look at the appearances of Jesus to His disciples following His resurrection.
In this study, we come to the last few verses of the book of Exodus. We can compare this to an epic: one of those long, fantasy stories that stretch for multiple books, like The Lord of the Rings series. Like an epic, the story of Exodus has a scale of the story that eclipses our individual lives, revealing more and more what God is doing in this world.
That’s an important point for us to remember, when we consider the final verses of Exodus. So often, we tend to think that our own lives are the measure by which we see the world. God sees so much more than we do, and in Exodus, He wants to remind us that our lives are not just our own, but we are part of a larger narrative.
As we near the end of our study in Exodus, we come also to the point where the construction of the Tabernacle nears its end.
Through the book of Exodus so far, we’ve seen God rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt (Exo 1-12) and lead them through the wilderness and the Red Sea to the foot of Mt Sinai (Exo 13-19). They were no longer slaves; they were free. Their identity had changed – from slaves to a people belonging to the LORD. But what did that mean? Who were they now, and what would they do with this freedom?
Speaking to Moses on Mt Sinai, God gave the Israelites a pattern for constructing the tabernacle and the priestly garments (Exo 25:9). Eventually, they would bring these with them and settle in the Promised Land. In Exo 39:33-43, they had just finished building the tabernacle and have yet to continue their journey.
It is not usual to do a bible study on records, so today’s passage may be strange to us. However, our conviction is that all of God’s word is useful for teaching, even this record of the tabernacle. Let us thus consider a few things: What can we learn from this? How do we worship?
The way and manner and attitude in which we worship a holy God has everything to do with how we obey. Let us consider how are we obeying as we worship, and what does our worship say about our obedience. If we hear God’s word and we walk away unchanged in actions, then we have wasted our time. We need to know how to apply and obey!
What we hope to see from this section of Scripture is that we can read God’s word and be encouraged by it. We tell our friends that God is faithful, because that is our assurance. When they hear this, they want to know how God is faithful, but sometimes we don’t know how to answer. What we want to do tonight is look at God’s faithfulness in this passage.
These 6 verses in Exo 34:29-35 have value not only in the narrative in Exodus, but in order to fully understand it, we will need to also read a New Testament passage in 2 Cor 3. We need the NT to understand the OT fully, and vice versa. The Bible is to be read as one coherent whole.
When was the last time you were really hurt? How long did you take to forgive this person? In this study, we’re going to see how God responds to being wronged and spurned by a people that He set His affections towards.
If you think back to how you know someone today, you probably remember how you met them in real life or saw them on social media. Back then, how did the Israelites know God?
The text today from Exodus 33 lays out the forces and key dynamics that serve as the DNA of the Bible. We can think about it in terms of our human bodies: if we were to take a sample of tissue, of flesh, of blood, we will see the same DNA within these cells. Similarly, if we dive deep into all parts of the Bible, if we "take the DNA" from all parts of the Scripture, we will see the Gospel. The DNA of the Bible is the Gospel: the Good News.
This passage shows us a rare occasion where the Israelites’ actions are worth our emulation. Remember the context: In Exo 32, Israel was caught doing something they shouldn’t. The golden calf was a problem and in this text, we are going to see why it was a problem, what the consequences of it were, and how His people responded to these consequences.
In the previous passage, God knew about the calf that the Israelites had made and was burning with anger. It’s not an easy passage to read. Yet in Exodus 32:1-15 we also have a beautiful passage of Moses interceding for the people.
We’re back in our series through the book of Exodus, but chapter 32 is a really random place to begin if you’ve never read the previous chapters. The summaries for the rest of the chapters are available on this site, but let us focus on the immediate context.
As we wrap up this section of Exodus, we’re going to consider the Sabbath. To help us, we’re going to think about these 3 questions:
(1) Do we still need to keep the Sabbath today?
(2) What is it for?
(3) What does it mean practically to keep the Sabbath?
This section of Exodus has been talking about instructions for building the temple thus far. In this chapter, we suddenly focus on artists and art in the temple. The goal of this study is to see that God has designed everything for Him to dwell with His people. God’s goal and intention for art and artists is clear, and we want to see what God’s design for us is. It also follows that ff God has laid out so clearly what is our plan for our lives, how then should we respond?
Three themes repeatedly come up in Exodus: salvation, holiness and God’s people. Salvation is shown in how God consistently saves His people, the Israelites, who were led to God after He took them out of slavery in Egypt. This shows us that God’s people have a covenant with Him.
With the benefit of the hindsight we have today, we can see that while the laws were good for people to live in accordance to God, they also pointed to Jesus. This leads us to consider two questions: What is a Christian? What makes a Christian a Christian?
Why do we bathe? For us who live nearby the Equator, we know something of good reason. The people of Exodus lived in a similar climate, but for them, cleanness meant more than just washing with water. For washing is meant to be a picture of our spiritual readiness and purity before God. It is less about how clean we are, and more about what we about to do after we bathe. So what is it that God’s people are being told to be as they prepare to be clean? At one level, we know that the Israelites were being made clean to commune with God. But what does it mean to commune with the God we can neither see nor touch?
