Another post quoting Alec Motyer (paid link) on Exodus. His introduction is extremely helpful at drawing threads together and helping to make clear how the details of the book go to make up the whole.
Alex Motyer (paid link) is not exaggerating when he describes how important the book of Exodus is in the unfolding story of the whole Bible:
“The point of all this is to underline the importance of Exodus in the Bible. It is as significant a turning point or new beginning as is Matthew at the start of the New Testament. To go no further than recall its revelation of the divine name or its story of the blood of the lamb is at once to give it the same place in the Old Testament that the coming of Jesus and the cross of Calvary hold in the New. It begins the normative Old Testament (and biblical) revelation of God's way of salvation; it underlines the nature of God as holy and of humankind as sinners; it explains the meaning of blood and sacrifice; it is a book of the grace which reaches down from heaven and of the law which teaches redeemed sinners to live in heavenly terms. While some of these great biblical truths are foreshadowed in Genesis, Exodus pulls them all together, giving them a shape and definition that the rest of the Bible will not alter. Under the simplest of forms, and by many a fascinating story, Exodus reveals fundamental truth and is, in fact, one of the Bible's great building blocks.” (page 23)
Alec Motyer wrote this very helpful paragraph in his commentary on Exodus (paid link).
Re-reading Exodus 1:1-7:7 a few times in preparation for next Sunday's sermon, I have been struck again by just how well-crafted the book of Exodus is.
Here are a handful of details that I observed in those chapters, that are reproduced here in the hope that they might intrigue a few people to read the book of Exodus again. What, I think, we need is to read the whole book (because it functions and speaks to us as a whole), but to combine that with close attention to the details.
A few quotations from Douglas Moo's Commentary on the book of James to fill in a bit more background to the material we looked at during Kemsing's Useful! service on the second half of James 2.
Why not join me in being built up by reading Peter Leithart's exhortation on Paul's instruction to rejoice in the Lord always. Always? Yes - always. …
“The shepherds are often characterised as representing the ‘downtrodden and despised’ of society, so that the first proclamation of the gospel is said to have come to sinners. … There are two problems with reading the shepherds as symbols of the hated. First the rabbinic evidence is late, coming from the fifth century. More importantly, shepherd motifs in the Bible are mostly positive. … Thus, the presence of the shepherds is not a negative point. Rather, they picture the lowly and humble who respond to God’s message.” (page 214)
G B Caird is helpful, as ever, in his comments on Luke's account of the birth of Jesus:
I'm greatly enjoying spending some time in Paul's letter to the Philippians, in preparation for the first of our new quarterly combined services. The two churches (Kemsing and Woodlands) will come together for a shared Communion service 4 times a year. I am really looking forward to the occasion. In many respects, the two churches are very different. However the riches we share in Christ are many, and this quarterly celebration will be the chance to rejoice in that and to commit afresh to serving together in holding out the word of Christ. For that reason, we will be looking at the letter of Philippians when we get together in this way, and that starts this coming Sunday.
As I've been looking at Philippians, I've discovered just what a fine commentary Peter O'Brien's one is.
At the end of his introduction, he has a section on the purpose of the letter. He shows how Paul's purpose in writing develops in 4 ways, and then sums up what he has said in a single paragraph (page 38):
Wayne Grudem is very helpful in his Systematic Theology on what we mean when we refer to "the word of God".
He points out on pages 47-48 that "the word of God" can refer, in Scripture, to the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It can also refer to God's speech in 4 forms: 1. His decrees; 2. His words of personal address; 3. His speech through human lips, and 4. His words in written form, for us the Bible.
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