Exodus Introduction
Like many, I tend to think of Exodus as simply that… the story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Then, once you get to the second half, it is just a bunch of law stuff that you skip over… usually all the way to Numbers 14, or right out of the rest of the Pentateuch.
But this second part of the Pentateuch is so much more than that. The exodus event to the Old Testament is what the cross is to the new—or ultimately to the whole of the Bible message. So, the entire Bible is permeated with imagery and references back to the Exodus. It informs everything we understand about God. Who He is. What His mission is. What our relationship to Him is all about.
And it also informed the misunderstandings that Israel struggled with (and people still struggle with) about who the Messiah would be; and what being the people of God means in this world. In Exodus, God intervenes in history in a powerful, undeniable, visible way. And, while He promises to do that again in time, the plan of salvation for creation had a much more subtle chapter before that, revealed in the Law parts of Exodus.
But this second part of the Pentateuch is so much more than that. The exodus event to the Old Testament is what the cross is to the new—or ultimately to the whole of the Bible message. So, the entire Bible is permeated with imagery and references back to the Exodus. It informs everything we understand about God. Who He is. What His mission is. What our relationship to Him is all about.
And it also informed the misunderstandings that Israel struggled with (and people still struggle with) about who the Messiah would be; and what being the people of God means in this world. In Exodus, God intervenes in history in a powerful, undeniable, visible way. And, while He promises to do that again in time, the plan of salvation for creation had a much more subtle chapter before that, revealed in the Law parts of Exodus.
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