Month: March 2016

Redemptive-Historical Survey: 8 | Entrance and Life in the Promised Land (LDBC Recap 3/20/16 Pt. 2)

Kirk E. Miller

Explanation

logo-lake-drive-baptist-churchOn Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I began a Core Seminar on Redemptive History & Biblical Theology at my church, Lake Drive Baptist Church. During the course of this series I’ll be sending out emails recapping lessons and directing recipients to resources for further study.

Rather than just share these recaps with my church family, I’ve decided to share them here on the blog for anyone else who might be interested. I will be posting them occasionally over the next couple of months on a weekly basis or so.

See previous posts:

Recap/review

We continue this week’s core seminar recap by reviewing the role of Israel’s entrance and initial life in the Promised Land in redemptive history.

Overview of Biblical material

Joshua, Judges, Ruth.

  • After the wilderness Generation died, Moses preaches the Law at the edge of the promised land (Deuteronomy). He prepare the next generation to enter the land.
  • The torch of national leadership is passed from Moses to Joshua.
  • Joshua leads the people into the land and they/God conquer.
  • Joshua distributes the land, much of which is yet to be conquered, to the twelve tribes.
  • But, although the land is promised to them, the tribes fail to fully possess the land given to them. Many of its original inhabitants are left.
  • Israel’s leadership enters into a stage of judges (e.g., Ehud, Barak, Gideon, Samson, etc.), who are far from godly leaders.
  • The time-period of the judges is characterized by…
    • (1) A lack of political stability:
      • No centralized government.
      • No king.
      • Israel is a group of loosely connected tribes.
      • Repeated oppression from surrounding nations.
    • (2) A lack of moral stability:

Sum: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25).

  • Israel repeats a cycle (see Judges 2:6-23):
    • (1) Disobedience/idolatry.
    • (2) Divine punishment in terms of oppression of nearby nations.
    • (3) Israel’s cry to God for help.
    • (4) God raising up a judge and providing deliverance.

Role within redemptive history

So, now, as always, we want to ask, how does this episode fit into redemptive history? How does this initial entrance and life in the land relate to God bringing about his covenant-bound new-creational kingdom purposes?

We can summarize its place as follows: Although God is faithful to his covenant-bound purposes to bring about his new-creational kingdom, God’s people only experience a partial realization of it due to disbelieving disobedience. Continue reading →

Redemptive-Historical Survey: 7 | The Wilderness Wanderings (LDBC Recap 3/20/16 Pt. 1)

Kirk E. Miller

Explanation

logo-lake-drive-baptist-churchOn Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I began a Core Seminar on Redemptive History & Biblical Theology at my church, Lake Drive Baptist Church. During the course of this series I’ll be sending out emails recapping lessons and directing recipients to resources for further study.

Rather than just share these recaps with my church family, I’ve decided to share them here on the blog for anyone else who might be interested. I will be posting them occasionally over the next couple of months on a weekly basis or so.

See previous posts:

Recap/review

This week we covered the role of (1) the wilderness wanderings and (2) Israel’s entrance and initial life in the Promised Land in redemptive history.

We will break this week’s recap into two posts, one for each of those two “episodes.”

Overview of Biblical material

Numbers

  • From Sinai, where Israel received the Law, Israel continues towards the goal of God’s Exodus-deliverance—experience of the new-creational kingdom covenant blessings, esp. entrance into the Promised Land.
  • The people complain, and complain, and complain!
  • In unbelief (cf. the 12 spies incident) the people refuse to enter the Promised Land.
  • God responds by sentencing that entire generation (with the exception of Caleb and Joshua) to wander the rest of their lives in the wilderness. They will not experience the new-creational kingdom covenant blessings.
  • God supplies their needs during this time (e.g., manna, quail, water).
  • The people continue to complain and rebel.
  • But God remains true to his new-creational kingdom covenant purposes and prepares the next generation to enter the land (through a second giving of the Law, i.e., Deuteronomy [duet {two} + nomos {law}).

Role within Redemptive History

With that overview in place, we now want to ask, how do the wilderness wanderings fit into redemptive history? That is, how do they fit into God’s purposes of bringing about his new-creational kingdom?

  • Summary

We can summarize the role of the wilderness wanderings in redemptive history (the story of the outworking of God’s new-creational kingdom) this way: God’s people fail to enter God’s new-creational kingdom due to disbelieving disobedience. God postpones yet remains committed to his covenant-bound purpose of bringing about his new-creational kingdom.

Continue reading →

Redemptive-Historical Survey: 6 | The Mosaic Covenant (LDBC Recap 3/13/16)

Kirk E. Miller

Explanation

logo-lake-drive-baptist-churchOn Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I began a Core Seminar on Redemptive History & Biblical Theology at my church, Lake Drive Baptist Church. During the course of this series I’ll be sending out emails recapping lessons and directing recipients to resources for further study.

Rather than just share these recaps with my church family, I’ve decided to share them here on the blog for anyone else who might be interested. I will be posting them occasionally over the next couple of months on a weekly basis or so.

See previous posts:

Recap/review

This week we covered the Law or the Mosaic Covenant and its role in redemptive history.

Overview of Biblical material

Exodus 19-Deuteronomy 34.

God brings the people of Israel to Mt. Sinai (or Mt. Horeb) and he makes a covenant with them involving many laws.[1]

Terminology:

Before we move forward, we do well to note the various terms used to refer to this covenant so that, as we talk about this covenant and perhaps use these various terms, we are all on the same page in knowing what we are talking about.

  • The Law – Because this was law-covenant, a covenant involving many laws.[2]
  • Mosaic Covenant – Because Moses was the mediator of this covenant; it was given through Moses.
  • Israelite Covenant – Because this covenant was made with the nation of Israel.
  • Sinai Covenant (or covenant at Sinai) – Because this is where the covenant was made.
  • Old Covenant – i.e., “Old” as in contrast to the New Covenant.  It is “old” now that it has been superseded.

Role within redemptive history

Continue reading →

Redemptive-Historical Survey: 5 | The Exodus (LDBC Recap 3/6/16 Pt. 2)

Kirk E. Miller

Explanation

logo-lake-drive-baptist-churchOn Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I began a Core Seminar on Redemptive History & Biblical Theology at my church, Lake Drive Baptist Church. During the course of this series I’ll be sending out emails recapping lessons and directing recipients to resources for further study.

Rather than just share these recaps with my church family, I’ve decided to share them here on the blog for anyone else who might be interested. I will be posting them occasionally over the next couple of months on a weekly basis or so.

See previous posts:

Recap/review

We finish this week’s recap by reviewing the role the Exodus serves in redemptive history.

Overview of the Biblical Material

Exodus 1-18 Continue reading →

Redemptive-Historical Survey: 4 | Abrahamic Covenant & the Patriarchs (LDBC Recap 3/6/16 Pt. 1)

Kirk E. Miller

Explanation

logo-lake-drive-baptist-churchOn Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I began a Core Seminar on Redemptive History & Biblical Theology at my church, Lake Drive Baptist Church. During the course of this series I’ll be sending out emails recapping lessons and directing recipients to resources for further study.

Rather than just share these recaps with my church family, I’ve decided to share them here on the blog for anyone else who might be interested. I will be posting them occasionally over the next couple of months on a weekly basis or so.

See previous posts:

Recap/review

This week we finished up our discussion on the Abrahamic Covenant and moved through the role of the Exodus in redemptive history. Since we completed coverage of two stages in redemptive history this week, we’ll have two parts to our recap. In this post (part one) we’ll review the Abrahamic Covenant.

Overview of Biblical material

Genesis 11:27-50:26

  • God calls out a man named Abram (eventually renamed Abraham) and makes a covenant[1]  with him and his descendants.[2] God is with Abraham and blesses him throughout his life.
  • Abraham and his wife Sarah miraculous have a child, Isaac, according to God’s specific covenant promise of numerous descendants.
  • As promised (Gen 17:7, 19, 21), God’s promise to Abraham is passed to his son Isaac (Gen 17:21; 26:1-6, 19-26) and then Isaac’s son Jacob (eventually renamed “Israel”—father of the nation of Israel [Gen 27:18-29; 28:10-16; 35:6-15]). God is with Isaac and Jacob and blesses them throughout their lives.
  • Through a great series of events, involving the selling of Jacob’s son, Joseph, into slavery and a great famine, Jacob (Israel) finds himself and his family in the land of Egypt. Again, God is with them and blesses them.

Role within redemptive history

We summarized the role of the Abrahamic Covenant (and, by extension, God’s dealing with select descendants of Abraham–the patriarchs–on account of this covenant being passed down to them) the following way: God initiates his new-creational kingdom plan in the form of covenant-bound promises to Abraham.

Continue reading →