Category Archives: Bible Bites [Exegesis]

This category includes all posts that are primarily about exegesis (biblical interpretation), except for posts already included in the Church Chat category.

Deuteronomy–heart of the Old Testament, hints of the New

(Old Facebook Post – Revised)

Let me recommend these sermons on Deuteronomy. (Find HDT Deuteronomy 2007, Series 1, Series 2, and Series 3, by doing a search for the preacher “Paul Barker” and the book “Deuteronomy.”)

If you want to understand the big story of the whole Bible well, and only have time to seriously examine 4 or 5 Old Testament books, Deuteronomy should probably be one you include in your study. It basically summarizes or predicts everything crucial from Moses to Malachi. In other words, most of the rest of the OT is commentary on and contemporary application of Deuteronomy. Plus, it clearly foretells Christ and his heart-changing work!

Paul Barker is an Australian Anglican who did his PhD thesis on Deuteronomy, and his sermons are models of how to present insightful scholarship in a very understandable form, as preaching that convicts. If you listen, notice also how he demonstrates Christian application of OT Law and how he continually and authentically traces the connection from the text at hand to Christ. God, give us more able and faithful preachers of your Word!

 

“Getting Excited About Melchizedek”

If you want to finally understand that bit about Melchizedek, or what to know the real reason why we today talk about Jesus being our high priest, or just want to watch a veteran Bible student demonstrate how to read the whole Bible, paying close attention to the tiniest meaningful details and tracing how the Bible writers read their own Bibles… then watch this talk by D. A. Carson. (An audio file should also be available.) Zonya and I watched it together tonight and were blessed!

“For you formed my inward parts”

(Old Facebook Post – Revised)

Here’s a prompt for a fascinating Bible study from Psalm 139. One oft-overlooked word (“for”) can mean so much:

…Darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb…
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance… (Ps. 139:12-16)

David knew that God could see in the dark. How did he know this? Because God had seen him even when he was in his mother’s womb!

When David remembered this, he concluded that there was no use running from God. And because the God that saw him in his mother’s dark womb was a good God, who shaped him in marvelous and wonderful ways, David knew there was also no reason to run from God.

Suddenly God’s thoughts about David became “precious” to him! In fact, David begged the God who knew and shaped him in the womb to continue thinking about him and shaping his path:

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting! (Ps. 139:23-24)

This has huge implications for all who are running from God… and for all who doubt that they are created wonderfully… and for all who deny that the unborn are persons cherished by God. What other implications to you see?