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The Long Trip to Freedom |
The Book of Exodus |
For a long time I have been concerned about the problem of biblical literacy in Protestant churches, particularly among younger Christians. They simply don't know the Bible. They don't know its stories, but, more important, they don't know the meanings, the viewpoints, the ethical and moral structures and so forth that arise from those stories. In my book, Preaching for the Contemporary Service, I urge preachers in contemporary and emergent settings, to preach the realities and the specifics of the Bible--its stories, characters, decision-making, doctrines and theologies. With that in mind, in 2004 I began a series of sermons "through the Bible," a book at a time, a book a Sunday, as it were. It would last about a year and a half. The studies for me would be new, not taking a line or few verses of text, but trying to provide a kind of literacy orientation to an entire book, with a gradual connection of the books themselves. The trick was provide an overview of what was in the book, and yet to try, as I kept saying to myself and the congregation, to find the "message" of the book today. I think it worked, this tour of first the Old Testament and then the New. This is the second sermon in that series. It is not a lecture; I tried to stay away from that--but a sermon on Exodus. See how you think it went. |