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A HELICOPTER’S EYE VIEW OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Course Set
In this last leaflet of House Group Studies in the Books of the Old Testament, we shall 'fly over' the territory we have previously sketched out.
Relationships
The bottom line fact of the universe is that everything relates!
The bible word for relationships is covenant, but that does not mean an impersonal legal agreement. The covenant is ever growing and our understanding of it will be the ‘line of flight’ we will follow.
The Early Covenants
In the relationship saga, we see how God is related to the cosmos (Genesis chapter 1) to human kind, in particular:
* to Adam (Genesis chapter 1 v27 and chapter 3)
* to Noah (Genesis chapter 6 v6-9 and chapter 9 v8-17) and
* to Abram (Genesis chapter 12 v1-4, Genesis chapter 15 v6, and chapter 17 v14).
The two ‘sides’ of this relationship are seen in:
1. God’s Promises - to give them children, to become a nation, a kingdom and provide a land, expressing his eternal ‘good will’
2. Human Response - obedience and total trust
When we break our side of the understanding, God renews his covenant with willing people, eg. Jacob (Genesis chapter 28 v12-15 and chapter 32 v24-30) and Jacob’s children (Israel) even when slaves in Egypt they are delivered (Exodus chapter 3) and the saving included:
from slavery,
from the sea,
from starvation and, most vital,
from themselves by the provision of law.
During the journey through the desert the covenant was codified (Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers) and when the fledgling tribes entered Canaan (Joshua, Judges and Ruth), the teeming hoards of tribes needed unifying into a kingdom, in order to revive the Living Covenant (Deuteronomy).
The Basic Needs were to know:
* WHO IS GOD?
(Baal and Ashtoreth were fertility gods of Canaan).
Jehovah is ‘the Out-of-Egypt-Bringing’ God.
The One and Only God.
* WHAT DOES HE WANT OF HIS PEOPLE?
* WHAT KIND OF LEADER WILL GOD ACCEPT?
Question – Are these questions relevant today? If so, how?
Leadership
A new kind of King was required. (? I Samuel, Chapter 8)
Qualifications He was to be God’s choice (Anointed)
He had to be both priestly and prophetic
(therefore priests and prophets ministered through Him)
His title (in Hebrew ‘The Messiah’, in Greek ‘The Christ,
In English ‘The Lord’s Anointed’)
Job Description
To maintain the special relationship between Jehovah and his people, the two main avenues were:
i. the priestly ministry of the King, hence the centrality of worship
(Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Haggai and Zechariah).
ii. the prophetic ministry of the King
(the great prophets of Israel who went first to the King, if he would hear).
Thus we have in the North Amos preaching the justice of God
Hosea preaching the devotion of God
and in the South Micah preaching the righteousness of God
Isaiah preaching the holiness of God
Zephaniah preaching the wrath of God
The Kingless Kingdom
(Nation in exile) Ezekiel, Isaiah of Babylon, Chronicles, Esther, Nahum.
The Still-born Kingdom
Temple was rebuilt and the city walls and its religion (Haggai, Zechariah and Nahum). The spiritual nature remained a problem (Joel, Obadiah and Malachi).
Nevertheless
The national treasury remained in Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Lamentations, and its wit and humour – also in Jonah and Job.
The Kingdom which did not come
Instead, the rise of the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great (Daniel and latter part of Zechariah) and then Rome.
The Messiah Vacuum
Would God ever send a Messiah King?
Read Genesis chapter 18 v22-32 and then ask the question:
Would God – could God - save the whole world if there was just ONE completely righteous man?
Old 21.4
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