Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy

I can still hear Dr. Paul Benware's (Now moved on to Philadelphia Biblical University)voice telling me that if I'll just pay attention to the next few chapters the entire Old Testament will start to make sense. It was my first semester at Moody Bible Institute and we were only a short way into Old Testament Survey when we came to Deuteronomy 27-30, especially Dt 28.

The passage is so extended and relentless in its pictures of misfortune that no sane person would choose to live in disobedience if these are the results. -ESVLSB

Every blessing God promises for obedience he continually calls Israel to receive through the prophets. And every curse which he promises if they reject him comes to pass from the period of the judges all the way through the deportation's of Israel and Judah. Even the promise to restore in chapter 30. If you've never read these chapters with an eye on the rest of the Old Testament you should.

Joshua

Moses already closed Deuteronomy with the admonition to "be strong and courageous" (Deut 31:23) and now at the onset of Joshua God steps forward to imbue strength and courage into the life of Moses' former servant - the new leader of Israel. Joshua is going to need all of the courage he can muster too. If not because of the prolonged (but victorious) war he's about to enter because the people of Israel in a rather ironic twist vow to him that they will obey him in the same manner they obeyed Moses. (Joshua 1:17) I can't help but believe that the frequent rebellions didn't rise to the surface of Joshua's mind.

Today we finish and leave behind the book of Numbers and most of Deuteronomy. So how do we begin but with war of course. Well, war and a touch of rebellion as the warriors disobey by attempting to bring Midianite women into camp. These are the same women who just earlier had attempted to destroy Israel by sexually enticing them to worship the Baal of Peor.

In our modern sensitivities it is a difficult passage to begin with, there is bloodshed by God's people in time of war as well as in the aftermath of war. I definitely want to work through some of these hard questions on the blog, but unfortunately this isn't the time for it. I have a rather large portion of Scripture to read today and thus I must move on. But I cannot leave the 31st chapter of Numbers without observing that impurity must be purged even from the artifacts of another culture. It brings to mind the Haitian market which I've visited in the past.

Day two of the MBI pastor's conference started out with a bang. Dr. Albert Mohler president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary delivered a bang up message on why we preach. Here are my scrambling notes. They may not be complete or coherent but they are what they are. I'm going to try and separate most of the sessions because it's just too much to put them all in one post. Plus I can spread them out a bit better that way :-)

Deuteronomy 4 serves as the backdrop for our preaching so go read it.
Luke 16 the sufficiency of the word of God.
Preaching and the big story Luke 24 "...didn't or hearts burn within us..."

This whole business of preaching is something that we should understand on a Tuesday morning but there is a crisis of preaching in the evangelical church. How likely are you to hear an explicitly evangelical exposition of the word of God in the pulpit? Unfortunately there are people urging pastors to do anything other than the exposition of the scriptures from the pulpit. People with "itching ears" that don't want to hear the Bible being taught - but will take almost anything else in it's place.

The exposition of the scriptures is easy,you have to be clever to mess it up.

Nehemiah 8 stands as a great example of exegetical preaching. Verse 8 (Neh 8:8) is a short course in homiletics: READ and EXPLAIN.
It's like rinse, lather and repeat on the shampoo bottle. It's simple. There's nothing missing.

But what does it take? Let's look at the guy doing the preaching:
1. EDUCATION

Look at Ezra 7:11 "...learned in the words of the commandments..." he didn't just stand up and open his mouth,

2. PREPARATION