God’s people are being forced to think about practical problems that comes with being a nation not just in the form of providing for sustenance, but also dealing with the problem of their hearts. A young nation also has to deal with warring nations (last week). In Exo 18, their evolution from a ragtag group of refugees to a travelling band of migrants, they’ll have to deal with leadership issues.
As cheesy Tumblr pages dutifully inform us: “We all have our battles to fight.”
But what are you fighting for? As you toggle between the different roles you play and stages you run through, the question is the same - who are you fighting, and what are you fighting for?
In Exo 16, God has just provided for them through the daily bread, and in the previous chapters, the people have been grumbling not once, but twice. Once with water, and another time for food. They disobeyed God in their food gathering, but God still continued to provide for them. They are experiencing daily miracles. In this passage, we will read of an Israel that still continue to doubt God and testing Him with the question “God, will you provide for our needs?”
Throughout Exodus, we’ve seen how God’s goal for Israel is to see His glory. God’s primary goal for us is to know Him and to be His people. The goal is not just to be saved. Saving us is a means to an ends – to be His. John 17:3 tells us that eternal life is that the people know Him as the only true God. God saved His people from Egypt not just to free them, but so that they may know who He is. As we continue reading about the people of God after the Exodus, we’ll read of how God makes Himself known to His people.
Do you often find yourself being discontent? Our heavy use of social media does not help this. Instagram has just been named as the worst social media for the mental health of young people: it is heavily associated with high levels of anxiety and depression. How does God provide for his people amidst their discontentment? What does God have to tell you when you see others around you getting a work promotion, starting a family, earning more qualifications, driving bigger cars, and moving into even bigger houses? In today’s passage, God teaches his people, the Israelites, a lesson on who he is, and why that matters for their contentment.
God leads his people through many seasons in life, sometimes to difficult times and circumstances, and others in times of joy and abundance. Here, God teaches his people to depend on him as their healer, as the one who makes them whole. Are you ready to follow the LORD through all times? Are you ready to be transformed by God to become more like Jesus?
Today’s passage looks at how God deals with a people whom he has just saved, and their complaining. Read on to find out more!
We are going to walk through Scripture to construct a spine to understand the person of the Holy Spirit and to apply it to truths. The big idea in this study is that the Holy Spirit is God, worthy of worship and praise, and He intends for us to experience Him clearly. We will anchor our study in John 14-16 because Jesus lays out what we need to know about the Spirit.
In this study, we’ll look at the doctrine of inerrancy which actually runs throughout the Bible. This doctrine basically answers the question of whether or not the Bible that we have is trustworthy, whether it is wrong or inaccurate on certain things, and how then should we read the Bible. In this first part, we’ll examine the biblical basis for inerrancy.
In the first part, we read about the biblical basis for inerrancy. Now, we’ll unpack more about what inerrancy means and its implications.
Gender. It's an incredibly important and hot topic these days, mostly because the issues are so weighty and so personal at the same time. Few issues go to the heart of our humanity and personhood like this one. Thus, we should be careful at all times, to speak of these matters with great care and love, ever conscious of the dignity of human persons. This is core for Christians in every context. Gender and sexuality are sacred issues for us and we must not be careless. Thus, for us, instead of tackling each of the specific issues individually, we're going to start first looking at the character of God, and the nature of humanity He designed. In order to develop shared ground to speak of, we should not start from our experiences, which are varied, and expectations, which could come from different sources. Our controlling mechanism must begin with who God is, and who we are as human beings, so let’s start from there.
What is the church? Christians often describe the church as a gathering. Yet, there is a lot of confusion about what the church is. In our world today, there is no end to Christian gatherings – small groups like these or our parachurch ministries on campus or our cell group in our church made up of people that are of a similar demographic to us. Today, we hope to study the Bible and see how God intended for His church to be.
What do you sing for? We sing songs in church, but often forget to think about why we sing the things we do. In today’s passage, we read of Moses and Miriam’s song. This isn’t just another song about how a lover feels for his or her beloved. This is a song that expresses gratitude and affection for salvation!
Exodus is all about God’s glory, His glory in saving His people and defeating their enemies. He reveals His glory to His people and to their enemies. God wants His people to remember and trust this. God also wanted them to remember His deliverance. When God’s people forget and fail to remember who God is and what He has done, sin comes in and distorts their relationship with God. Exodus also gives us the framework to fully grasp the full extent of Christ’s completed work on the cross and shows us ourselves, our helplessness and how God acts.
Do you struggle with trusting God today? Have you doubted his goodness in your life, his wisdom in your struggles? Have you wondered why did God let this happen to me? Our struggles are real, and they do hurt, and many times, we are left questioning where is God, what can he be doing in this circumstance. Today’s passage seeks to assure us of God’s commitment to his people.
The Passover was instituted by God for His people. This is some sort of a routine, and we realise here that routines are revelatory. Routines reveal things about the people doing the routine, as well as the entity that enforces the routine. In a similar way, the Passover reveals something about the people doing it, as well as the God who gave them these instructions.
Today’s text is special as we will be achieving two goals: a macro-goal that has to do with the structure of Exodus 11-13, and a micro-goal more specific to the text that explains the importance of “the Exodus”. How are chapters 11-13 designed, Why does this event have a special name that control the entire book, and how does it relate to the New Testament?
Today's passage is frankly quite foreign to our time and place. We are aliens coming to this, and to understand, we need to ask ourselves this question: what do God’s people have to value? It is substitution. God’s people were taught before they left that they need to value substitution. It doesn’t just shape Israel, but all gospel believing Christians. The question therefore we all need to have at the back of our minds is: so what?
By this time, we've read of so many plagues. Put yourselves in the shoes of the Israelites. They are a people trapped in slavery. What do you think is their biggest problem? Is it Moses who made their lives worse in Exodus 5:21? They led bitter lives in their slavery (Exodus 1:13-14). Is it Pharaoh who refuses to let them go? These could all be problems, but they pale in comparison to a larger problem: their sin and God’s righteous judgment of it. Today, we see what God does for his people in his terrible judgment of sin.
What is God like? We are used to reading Exodus for the actions, but tonight, as we look at this passage, we’re looking at the details and seeing the God that it describes. Be like the man in Ps 1 – meditate on the Lord that you may bear fruit.
Our study in Exodus continues in the plagues, and in this study, we'll take a look at plagues 7-9. Those of us that grew up in church might have read this passage or heard it retold many times. But what does it really mean? If plagues 7-9 are understood biblically, they are reasons to be scared and for us to tremble. Have you ever considered how the plagues are scary, and that God is actually scary? Let's keep that in mind as we slowly unpack the meaning and significance of the plagues.
