The Story of God: Exodus

Listen in as we continue our journey through the Bible.

 

Notes//Quotes:

Exodus 19:1-8

“Moses' mother, Jochebed, knowing there's something special about her baby boy, constructs an “ark,” or basket for him, just as Noah had done (Exodus 2 is the only place in scripture outside the story in which this word for ark appears). She covers it with pitch just as Noah had done. While Pharaoh is building cities, an Israelite woman is building a tiny, unimpressive little ark for a child to be thrown into the water. Yet this ark, like Noah's, will become the vehicle through which God rescues the righteous from watery destruction, foils the plans of the wicked, and creates a new nation in the midst of the old.” —Echos of Exodus

“In a number of ways, the Passover is an obvious prelude to the work of Christ. It is about the redemption from slavery by the blood of the lamb. It is about the sacrifice that passes through the fire and saves people from death, when everyone around them is facing judgement. It is about the power of faith worked out through obedience. Israelite families were not saved by their personal godliness that night or even by the amount of confidence they had in God. They were saved simply by the fact that the blood was over their house.” —Echos of Exodus

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” (Ephesians 1:7)

“no matter how often we experience liberation from constraints, limitations, and oppression, we still find ourselves falling into new forms of bondage. We get free from boredom, and fall into the slavery to distraction. We pursue liberty from prohibitions, and fall into bondage to addictions. We escape repression, and become enslaved to lust. We are released from isolation, and fall captive to peer pressure and the power of the online mob. We pursue liberty from the constraints upon our natures, and fall into bondage to our untrained passions. We successfully break out of 1984, only to find ourselves in Brave New World. Or, in the imagery of the Hunger Games, we get free from fences and guns in the districts, only to find ourselves trapped by the slavish banality in the Capitol. True freedom is more complicated than it looks... We pursue true freedom—whether from Egypt or the golden calf, oppression or immorality—knowing that if the Son set us free, we will be free indeed. (John 8:36)”...“True slavery is captivity of the soul, not just the body. Until a nation or a person is free from that, and free to become what they were originally intended to be, their exodus is incomplete.” — Echos of Exodus

“For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4)

Paul’s statement that “our fathers were all under the cloud” suggests that even the Gentile readers of this letter are to think of the Israelites of the exodus as their adopted fathers through their inclusion in the covenant community. The Israelites' experience of redemption, idolatry, and destruction is used as a lens through which the Corinthians are to view and understand their own situation. The reference to baptism into Moses is evidently formulated by Paul in order to make the metaphorical parallel as clear as possible.” —G.K. Beale