#1 General Approach

Foreword

According to what God plainly tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:11, the Old Testament Scriptures “are written for our admonition.” In other words, a key purpose of the Hebrew Scriptures is to admonish Christians in the “Church Age” about what happened between God and Israel, presumably so that the churches will not fall into the same condemnation. With this in mind, I will attempt to make application of the truths God sought to reveal to Israel in this book to the churches today.

This does not mean that I will ignore dispensational differences between God’s dealings with Israel and His dealings with the churches. I will not seek to “over spiritualize” anything, but simply see the underlying biblical truths that relate to all of God’s people throughout all dispensations. The vast majority of truth that God reveals in His Word is not particularly dispensational in its application. Some obviously is, but very little overall. And, even when truth has a particularly dispensational slant to it, the underlying principles remain the same for Israel and for the churches.

Because of these important realities, our study of the truth in Exodus will consistently bring us all face-to-face with the will of God for us in the churches today. This is a good thing, and something urgently lacking in so much Old Testament exposition. As we proceed, I will seek therefore to identify, in very clear terms, definite applications of the truths that we encounter in Exodus to the lives of God’s people in the present day.

The Basic Context

This will be brief since I already have a short book out on how to get a good sense of the basic context for any book in the Bible.[1] I highly recommend it to any serious Bible student. That said, let’s at least define what we mean by context, and why it matters so much.

Aside:

There is no substitute for hard work in the study of Scripture. Sadly, many preachers spend more time looking for good outlines or someone else’s material that they can use, rather than doing the hard work themselves. Some say they are too busy for taking many hours of study time each day. Others say they already did the hard work of studying in Bible College or Seminary. Neither of these excuses will bear up under the scrutiny of God. Hastening into any book study definitely minimizes the fruit of the study in the hearts and lives of the students. It is akin to a farmer just hastily throwing his seed onto the surface of the ground without having any real knowledge of where the seed came from, or how good it is in producing the desired harvest.

Context, in the sense in which I personally use it, refers to far more than the immediate few verses surrounding any particular passage. In terms of each book in the Bible the context I need to grasp firmly is basically the answers to these questions:

· What have we encountered in the Bible prior to this book?

· How does what we encounter in this book relate to the other books in its

section of the Bible?

· What is the primary thing God is revealing in this book about His

redemptive purposes in Christ?

· How does this connect with all of Scripture?

In doing this "important background work" the Bible student is doing what I like to refer to as “preparing to give the message.” Notice, not “preparing to give a message,” but “preparing to give the message.” There is never any such thing as a “stand-alone” message, one sermon that is disconnected from all other messages. Any time a true messenger of God is preparing to give a message, he is actually further equipping himself to give the message. The hours given to real study in preparation for giving a particular message result in far greater fruitfulness than whatever arises from that specific message. Why? Because, in spending those hours the messenger has been advancing his usefulness in giving all of God’s message throughout his lifetime. This is a concept of context that is essentially overlooked in nearly all homiletic programs in Bible College or Seminary.

Apply that to preparation for teaching the book of Exodus. The student who does his homework diligently, spending hours upon hours (over weeks and months) getting at the very heart of what God is actually saying in Exodus, in relation to all that God is saying throughout His Word...that student is laying groundwork in his own heart and mind for great fruitfulness as a faithful messenger of all of God’s message: the Bible as a whole!

[1] The Layers of Context Approach to Scripture, ISBN number 1492236594. Available on Amazon.