Author: Gregory Johnston, M-Div

We finish the books of history this week. While Israel has returned from exile, she continues to struggle with her neighbors and her faithfulness to God.

While Judah, Benjamin, and Levi are "guests" of the Babylonians, a lot happens during that time of Exile. God is preparing His people to return to the land he promised them. Esther is a special story that has modern relevance.

We finish up our story of the post-Davidic divided kingdom. We will look at some pretty gnarly kings in the north and a few good kings in the south. In the end, exile is in store for both nations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmJGf-vfg84 Kings and Chronicles tell similar stories but are very different books. We start with the end of David's life, Solomon's reign, and the beginning of the divided Kingdom. The T-shirt I am wearing is from Redeemed Christian Recovery, an awesome ministry run by my friend Shawn Hernandez. Through the work of Christ and the …

Continue reading "Walking in the Word #18 Kings and Chronicles"

Reviewing the life of David, we finish the Samuel scroll. David's life was a mixed bag of high achievements and low moral failings. This theme continues with God using messy people to do amazing things.

We are moving through the Samuel Scroll, reviewing Saul's life. We will also begin to look at David's life.

After walking through the dark messiness of Judges, we come to the beautiful story of Ruth, David's great-grandmother. After that, we begin talking about the Samuel scroll reviewing Israel's last judge.

We are heading into the Promised Land! However, through all of the battles, Israel still struggles to remain faithful to YHWH. In Judges, we see a pattern of continued disobedience and God's mercy.

Numbers is a tough book to read because it contains so many failures of Israel. But it is worth reading to set up Deuteronomy, which is the final three sermons from Moses. This is how the Torah ends and leads us to the historical books.

We finish Exodus and move into Leviticus. Most people find Leviticus hard to read, but we will go over the structure of the book that will help you read the book with a little more clarity.

We've moved out of Genesis and into Exodus. The story of the Exodus sets up God's plan for redeeming humanity through an enslaved people. Many of the events have deep symbolic meanings for New Testament events and concepts.