Your Entire Reason For Existence
Happy New Year!
There is nothing you can do this year that will have a greater positive effect in your life than reading the Bible every day. You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to my Daily Bible newsletter. (Spread the word and see if anyone else wants subscribe.)
We begin a new book today—Exodus!
The opening letter below appears in the print version of this reading guide. We include it here. (Today’s scripture reading can be found after the MONDAY, JANUARY 1 header below.)
Happy New Year! —Andrew
Start here.
The first book of the Bible is the book of Genesis. But I think you could make the case that the story of the Bible really begins with the second book of the Bible, Exodus.
Exodus tells us how God forms his people and founds his nation, Israel. Exodus is about how God rescues his people out of slavery, gives them the Law, and commissions them as his representatives. When Exodus begins, Abraham’s family (also called the children of Israel) is a clan of 70 people sojourning in Egypt. When Exodus concludes forty chapters later, Israel has become a nation. All the pieces are in place for the biblical story to move on and show us how God will save the entire world.
THE MAIN THEME OF EXODUS
The main theme of Exodus is Rescue. First, God will rescue Moses from Egypt, and then God will use Moses to rescue the Israelites from Egypt, and God will commission his people to be the vehicle by which God will bring rescue to the entire world. Over and over again we will learn that God is a rescuer who commissions men and women to participate as rescuers themselves.
READING “MAPS” FOR EXODUS
The reason so many people struggle to understand the Bible is because we have a hard time seeing the story from a 30,000 foot view—we get lost in the details. So, I find it helpful to think of a “map” when I’m reading a book of the Bible. Here are two maps that have helped me.
MAP #1: EXODUS, LAW, TABERNACLE
One way of thinking about Exodus is to see the story in three parts:
• Part 1 is about the Exodus from Egypt (chapters 1-18);
• Part 2 is about the Law Israel receives at Sinai (chapters 19-34);
• Part 3 is about the Tabernacle whereby God dwells with his people (chapters 35-40).
The Exodus (part 1) is about God rescuing and forming his people;
The Law (part 2) is about God instructing his people how to live and be his representatives in the world;
The Tabernacle (part 3) is about God’s transcendent presence among his people.
This threefold way of dividing up the story has been helpful to me, but it is not the way I’ve divided up our reading plan.
MAP #2: MOSES, THEN ISRAEL
Another way to think about Exodus is to see it as made up of two stories, first the story of Moses, and then the story of Israel.
Everything that happens to Moses prefigures what will happen to Israel. Israel’s story expands and elaborates on Moses’s story.
For example:
- Moses is oppressed by Pharaoh → Israel is oppressed by Pharaoh;
- Moses is saved through water and the reeds → Israel is saved through water and the reeds;
- Moses wanders in the wilderness → Israel wanders in the wilderness;
- Moses meets God on the mountain in the fire → Israel meets God on the mountain in the fire;
- Moses is commissioned by God on the mountain and given a new identity → Israel is commissioned by God on the mountain and given a new identity.
Accordingly, I’ve divided our reading plan into two parts:
• Part 1 is The Story of Moses (chapters 1-4);
• Part 2 is The Story of Israel (chapters 5-40).
In Part 1, we will learn how God forms his man for the task ahead;
In Part 2, we will learn how God forms his people for the task ahead.
HOW THIS READING PLAN WORKS
Part 1 will begin very slowly and deliberately. I want to teach us how to pay attention to every detail and dwell over every word. By the time we get to Part 2, things will pick up and move at a faster pace.
Remember, consistency is more important than intensity! That is, don’t try and read the whole Bible in one sitting—rather, pace yourself and make a commitment to be consistent.
To that end, the readings are parceled-out on weekdays only—if you get behind, catch up each weekend.
Each day I’ve written brief commentary to help you get something out of your reading; the commentary is NOT the point, the Bible is the point. If the commentary helps you, great! If it doesn’t, no worries— just skip it.
WHY EXODUS MATTERS, AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF WE READ IT WITH OPEN MINDS
Exodus is about how God formed his people and founded his nation. It is about how God makes a man (or a woman) ready for mission and how God shapes a people (or a church) for mission.
It is my prayer that our study of Exodus will be used by God to shape us individually as men and women of faith and fire, fit for the task ahead, and that Exodus will shape and strengthen us as his church.
Let’s GO.
P.S. I’ll be teaching two All-Church Bible studies on Exodus in January and February. These are large events with hundreds of people in attendance. I always close with Q&A and most of the questions come from our middle and high school students. Wednesdays, January 10 and February 7, 6:30-8:00 PM in the Asbury Sanctuary. (Dinner available beforehand, 5:00-6:30 PM. 18 and under are free on Bible study evenings!) Going to be out of town? Catch the livestream: www.asburytulsa.org.
Monday, January 1
Genesis 12:1-3
12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Rescue is the great theme of Exodus. First, God rescues Abraham’s family—the Hebrews, also called the children of Israel—from slavery in Egypt. Then, they are formed into a nation through their wilderness wanderings; at Sinai they are given the Law and commissioned to be God’s chosen people who will be part of his plan to rescue the entire world.
So, I think you could say that the biblical story really begins with the second book of the Bible, Exodus. Yet, you cannot understand Exodus without going back to the first book of the Bible, Genesis— the book of beginnings—and seeing how we got here. So, this first week in our reading plan we are going to go back to Genesis and look at some key passages and details that will help us get our bearings.
The opening chapters of Genesis tell how God created the world beautiful and good, and then how human and spiritual rebellion led to evil and death and idolatry and slavery, culminating in the account of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11).
Then the very next thing that happens is that God chooses one man— Abraham, called Abram until Genesis Chapter 17—and declares that he will use this one man and his family to rescue the entire world. God chooses one for the benefit of the many. This is the same pattern we will see in Exodus: namely that God chooses Moses to bring blessing to the Hebrew people, and then how God chooses that people to bring blessing to the entire world.
This is the same pattern that God still follows—he will use one person to be his vehicle to bring the blessings of Eden to many other people.
This year, God wants to use you to bring blessing to others—are you willing? In fact, the reason you are alive today and have seen this new year arrive is because the Lord isn’t done with you yet. Your entire reason for existence is to say to the Lord, “Use me to bring blessing to others.” And when you do that, your ordinary life becomes part of the extraordinary divine mission.
So, how does one do that, and what does that look like? It begins with saying “Yes” to God in faith and then taking the next obedient step right in front of you. Note that the only thing Abraham has to do is to “Go.” Abraham has to be willing to be obedient and do what God asks, but God is the one who will bring blessing.
When God’s people trust him in faith, wherever they go they are used to bring the blessings of Eden to others around them.
As you look back over the last year, where were you standing in the way of God’s blessings? What might the Lord want to take you from and take you to as this new year begins?
