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What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About

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A few weeks ago, I reviewed What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About. This companion volume completes the set. Does it deliver on the bold promise implicit in its title?

Strengths

This volume takes the same format as its partner, giving minimal attention to historical background and focusing its efforts on the theological messages of each New Testament book. It roughly groups the books by author (thus putting Acts together with Luke, and discussing John’s epistles and Revelation along with his gospel) so as to emphasize, as you’d expect, what the authors cared about in writing these books.

The writing is comprehensible. The visuals are attractive and relevant. The biblical text is ever-present. This overview would be a useful text for a Bible overview course for adults or teenagers.

Weaknesses

While there is much to commend this book, I believe it takes the minor weakness of the Old Testament volume and magnifies it.

That is, the contributors often don’t “show their work” very well. While this was the case for only a few of the OT entries, I felt it was the case for a majority of the NT entries. It was more difficult for me to find chapters where I believed the author not only stated his conclusions, but proved them from a literary analysis of the text. The best examples are Huffman on Luke, Kelly on Acts, Guthrie on Hebrews, and Cate on 1 &2 Peter.

I would not say the remaining chapters are in any way bad. They might be great. It just wasn’t clear in many of them whether the key points represented what the NT author really cared about, or whether they more represented what the contributing scholar really cared about.

I don’t find any chapters to be communicating things that are not in the text at all. Instead, they simply present a select number of themes without showing why those themes are any more important than a number of other themes that could be mentioned.

Conclusion

I am grateful to Kregel Academic for sending me a complimentary copy of this volume in exchange for an honest review. I am glad to add it to my library, and I will likely make good use of it with teenagers and adults in my home and church. But I am more enthusiastic about the rich big-picture thought and literary analysis presented in the OT volume than that which I find in this one.

You can check it out at Amazon.

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What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About

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I’m intrigued when a book’s title has the chutzpah to make a grandiose promise. I’m suspicious unless that text hooks me quickly. And I’m flabbergasted when the aforementioned guarantee is delivered, so to speak, on time and under budget.

And this “Survey of Jesus’ Bible” edited by Jason S. DeRouchie did all three.

What Makes This Work Unique

I’m speaking of What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About (Kregel Academic, 2013). With the wealth of quality Bible scholarship available to us, especially in the form of accessible Old Testament surveys, why would a publisher dare to present us with what the OT authors really cared about? What does this text have to offer that other OT surveys haven’t already provided?

In short, this OT survey focuses its discussion of each OT book more on the book’s theological message than its historical background. Of course, the historical background matters. But how easy is it to spend so much time researching and discussing who wrote a book, when, and to whom—while the book’s essential message goes unexamined and thus unheeded? As Peter Adam once recounted, “I well remember a series at school on the missionary journeys of St Paul, which told us a great deal about the geography of the Mediterranean, but nothing about Paul’s theology” (Speaking God’s Words, 110).

So DeRouchie and his team cover the historical background—in a single page for each book. Then they spend the bulk of their survey on the text’s content and message, summarized in 3 to 6 bullet points. For example, contributor Kenneth J. Turner writes that “The author of Exodus:

  • Portrayed the continuing fulfillment of Yahweh’s promises and mission.
  • Stressed Yahweh’s passion to be known by all in the world.
  • Celebrated Yahweh’s power to redeem his people from slavery.
  • Disclosed Yahweh’s gracious provision of his covenant with Israel.
  • Called Israel to respond to Yahweh’s disclosure of himself and his will.”

Another unique trait of this book is the way DeRouchie chose to work through the Old Testament. Instead of following the typical OT order of 39 books found in English Bibles, DeRouchie and his team examine the Old Testament the way it would have been known to Jesus: 24 books arranged in 3 divisions: Law, Prophets, and Writings.

With an intro to each of the three divisions, and a separate overview of the flow of the Hebrew ordering, DeRouchie masterfully explains the majesty and beauty of the entire collection. For example:

  • In the Law, the Old Covenant is established.
  • In the Prophets, the Old Covenant is enforced.
  • In the Writings, the Old Covenant is enjoyed.

This way of examining the OT brings out significant observations and ideas often missed in the English ordering:

  • The Prophets begin with God calling Joshua to be careful to do all that “Moses my servant” commanded (Josh 1:7-8). And they end with Yahweh’s call in Malachi to “remember the law of my servant Moses” (Mal 4:4).
  • The Prophets (Josh 1:8) and Writings (Ps 1:2) both open with commands to “meditate day and night” on God’s law.
  • The Prophets (second division) have two sub-divisions: narrative (Josh, Judg, Samuel, Kings) and commentary (Jer, Ezek, Is, The Twelve). Altogether, they paint a bleak picture of rebellious Israel’s condition.
  • The Writings (third division) also have two sub-divisions, the reverse of the Prophets: commentary (Ruth, Ps, Job, Prov, Eccl, Song, Lam) and narrative (Dan, Esther, Ez-Neh, and Chronicles). Altogether, the Writings paint a positive picture of faithful Israel’s life and hope.

That last point strikes me as being remarkably significant. One of my struggles in reading the Old Testament annually is ending with the gloomy assessment of the Prophets. But if I read the books in this Hebrew order, the Writings actually provide much more hope and encouragement for life as part of the believing remnant.

Finally, moving beyond the bounds of even the Old Testament, DeRouchie’s introductory essay makes a compelling argument for the following summary of the entire Bible’s message: God’s kingdom through covenant for God’s glory in Christ. He subdivides “covenant” into the tripartite structure of the OT: covenant established, enforced, and enjoyed. He then proposes a corresponding tripartite identity for Jesus Christ in the NT: Christ the savior, sovereign, and satisfier.

This is big-picture, main-point thinking at its finest.

Where It Could Be Better

The analyses of some OT books are better than others. The biggest weakness of this survey is that it doesn’t spend enough time on literary structural analysis to derive the bullet points for each book’s message. I can see how some contributors derived their assigned book’s message from its literary structure and argument (for example, Dempster on Genesis, DeRouchie on Deuteronomy, Miller on Judges, Smith on Isaiah, and Curtis on Job). But for some other contributors, I can’t tell as easily whether the proposed outline of the book’s message is truly what the OT author really cared about.

But this weakness is not debilitating, as every contributor clearly traces his proposed message through the detailed peaks and valleys of the text itself.

How to Use this Book

What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About would make a fine addition to any personal library. I plan to use it any time I’m preparing a book overview for an OT book.

This book would also make a marvelous text for an OT survey class. It’s probably too much for a Sunday School, but it would be great for a high school or college Bible class.

I recommend it highly. It’s available at Amazon.

If you’re wondering how academic this book is, or whether the language might be above you or your class, check out this video of DeRouchie explaining the Old Testament’s message in 10 minutes. If you like the video, you’ll love the book.

Disclaimer: Amazon and Westminster links are affiliate links. If you click them (Westminster) or click them and buy stuff (Amazon), you’ll support our efforts to continue reviewing great resources at no extra cost to yourself. The publisher provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Exodus: The Book in Review

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Step Back

When our Bible study focuses intently on each passage, one after another, we may find it difficult to step back and see how they fit together. But we must remember the Bible is a work of literature. It was not written to be scrutinized in bites; it was written to be devoured in gobbles. We should remember to read the Bible as we’d read any other book: moving through it at a reasonable pace and recognizing ongoing themes, climax, resolution, and character development. When we hit milestones in the text, we should take the opportunity to survey where we’ve been and how it fits together.

So, now that we’ve completed our study of each chapter, we ought to look back and put it all together.

Review

Let me list the main points I’ve proposed for each passage in the last section:

  • Exodus 35:1-39:43: When God empowers his people with the glory of his grace and truth, his redeemed, new covenant people are able to do everything just as he commands.
  • Exodus 40:1-38: While the tabernacle reveals the magnificent glory of God with us, there is something even more glorious yet.

In addition, my overview of the whole book led me to this overall main point:

Who is Yahweh, and why should you obey him? He is the God who 1) demolishes the house of slavery (Ex 1-15), 2) prepares to rebuild (Ex 16-18), and 3) builds his house in the midst of his people (Ex 19-40).

The main idea of Act I (Ex 1:1-15:21) was that Yahweh demolishes the house of slavery. He does this in two parts:

  1. He trains up a qualified mediator to deliver (Ex 1:1-7:7).
  2. He delivers his people from their enemies into a frightful joy (Ex 7:8-15:21).

The main idea of Act II (Ex 15:22-18:27) was that Yahweh prepares the house of his people by showing them they need his law to know him.

Now in Act III, Yahweh builds his house in the midst of his people. We’ve already covered three parts:

  1. In Part 1 (Ex 19:1-24:18), God prepares the conditions for a perfect paradise with his people, where they can draw near to him through the blood of a substitute.
  2. In Part 2 (Ex 25:1-31:18), God delivers blueprints for a tent, so he can re-create heaven on earth by living among his people.
  3. In Part 3 (Ex 32:1-34:35), God hands them something better than paradise; he hands them more of himself.

Pull It Together

Now what do these things show us about the flow of thought in chapters 35-40? We have reached the end of the book and have every reason to expect something even more climactic than the Passover, the Red Sea crossing, or the Ten Commandments.

  • Act I describes God’s deliverance of his people. Act II shows how God prepares them for a covenant relationship with him. Act III now constructs that covenant relationship.
  • Part 1: Exodus 19-24 opens the gates of paradise by drawing the people close through the blood of a substitute and endowing them with a utopian vision.
  • Part 2: Exodus 25-31 recreates heaven on earth, proposing a place where God will dwell with his people, through a series of building plans.
  • Part 3: Exodus 32-34 shows us what happens when a righteous God tries to live with a sinful people.
  • Part 4: Exodus 35-40 now enacts the covenant as the parties finally move in together.
    • Exodus 35-39 uses every possible narrative convention to explain how astoundingly obedient the people are to Yahweh’s commands.
    • Exodus 40 portrays the final product, where Yahweh finally moves in. Except it ends like a wedding reception where the bride and groom ride off into the sunset…in two different cars.

These chapters show us that the tabernacle was not God’s final plan. Of course, it would later lead to a temple. But not even the temple would be the final plan. These religious structures have no power in themselves to save. Only the final Immanuel, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God come in the flesh, can fully draw us in and unite us to God.

Greg (2012), Creative Commons

We can finally complete our outline of the whole book:

Act I: Yahweh demolishes the house of slavery (Ex 1-15).

Introduction: Nobody can prevent Yahweh from keeping his promises, but we’re not sure how he’ll do it (Ex 1).

Part 1: Yahweh appoints a mediator and ensures he is fully qualified and trained for the task of deliverance (Ex 2:1-7:7).

Part 2: Yahweh delivers a deserved destruction to his enemies and a frightful joy to his people (Ex 7:8-15:21).

Act II: Yahweh prepares to rebuild by exposing how deeply his people need his law to know him (Ex 16-18).

Act III: Yahweh builds his house in the midst of his people (Ex 19-40).

Part 1: Yahweh architects a perfect paradise for the community of his people, so he can bring them near through the blood of a substitute (Ex 19-24).

Part 2: Yahweh explains how his people can re-create this paradise on earth (Ex 25-31).

Part 3: Yahweh hands them something more glorious than paradise; he hands them more of himself (Ex 32-34).

Part 4: The obedient new creators build the house, and Yahweh moves in. But not even Moses can enter the glory. This tent cannot be it; there must be something more to come (Ex 35-40).

Gaze Upon Jesus

When Yahweh finally moves in, Moses unexpectedly can’t even enter the cloud of glory. But Jesus would eventually come to finish all the Father’s work. Now he has taken up his rest at the Father’s right hand. And we who have believed enter that rest (Heb 4:3). So now, it is not the work of our hands, but the community itself that is the dwelling place of God (1 Cor 3:16-17).

Apply

Let’s be honest: The book of Exodus contains both some of the most exciting narratives and some of the most boring inventories in all the Scripture. But now that you’ve seen the point of it all, have you found eyes to see the glory? Dwell in this book for any length of time, gaze on the glory of our God’s grace and truth, and you, too, will experience something Moses and the freed slaves could only have dreamed.

Click here to see what I’m doing with this sample Bible study and why I’m doing it.

Outstanding Short Videos on the Bible

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If you haven’t heard of the Bible Project, you really should check them out. They offer some of the best Bible teaching I’ve ever seen, and they package it in 5-10 minute chunks with the highest quality visuals, all available for free online. If you browse their site, you’ll find all sorts of videos, including the following:

  • literary overviews for every book of the Bible
  • thematic overviews of the books of Moses and the wisdom literature
  • topical overviews of key Bible themes

On Sunday evenings, I’ve been reading straight through the Bible to my children. Whenever we hit a new book, we begin by watching the Bible Project’s overview for that book. My children (ages 2-10) and I all love the videos.

My church small group watched the videos overviewing Matthew before we began our study of that gospel this year.

The main reason I’m writing about the Bible Project today, however, is because they just kicked off a new series on how to read the Bible. The first video is called, simply, “What is the Bible?” It briefly and clearly explains “the origins, content, and purpose of the Bible.” It is a terrific start to what promises to be a great series.

Check it out!

Exodus Overview: Who is the LORD, That I Should Obey His Voice?

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We’ve considered the principles of Bible study in great detail. Now it’s time to put them into practice through a series of sample Bible studies in the book of Exodus. We begin with a book oveview.

While you could find many of the following points by reading a decent commentary or study Bible, you’ll have more fun—and the key points will have greater staying power in your life—if you glean them by simply reading and re-reading the book many times. To prepare this overview, I’ve consulted a few helpful sources. But I’ve spent most of my time reading Exodus 8 times in the last 3 months. I hope to read it 12 more times before the end of the year. Perhaps the repetition will lead me to change my mind at a few points.

Author

The New Testament regularly quotes or references the book of Exodus and attributes it to Moses (Mark 7:10, 12:26; Luke 20:37; John 6:32, 7:19; Rom 9:15; 2 Cor 3:13-15; Heb 7:14, 8:5, 9:19). We shall do the same.

Audience

After reading Exodus a few times, it becomes clear that the book focuses on the rescue and establishment of the people of Israel as a new nation before God. The book ends with the people at Mount Sinai, ready to move on to the land of promise. In addition, Exodus fits squarely within the flow of Exodus-through-Numbers. The book was clearly written to the Hebrews on their way to Canaan. It’s not clear, however, whether the book was “finished” for the first generation who came out of Egypt, or for the following generation. Numbers was clearly not finished until the second generation, since it reports the rebellion and death of the first generation. So Moses may have written Exodus a few decades earlier (possibly with Leviticus), for the first generation, or along with Numbers, for the second generation.

Occasion

Either way, the book of Exodus serves as a charter for this new nation. What does it mean to be not only a new sovereign state but the specially chosen people of God? When God remembers his covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, what will that mean for these frightened and fearful former slaves? And how do they know God won’t eventually abandon them?

Genre

Most of the book presents itself as historical narrative. The events that take place here will shape the nation for generations to come (such as, Ex 12:1-6). Yet this narrative has frequent sub-genres: speech, dialogue, miracle story, and law code.

About a third of the way through, we get a long poem (Ex 15:1-21). Perhaps this attention-grabbing shift signals a climax of some sort…?

Themes

Steve Day (2008), Creative Commons

Steve Day (2008), Creative Commons

Reading Exodus, you can’t miss the theme of rescue from slavery. The first part of the book (chapters 1-15) tells the story of the greatest rescue in Old Testament history. And that rescue casts a long shadow even on the laws that follow (for example, Ex 22:21).

And while we might think of Exodus as being primarily about the exodus from Egypt, that event covers less than half the book. We also see a significant chunk of laws (chapters 20-23) and tabernacle instructions/construction (chapters 25-31 and 35-40). So our summary of themes must do justice to all these major sections:

  • rescue from slavery
  • guidelines for living as God’s people
  • patterns for constructing God’s dwelling place

Interestingly, each of these three themes goes nowhere without the intercession of a mediator. God delivers the people through the hand of Moses. God issues his laws through Moses’ representation. And God passes his building instructions through the same human lips. If you happen to miss this idea early, you can no longer ignore it when the tabernacle instructions are repeated twice, in their entirety: Once in dialogue to Moses, and again as Moses’ underlings carry those instructions out.

Purpose Statements

Another thing to look for in a book overview is explicit statements of purpose from the author. In Exodus, such purpose statements abound, often placed on the lips of God.

To the Hebrews: “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians” (Ex 6:7).

Concerning the Egyptians: “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them” (Ex 7:5).

To Pharaoh: “But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth” (Ex 9:16).

From Jethro, priest of Midian: “Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people” (Ex 18:11).

Regarding the tabernacle: “I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God” (Ex 29:45-46).

Beginning to end, Exodus portrays a God who wants all people and communities to know who he is and what he has done. This God wants an awareness that goes even beyond humans. He wants to take down rival deities as well. “For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD” (Ex 12:12).

Structure

The shifts in theme and genre are the literary clues we need to find the book’s structure.

  1. Narratives of deliverance – Ex 1-15
  2. Narratives of provision and preparation – Ex 16-18
  3. Legal instructions – Ex 19-24
  4. Construction instructions – Ex 25-40

Of course, that last section is shockingly interrupted with the Hebrew’s grievous sin with the golden calf (chapters 32-34). This incident suggests a larger shape for the second half of the book, as follows:

1. Covenant made – Ex 19-24

2. Tabernacle instructions – Ex 25-31

1′ Covenant broken and repaired – Ex 32-34

2′ Tabernacle constructed – Ex 35-40

Bringing these pieces together, we get the following big picture:

  1. Delivering from the house of slavery – Ex 1-15
  2. Preparing the house of Israel – Ex 16-18
  3. Constructing the house of God – Ex 19-40

Main Point

Connecting all the threads of occasion, genre, themes, purpose statements, and structure, we can state the main point of the book of Exodus in a single question:

“Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice?” –Pharaoh, king of Egypt (Ex 5:2).

Exodus unequivocally answers Pharaoh’s question in three parts: Who is Yahweh [in English Bibles, “LORD” in all caps], and why should you obey? He is the God who 1) demolishes the house of slavery, 2) prepares to rebuild, and 3) builds his house in the midst of his people.

Now we’re ready to dive into the details. This main point will guide us as we work our way through the book.

Click here to see what I’m doing with this sample Bible study and why I’m doing it.

Logos Bible Software, Part 1: Unlimited Power

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A core value of this blog is that ordinary people can learn to study the Bible. That means you don’t need specialized software to know God through his word. But can good software help? Absolutely, as long as you move in the right direction. Software is a tool that will accelerate your momentum. Start off in the right direction, and you’ll go farther than ever before. Shift your direction just a bit, though, and you’ll find yourself in a desert waste wondering if you missed an exit somewhere.

So when the good people at Faithlife offered me a review copy of Logos Bible Software, I was eager to try it. How much farther could it take me in my Bible study? So I’ve used it for detailed study, daily devotions, rapid reading, and sermon preparation. I was curious to see how the software would hold up in these different uses, and I wanted to know whether Logos would help or hinder OIA Bible study. And the more I use Logos, the more a single word comes to mind: power. In this post, I’ll write about the software’s power. Next week, I’ll write about how well it supports OIA Bible study.

More Power!

LogosIn order to show the power, I need to set the stage. Logos Bible software is not merely a software package; it is a digital library. Imagine hiring a research assistant who, knowing you’re studying Exodus 1 today, finds everything in your home library that references Exodus 1. And then finds everything in your church library. Then, the researcher taps into everything from 36 seminary libraries. And the Library of Congress. And Google. Now before you can say “over-realized eschatology,” you’ll have access to virtual piles of ancient Jewish texts, manuscript variants, commentaries, atlases, and dictionaries; and you can sift through them until Jesus returns. You don’t have to spend hours or weeks finding these things yourself. Your assistant beheads every possible resource and serves it up on a silver platter. That’s Logos.

And Logos goes beyond libraries; its power extends to the Scriptures themselves. With Logos, and studying Exodus 1, I can do any of the following in seconds:

  • Find every reference to the Nile River in Scripture. List everyone and everything that goes into, comes out of, or exists near it.
  • Discover two other Bible characters named Puah.
  • Identify every New Testament reference to Exodus 1.
  • Open a list of 126 cross-references—and not just references but the full text of the verses.
  • Outline the passage based on literary forms (speech, narrative, names list, etc.).
  • Search the Bible for every case of infanticide, childbirth, revolt, or slavery.
  • Learn the Hebrew word behind the translation “fruitful” (Ex 1:7) and search for every occurrence of that word in the Old Testament. Search for every use of that word, or for just particular forms or tenses of that word.
  • View artwork that portrays the Israelites enslaved in Egypt.
  • Get a word-by-word grammatical analysis of every form and part of speech.
  • Learn that, outside of Exodus 1, this very Pharaoh is referenced 8 more times in Exodus, 3 times in Acts, and 2 times in Hebrews.
  • View sentence diagrams of the entire chapter.

I could go on. I can quickly find photos of Egypt and the pyramids. I can highlight the text and create my own notes on it. I can find an infographic with the birth order of Jacob’s 12 sons. I can make a list of every time a Pharaoh speaks in the Bible, and I can order the list based on what kinds of people the Pharaohs speak to. I can generate a list of quotes or sermon illustrations for the topics within the passage. I can completely customize a reading plan for the Bible or any book in my library.

Recommendation

Where Logos shines most brightly is in its power to search resources and give historical background. Before studying Mark 13:1-37 with Logos, I had never seen Jerusalem’s temple mount from the Mount of Olives. At a few clicks, I could see breathtaking photos from multiple angles, and all I could say was, “Wow.”

Here is incredible power. The only limit to what I can seek or find is my imagination.

If you would like unbelievable access to oodles of historical research and search capacity, I am happy to recommend Logos to you. With this link, or the coupon code KNOWABLE6, you can get 10% off.

Next week, I’ll consider further how well Logos supports the steps of observation, interpretation, and application.

Disclaimer: If you buy Logos with the code or links above, this blog will receive a commission. Thanks for supporting this work so we can help ordinary people learn to study the Bible!