God’s Covenant with Abraham, by Jan Goeree & Abraham de Blois [c.1700]

In the OT, God appears in some peculiar and puzzling ways: in Genesis 15, as “a smoking oven and a burning torch.”  Why does God appear as smoke and fire in this story?  Truthfully, I have no idea –– and this is an important aspect of reading and understanding an ancient text that comes from a foreign culture.  There are many things that are unknown to us, many things that we can’t explain.  And it’s OK not to have all the answers to everything.  In fact, I believe that the mystery of the Bible is a central aspect of its enchantment and allure.  All that being said, however, what is important about God’s covenant with Abraham is not how God appeared but rather what God did when making the covenant with him.  As St Paul would explain many centuries later, God’s righteousness is not a paycheck––that is, payment for services rendered––but rather a gift freely bestowed on us when we believe God’s promise, no matter how improbable, or impossible, it may seem.

Suggested Reading: Genesis 15, Genesis 2-3

Lecture: Abraham the Covenant Patriarch [58 mins]

This lecture was recorded on 12 Mar 2016 at the Zion Evangelical Bible School in Khayelitsha, South Africa.

Job Rebuked by His Friends, by William Blake [1825] 

Lecture: A Brief Introduction to OT Literature [29 mins]

One of the main challenges for modern readers approaching the OT stems from the fact that the specific books come to us not as individual works but as a composite literary collection.  However, generally speaking, there is nothing in a standard Bible that signals the various literary genres that appear in either the OT or NT.  Rather, it is left up to the reader to decipher these for themselves.  In this lecture, I give an overview of the various kinds of literature in the OT and explain the rationale for the arrangement of the OT books in a standard published Bible.  I use the book of Job as a case study to explain why these factors are important for reading, understanding, and applying biblical literature.

This lecture was recorded on 13 Feb 2016 at the Zion Evangelical Bible School in Khayelitsha, South Africa.

Noah’s Thank Offering, by Joseph Anton Koch  [1803]

When we speak about the concept of “covenant” in the Old Testament, essentially we are talking about romance.  It’s a romance that includes the making of promises and giving tokens of pledge, symbolic gestures of love and faithfulness, and in some cases, even threats of punishment for infidelity.  A “covenant” in the Bible is rather like what we today call “marriage” –– with sexual overtones even if the specific covenant does not include sexual privileges.  One of the major narrative threads of the entire OT is God making a series of covenants with the Israelites, covenants that find their ultimate expression and fulfillment in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Lecture: An Overview of the Biblical Covenants [39 mins]

Eventually, I hope to begin an actual “podcast” (on iTunes and such) to stream audio content from this blog, but in the meantime, I will begin posting a series of lectures I gave in 2016.  These lectures cover major plot points and some literary features of the biblical narrative from Genesis through Nehemiah.  In this first episode, I offer a brief overview of the covenants of the OT and how they are fulfilled in Jesus.  This series of lectures was given to students at the Zion Evangelical Bible School in Khayelitsha, South Africa, as part of a four-year training program for pastors and church leaders.