Hey there, welcome to the next episode of the Small Group Toolbox. And as we saw from last podcast, what we're trying to do here in this little series is just get a little bit of basic Bible teaching across each book of the Bible. Because small group leading is about teaching the Bible. And I find that a lot of leaders appreciate input into the Bible. They're not 100 % confident about Bible knowledge. So, actual Bible teaching can be a real help in small group leading. So we're do the first five books of the Bible to start with in this little mini series.
Last week we did the first book of the Bible, which is Genesis, and we saw creation and Abraham and Joseph and the family coming to Egypt. But this week we're looking at Exodus, which of course is the second book of the Bible. Exodus means departure. And so this book is all about the departure of the Hebrew people out of Egypt. It's the departure, it's the Exodus. And this is a really famous book. There is just so much in there, so foundational for the rest of the Bible. This is the book that's got Moses and the plagues and the crossing the Red Sea and the 10 commandments, the golden calf, all sorts of like famous stuff, the Passover as well.
Exodus is just packed full of important and famous things from the Bible. So let's have a look through it. We've got, it opens up in chapter one with kind of a recap of what happened in Genesis, in the book of Genesis with Jacob and his 12 sons coming down into the land of Egypt. And then I'll just read 1:6, says, “Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful. They multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.” And that's kind of setting the scene. What we see there is a bit of a fulfillment from like Genesis 1, where God said to Adam and Eve, be fruitful and multiply. So here they are being fruitful and multiply. It's also a bit of an echo of God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, that he would make him a great nation. So here we are, his people have become a great nation.
But the tension is that, as we see in this chapter, they are not in the promised land. God has not yet given them the land, and they are in a hostile environment in Egypt under a hostile king, Pharaoh. And so that sets up the book really, God's people, great in number, but not in God's land. What are we gonna do about that? And so what happens then is just to go through, like remember this is the 10 minute version, this is not really long.
If we look at, say, chapters one to 11 as a whole, this is kind of the lead up to the Passover. The Passover will be the great event, we'll get to in chapter 12, but this is the lead up to the Passover. And this is where we meet Moses, really famous guy in the Bible, like a foundational figure. He's sort of like, he's a king, he's a prophet, he's a priest, all these roles are there with Moses. And Moses, he's sort of rescued by God from the water, he is a reluctant sort of leader figure. Doesn't want to do it, but he sort of goes in and does it. God chooses him to go and lead his people out of Egypt. And highlight in this little lead up to the Passover thing with Moses is God revealing his name to Moses in chapter three, when he says, I am who I am. That's 3:14. Great way of describing who God is or what God is. God just is.
He is, there's no other reference point for God. He is, the biblical doctrine for this is a society or independence. God is independent. He doesn't need anyone or anything else to, as a ground of his being, he just is. So I love that in here in Exodus, God is who he is. am who I am. And then we get this conflict with Pharaoh and the plagues. What we're seeing is that God is simply more powerful than Pharaoh.
These plagues are overwhelming him, his magicians, and it's just all leading up to that exodus. We've got the nine plagues leading up to that one. It's interesting here, during this section, this is where we see the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, spoken about in Romans chapter nine, think. Pharaoh hardened his heart, God hardens his heart, his heart was hardened. We see God's purposes here in bringing his people out, but also and therefore hardening Pharaoh's heart. But we also see Pharaoh's responsibility for hardening his own heart. So yeah, that takes us up to chapter 12, plays get worse and worse. And then we come finally to the Passover. Now Passover is given that name because the angel of death passed over the Israelites when they performed the correct sacrifice. And it's a way, so that's what Passover means. And what was it involved? It's quite a careful description of what was necessary. There was a sacrifice of a lamb. It had to be killed and eaten in a certain way. Its blood had to be painted on the door frames. And that was a sign that so that the angel of death would pass over.
And what we see here is a a key foundational idea for the idea of substitute that the lamb could substitute for the firstborn in the Israelite homes. And substitution will be a key theme throughout the Bible, particularly focusing in on the cross. And Jesus himself was known as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In 1 Corinthians 3, it says, “at Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed or has died”. And so this is like the foundational idea for that idea of substitute sacrifice of which Christ is the fulfillment. So the Passover there is a highlight there in Chapter 12, then that takes us through to chapters 13 to 19, which is kind of the lead up to the 10 commandments. And in these chapters, the Israelites are fleeing the Egyptians, they're crossing the Red Sea as God passed the Red Sea. God provides manna to them at this point, there's grumbling on their part. And, but finally they come to Mount Sinai in the sort of wilderness area outside of Egypt and we are ready to go with the 10 commandments.
Let's take us to the next chapter. The 10 commandments is in chapter 20. I'll just read the first verses of that chapter. God spoke all these words. “I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me”. That's commandment one, you'll have no other Gods before me. The 10 commandments are really important in the story of the Bible. There are 10, they have this sort of foundational kind of role, most other laws in the Old Testament kind of can be traced back to them. People talk about the two tablets of the law. There's the first four laws, which are about loving and worshiping God. And the first, then the next six laws, which are about loving others, loving God, loving others there in the law. And yeah, the Bible references these laws in many ways throughout, yeah, throughout the whole Bible. So the 10 commandments are there.
And I just love the way in that first few verses, these are clearly not about earning salvation, getting right with God. God saved them, brought them out of slavery before he gave them the law. So this is a way for the Israelites to respond to God's grace, respond in obedience here. chapters 21, 24, are kind of like the, these are known as the book of the covenant, that phrase is there in verse 24. These are some extra laws on how do those 10 commandments play out in life, in community? Laws about property, other people, just how we relate, we get on. And there's some interesting laws there that need to be thought through in their context, but that would take a longer explanation. So the book of the covenant is there, 21 to 24, these are the kind of people God wants them to be.
And then 25 through to chapter 40, with a little break in the middle, is all about the design and building of the tabernacle and the related items through the tabernacle. Tabernacle means tent, kind of like a mobile temple, and it contains, it's made with posts and hides and cloth and contains items like the altar and something called the sea, which is like a big wash basin, there are incense altars, there's tables, the ark itself, the ark of the covenant, which is sort of means ark means box that contains the law in tablets and a few other things is there. So there's this quite lengthy description of its design and then its building. And that can be a bit tricky to read, but what we're seeing there is God's care in how he is worshipped and that how he is worshipped comes from him. It's not kind of a human invention guesswork as to what might be the best thing. It's all coming from God.
And the design, you'll pick this up as you read it, is about this distance between God and his people. There's different layers of proximity to God. There's this sense that God in his holiness is kind of dangerous to the Israelites. They can't come in direct contact with him because of their sin and impurity in his holiness. So it's like a safety zone that's set up. A bit like having a nuclear reactor in the middle of your town. There are multiple safety things to try and that prevent the danger from that.
So that is the quite lengthy chapters, but as you read it, you get this sort of feel. And then in the middle of that, in between the design and the construction phases, there's this description of the golden calf incident. Again, very famous, both is up on the mountain that people get bored and discouraged and doubtful and they end up persuading Aaron, the high priest or Moses' brother, to make a golden calf, which is very quickly breaking the 10 commandments. And this leads to judgment on God's part. Now Moses intercedes to try and sort of persuade God not to give up on the Israelites and it ends up with God, know, well, forgiving them and sparing them and, yeah, resuming his relationship with them. But this, you know, just a rocky sort of period there.
One of the highlights of that Exodus, that golden calf narrative is God revealing his name. Earlier in the book, we saw that his name was I Am, but here in Exodus 34, he proclaims his name again, 34:6, “God passed in front of Moses proclaiming, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. Maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents of the third and fourth generation”. A great summary there of who God is, his name, his character. And we see his compassion and grace and forgiveness, but also his justice. God is all these things and has to how they work together in interacting with sinful people.
That's kind of the story of the Bible and ultimately sort of fulfilled in the cross of Jesus. so Exodus then comes to an end. The final verses are about, in chapter 40, are about God, his glory descending on the tabernacle. And we are kind of all set for the next part of the story, which is the Israelites journey with their God in his tent, with his tent, the tabernacle across the wilderness towards the promised land.
Rocky kind of relationship there with the law and the golden calf incident, but now we're ready to go. So what are the keys for reading Exodus? Well, I think it's a lively narrative for you know, most of it. So it's really easy to read, engaging lots of stuff going on. It's as you read it, another thing to be aware of is this, this really is the original the OG story of redemption, redemption being brought out of slavery out of Egypt.
This is the redemption story. And so when you see the word redemption throughout the Bible, it's always sort of harking back to this Exodus reality. So we're just reading about redemption. It's a redemption story. It's great. And then of course, as always in the Bible, we're learning about God. We're learning about God's grace here, his forgiveness, especially after all that sin. We see God as a generous law giver, showing people how they should live. And God is one who is setting out how we are to, how the Israelites are to worship him. He's setting up.
what's it gonna take for him to have an ongoing relationship with them. And that'll lead us into next time as we look at Leviticus and the sacrificial system. So that's it, that's the quick overview of Exodus, great book. Hope you can get into it and that enhances your Bible reading and I'll see you next time for Leviticus.