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OT Overview
We’ll wrap up our OT overview with this study on the prophetic books, the major and minor prophets. These books are so termed not because of their importance, but because of their length. However, before we examine them more closely, it will be good to examine the historical context of these books and their place in the Old Testament, which we surveyed so far in the past few weeks.
When we behold God’s wisdom, we too will have our breath taken away. In this study we’ll dive into how to approach the Wisdom literature, and how studying these books lets us understand and navigate life in a fallen world.
In this session, we carry on with our survey of the Old Testament, looking at the period of exile. The timeline has shifted forward, and the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel are located in this time period. We will see in this overview of the exile that God does plan to restore His kingdom, even by using pagan, non-Jewish kings to accomplish His purposes. And as we approach this study, it will be important to remember that these studies of the Old Testament serve ultimately to reveal how God accomplishes his redemptive purposes in Christ Jesus.
In this second study in our series, we are moving on from the books of Moses to looking at the next set of books — Judges and Kings. These historical books tell us the history of Israel especially 40 years after they left Egypt. Israel’s history shows failure of leaders to rule as God intended, and also tracks Israel’s disobedience. Why is this important for us? The history in these books are our history!
Through this series, we hope to drive home the fact that you do not need a seminary degree to read the Bible. Wait what? Yes, because sometimes in our churches, we talk about the Bible as if the Old Testament were only for seminarians. That is wrong. The OT is for God’s children, and all Christians are His children.
Today, we look at the first 5 books of the Old Testament, also known as the Torah, the Pentateuch, and the books of Moses. Read on to see the big structure and key sections to fill in that structure, so that you would have confidence to fill in everything in-between!
