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Editor’s Note: We continue our series of blogs for those who are reading the Bible with us cover-to-cover this year. Interspersed with our thoughts on our daily reading, we want to provide some tips about reading the Bible in general. Today we want to move on into …
As we examine the next segment of this route, we first must focus our attention upon the events that occur between the end of the book of Genesis and the beginning of the book of Exodus. Approximately 270 years pass between the end of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus.
By the time we start the book of Exodus, things are not going well in Egypt for the Israelites. The new Kings, called Pharaohs, have placed the Jews into slavery, (Exodus 1.6-14). They have become the manual labor for the ambitious public works projects the Pharaoh’s are now able to build. When we arrive in Exodus, things are bleak.
The children of Israel need to be delivered from their bondage. God sees their plight, and he sends a deliverer, a man named Moses.
Moses is born in a time when the Pharaoh has decreed that all male children born to Hebrew women were to be killed on the spot by the midwife helping in the delivery. (Exodus 1.15-17) However, the Hebrew midwives disobeyed the order of the King and kept Moses alive. (Exodus 2.2) When Moses becomes three months old, he is too difficult to conceal and so a radical plan is devised. In accordance with the King’s command in Exodus 1.22 that “every son who is born you shall cast into the river,” Moses is placed into a small waterproofed basket (called an “ark” in some versions) and set adrift on the Nile River.
Moses’ sister, Miriam, watches as the ark floats down the river and comes to rest where the daughter of Pharaoh is bathing. (Exodus 2.5-6) The child touches her heart, and Miriam is immediately present to provide her with a “nursemaid” for the child. Since Pharaoh’s daughter desires to keep the child, Moses is nursed by his own mother, and then trained in Pharaoh’s house as the King’s own son! (Exodus 2.7-10)
Moses grows until, at age 40, he is confronted by the terrible conditions of his own people, the Jews. He intervenes and kills the Egyptian who is beating a Hebrew man. (Exodus 2.11-12) The next day, in the course of his work, he tries to intervene between two Hebrews who are fighting. They confront him and tell him they know of the murder from the day before. When Pharaoh hears of the murder, he seeks to put Moses to death. Unwanted by the Hebrews, and wanted for murder by the King, Moses flees Egypt. The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews comments on this event by saying:
Hebrews 11:24-27
By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
He flees to the land of Midian, located on the northeastern side of the Gulf of Aqaba, the right “finger” of the Red Sea. Moses travels a distance of over 120 miles, over the worst desert conditions. When he arrives in Midian, Moses befriends himself to the local priest by rescuing his seven shepherdess daughters. (Exodus 2.16-25) Eventually Moses marries Zipporah, one of the daughters of this priest named Jethro, and has two sons by her.
Over the course of the next 40 years, Moses is content to forget his past and enjoy his present with his family. But as time passes, things grow worse in Egypt and the children of Israel cry out to God for deliverance. (Exodus 2.23-25)
When God sends a deliverer, he prepares that person for years in advance of the task that will be required of him. So, too, is the case of Moses.
He will need these skills to rescue and bring the children of Israel to their “promised land” in Canaan, which is present day Israel.
Please note that Moses did not want the job of deliverer! As you travel through this portion of the journey, never forget Moses has no ambitions of being a judge or a leader of anything more than a flock of sheep in Midian. God calls Moses to become the deliverer of Israel through the supernatural event of the burning bush. (Exodus 3.1-10) But Moses objects to the role on the following five grounds:
The matter now decided, Moses reluctantly goes to Egypt with Aaron his brother, his wife, Zipporah, and their two sons.
It is our hope that this background information helps a bit as you read on in the Bible. We will continue this series with our next installment: “The Ten Plagues Upon Egypt” on Tuesday.
You can obtain more help from the FREE Bible reading schedule on our resource page. In His Image is a daily devotional that also follows our reading schedule and expresses the Biblical truth: “God Created You to Love You.” You can find this resource on the side bar of our website.
Editor’s Note: We continue our series of blogs for those who are reading the Bible with us cover-to-cover this year. Interspersed with our thoughts on our daily reading, we want to provide some tips about reading the Bible in general. Today we want to review what we have covered so far in Genesis …
When Melodee and I traveled to Hawaii, our desire was to make sure we got the most of out of our days that is of personal interest to us. With that in mind, we set out a framework of what we wanted to accomplish on the first day or so on. This became the foundation of what we did with the rest of our time.
So, too, it is with our journey through the Bible. Our first book laid out a great deal of foundation for the rest of our journey, so we want to be careful we mapped it out first. As a result, this blog is a review of what we have found so far in reading the first book of the Bible, Genesis.
By way of review, we have noted that we are traveling on:
It is our hope that this background information helps a bit as you read on in the Bible. We will continue this series with our next installment: “The Book of Exodus” on Sunday.
You can obtain more help from the FREE Bible reading schedule on our resource page. In His Image is a daily devotional that also follows our reading schedule and expresses the Biblical truth: “God Created You to Love You.” You can find this resource on the side bar of our website.
Editor’s Note: We continue our series of blogs for those who are reading the Bible with us cover-to-cover this year. Interspersed with our thoughts on our daily reading, we want to provide some tips about reading the Bible in general. Today we want to acknowledge …
One of the sections of our travel guide to Hawaii fascinated me. It was the section explaining how Hawaiians give directions. They don’t use the terms north, south, east or west. Instead they have invented words that mean these things, but are meaningless to those who do not live on the island.
Often in our journey through the Bible we will come across many different kinds of problems in understanding what the locals mean.
· Their directions may use terms we do not understand.
· Their answers may include names or locations we can no longer find.
· Their retelling of an event may fail to include details we find essential to our understanding.
· Their phrases may be meaningless to us, because of the culture or everyday common knowledge from when the phrase was used. Unfortunately for us, that “common knowledge” has been lost over time.
Do not fear. That is what these blogs will help you with. They will explain the important directional information, or show you where to get more help if you are interested in deeper study.
It is our hope that this background information helps a bit as you read on in the Bible. We will continue this series with our next installment: “The Book of Genesis Review” on Friday.
You can obtain more help from the FREE Bible reading schedule on our resource page. In His Image is a daily devotional that also follows our reading schedule and expresses the Biblical truth: “God Created You to Love You.” You can find this resource on the side bar of our website.
Editor’s Note: We continue our series of blogs for those who are reading the Bible with us cover-to-cover this year. Interspersed with our thoughts on our daily reading, we want to provide some tips about reading the Bible in general. Today we want to acknowledge …
When it comes to journeying through the Bible, we are rewarded with sites and sounds few travelers can’t even begin to imagine. When it comes to culture, we will experience:
We will see this splendor of Egypt and its highest points, and we will experience the wanderings in the midst of a barren desert by the people of God. From the splendor of the Palace, to the smell of a manger, we will experience sites and sounds exactly where people lived, hoped, dreamed, and died.
All through out our journey, you will be reminded that despite the differences, people are basically people everywhere you go. Cultures will be different, but people will be similar. This makes our comprehension of what we are reading much easier!
During our travels through the Old and New Testaments, we will experience the following different types of people:
Along the way we will see others, each with their own customs, manners, government and laws. When important, or applicable, will explain and clarify. We will also provide additional resources for those who desire to learn more.
It is our hope that this background information helps a bit as you read on in the Bible. We will continue this series with our next installment: “The Difficulty of First Hand Directions” on Thursday.
You can obtain more help from the FREE Bible reading schedule on our resource page. In His Image is a daily devotional that also follows our reading schedule and expresses the Biblical truth: “God Created You to Love You.” You can find this resource on the side bar of our website.
by Dr. Matthew Lee Smith
Executive Director of EaglesInLeadership.org
Author of “Growing Missional Leaders”
A few days ago I was reading blogs and e-notices about blogs when one passed by quickly. Some guy was holding a seminar on helping our urban centers. As one who has invested over a decade to growing an urban, Hispanic church to health and growth, I believe this is a great mission.
As I thought about what such a seminar would include, I thought of these three keys:
If you are going to make an impact in an urban center, you will need to …
1. Live there.
Jesus is our model here: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14, Msg) If we are going to help our urban centers, we have to live and rub shoulders with those people on a daily basis.
2. Love there.
Love is built on trust. Trust is built when we sacrificially help others in need – we give of what we have to help those who do not have. Again, we have urban precedent for this from the Early Church: “And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. ” (Acts 2:44–45, ESV) If we want to love, we have to be close enough to give when there is need.
3. Lead there.
People follow real leaders – people who posses a walk that matches their talk. My experience tells me that this is truer in the city than anywhere else I have served. “Street sense” locks on like speed trap radar. When you are real, you will be followed. This is essential to accomplish the mission of Jesus: “Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!”” (Matthew 4:19, NLT) As we reproduce men and women, we grow the Kingdom of God in the City.
Helping our urban centers will mean moving into them, sacrificing our lives and leading them to Jesus. Will you be the next one to help?
Editor’s Note: We continue our series of blogs for those who are reading the Bible with us cover-to-cover this year. Interspersed with our thoughts on our daily reading, we want to provide some tips about reading the Bible in general. Today we want to focus on how …
In this section, God will change Jacob’s name to Israel. Israel (Jacob) is then the blood father and namesake of the nation that will forever after carry his name. Watch for these items as we pass quickly through on this portion of our trip through the first five books:
· Jacob swindles Esau’s birthright. (25) The birthright was the legal status of the firstborn son to obtain a double portion of the family inheritance.
· Jacob’s stealing of Isaac’s blessing. (27) The blessing Isaac gave was his solemn word to his son, albeit to Jacob instead of Esau. This blessing invoked God’s presence and power to work upon those whom they were uttered to.
· Jacob’s promise to God at Bethel. (28) Jacob promises to follow God fully and give him 10% of all his increase, should God prosper him.
· Jacob’s progeny from his wives (Leah and Rachel) and his wives’ maids (Bilhah and Zilpah) in the East. (29-30) Although this is a bizarre story by any accounting, Jacob fathers 11 sons while in the East, working for his uncle Laban.
· Jacob’s wrestling with God at Peniel, and God changing his name forever to Israel. (32) This is a pivot point in the life of Jacob, as he realizes his long-term significance and purpose in God’s plan.
Joseph is the eleventh child of Jacob’s and the second and last-born to Rachel. Yet, in many ways, he is the most critical. It is this child whom God uses greatly to enlarge and protect the children of Israel (Jacob) during a seven-year famine in the Middle East. Watch for these key points along the way:
· Joseph has dreams about his future greatness, which are not appreciated by anyone in his family. (37)
· Joseph is sold into slavery by his own brothers and is transported to Egypt where he becomes a house slave to a high military official. (37, 39)
· Joseph is sent to prison because he has been falsely accused. While there, he is able to accurately interpret dreams for two of the king of Egypt’s key officials. (40)
· Joseph is summoned to the King of Egypt (Pharaoh), because of his ability to interpret dreams. (41)
· Joseph is appointed as the second ruler of Egypt to initiate the plans he has described to Pharaoh in preparation for the seven famine years approaching the Middle East. (41)
· Joseph’s family settles in the land of Egypt and escapes the famine that has fallen upon the Middle East. (42-47)
· Joseph’s first two sons are counted as Jacob’s, filling the number of family lines in Jacob (Israel) to twelve, later called the twelve tribes of Israel. (48-49)
It is our hope that this background information helps a bit as you read on in the Bible. We will continue this series with our next installment: “The Differences of Cultures” on Wednesday.
You can obtain more help from the FREE Bible reading schedule on our resource page. In His Image is a daily devotional that also follows our reading schedule and expresses the Biblical truth: “God Created You to Love You.” You can find this resource on the side bar of our website.
Editor’s Note: We continue our series of blogs for those who are reading the Bible with us cover-to-cover this year. Today we discover that …
Isaac Continues The Next Generation Of Faith (Genesis 21-28)
From Abraham came his full-blooded son Isaac. From Isaac comes his full-blooded son, Jacob. Isaac’s main purpose in this section is to preserve and continue the family line. Watch for these key events in his life story as we pass through:
We will continue this series with our next installment: “Jacob and Joseph” on Sunday.
You can obtain more help from the FREE Bible reading schedule on our resource page. In His Image is a daily devotional that also follows our reading schedule and expresses the Biblical truth: “God Created You to Love You.” You can find this resource on the side bar of our website.
Editor’s Note: We continue our series of blogs for those who are reading the Bible with us cover-to-cover this year. Interspersed with our thoughts on our daily reading, we want to provide some tips about reading the Bible in general. Today we want to acknowledge …
The Difficulty of Time Zones
Every traveler knows the difficulty of time zones. Your body clock struggles to catch its natural rhythm after having traveled a great distance. So too, when we journey through the Bible, we have difficulty catching up with its time. There are two major problems in our journey. The first problem is that of the time that has passed; the second problem is that of time that is covered.
Time Has Passed
In our journey through the Bible, we’re looking at the historical records of fellow travelers. Some of these travelers existed centuries, even millennia ago. Reading their accounts is like reading their diaries! Some wrote with the intention of making an historical record. Others simply lived their experiences, and later they were written down to explain events in the past. So when we come along a specific passage in the Bible, we struggle from not knowing all of the information the original writer experienced.
We will continue to provide simple tools (information guides) that will explain what is happening as we encounter the past. Some of this will be covered when we look at culture, some of this will be looked at when we deal with history. In all of our journeys, we will make the trip as clear and crisp as possible, without burdening you with unnecessary information and details.
Time Covered
Imagine taking a long trip. You leave your home in the summer, but you do not to return until the following spring. When you get home and develop your pictures you find that you cannot remember all the facts clearly. The reason for this simple: you saw too much over too much time.
The Bible claims to cover all of time. It begins in the book of Genesis with the creation of the universe, and it ends in the book of Revelation with the future culmination of history. This broad and vast amount of time, as we will see, can either be a difficulty or a benefit.
Just as in any trip, an itinerary is necessary. So too, in our journey with the Bible an itinerary is valuable. We will use the amount of time as a benefit. We will begin by examining our entire trip at a glance. Then, like our trip to Hawaii, we will break the journey into smaller pieces. For our trip to Hawaii, we used a day-by-day itinerary. For our trip through the Bible, we will use a period-by-period, and book-by-book itinerary which we will talk about from time-to-time.
The Difficulty of Languages
The experienced traveler understands that, when taking a trip outside of one’s country, very few people will speak their language. And even those who do speak their language will speak it poorly. When we come to our journey through the Bible, it is important that we understand the basic languages in use.
Old Testament – Hebrew
Much of the Old Testament is written in the Hebrew language. This is the language of the Jewish peoples. Hebrew is written from right to left and top to bottom on the page. The language contains no vowels, only consonants. As such, from time-to-time, words that are different in pronunciation are written identically on paper. It then becomes the work of the translator to look at that context of the passage to determine the exact word in use. Hebrew is a pictorial and poetic language.
Old Testament – Aramaic
A small portion of the Old Testament is written in the Aramaic language. Aramaic was the language spoken by the people known as the Aramaeans. There are a few portions of the Old Testament that contain this language in written form. The Assyrians used this language extensively. When the Assyrians conquered Israel and deported the royal families, among whom Daniel was a part, the language they spoke was Aramaic. Daniel wrote some portions of his book in Aramaic, formerly known as Chadean in the King James Version of the Bible.
New Testament – Greek
All of the New Testament is written in the Greek language. Upon the conquest of the Mediterranean basin by Alexander the Great, those countries that were conquered adopted the Greek language.
The Greek of the New Testament is the language which was commonly used in the Greek speaking world from the time of Alexander the Great to about A.D. 500. For this reason it is called koine or common Greek in distinction from the classical Greek of the world of letters. God’s written revelation of his Son was given in the language of the people. It was the logical medium for this revelation because it is the most expressive language known to man.[1]
The use of Greek in the New Testament makes this study very rewarding, as we will see when we study the New Testament.
It is our hope that this background information helps a bit as you read on in the Bible. We will continue this series with our next installment: “Isaac Continues the Next Generation” on Friday.
You can obtain more help from the FREE Bible reading schedule on our resource page. In His Image is a daily devotional that also follows our reading schedule and expresses the Biblical truth: “God Created You to Love You.” You can find this resource on the side bar of our website.
Today we welcome Dr. Tom Cocklereece who serves as pastor of Shady Grove Baptist Church in Marietta, GA and as CEO of RENOVA Coaching and Consulting LLC providing values-based transformational ministry, leadership, executive, marriage, and life coaching.
Tom is a leadership and church organizational development specialist having served as pastor of three churches in 20 years as well as in various leadership positions. His doctorate focused on church health and doctrinal integrity, developing a tool for measuring the doctrinal health of churches.
He is the creator of Simple Discipleship and author of Simple Discipleship: A Process for Making Disciples published by Church Smart Resources in 2009. Tom works with churches to implement this new paradigm for disciple-making churches.
You can learn more about Tom and his ministry here.
You can purchase Simple Discipleship here.
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Hope Enabler is the real-life story of one Christian parent’s struggle with a runaway child and the hope that God enabled her to have during the darkest moments of that struggle.
