This post is part of a series of posts summarising chapters of the Jehovah Witnesses' booklet, "What does the Bible really Teach?", and seeking to evaluate those chapters against Scripture somewhat briefly. Those posts were introduced at the Introduction, and a contents page will be added to that entry once this run of posts has finished.
Before Christmas, the Jehovah's Witnesses called round. They left me one of their little booklets entitled What does the Bible Really Teach?
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.
I have once had the fortune to take part in a carol service where While Shepherds Watched was sung to the tune of On Ilkla Moor baht 'at. It was a slight novelty: "Did you know that these words can be made to fit to this tune? What fun - let's do it!"
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)
Recent comments