Exploring the Old Testament 2020: Recent Episodes
Scott Kemp
Malachi corrects a wayward nation, both the priests and the people. They must repent or be judged again. 430 years of silence follow his prophecy. The silence is to be broken when the prophet John bursts onto the scene to usher in the first visitation of or LORD, Jesus The Messiah.
More than any other minor prophet, Zechariah covers the full scope of current and future salvation history. He deserves a place alongside Isaiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel, in terms of the sweep and scope of His prophecy.
Haggai exhorts those who have returned from the 70 year captivity to restart their work on the temple. They had become complacent and fallen into sinful patterns.
Ezekiel is a priest/prophet carried off into Babylon in order to encourage the exiles. He records a glorious vision of Godin ch 1, Jeremiah sees the God's glory departing the temple in ch. 10 and sees the yet future return in ch. 43. he gives a horrifying picture of Israel's unfaithfulness ch 16, speaks of false shepherds of Israel ch. 34, echoes the New Covenant ch. 36 and ch. 11, he gives a picture of salvation as dry bones come to life, ch 37. In chapters 40-48, Ezekiel sees a vision of the temple and describes it with exacting measurements and descriptions. Ezekiel's temple will come during the 1000 year millennium. Israel will be restored, Jesus will reign, the temple will operate properly as a memorial to God's faithfulness.
Daniel is a key book to understanding 1. What the captivity was like. 2. What is coming in the big picture of world history. Israel has a sure future, even though God is judging them.
Habakkuk has 2 conversations with God. 1. He asks God why He is not judging sinful Judah. Answer- God says that He is raising up Babylon to do just that. 2. Habakkuk asks why God would use an even more sinful nation to judge Judah. God answers that He can judge both nations and He will never forsake Israel, but will utterly destroy Babylon.
The book of Jeremiah contains a perspective on the captivity from those who remain behind. The new covenant given in 31:31ff is critical to understanding the scriptures.
Zephaniah was a royal Prophet, being the grandson of King Hezekiah. He is a perfect help to godly King Josiah.
Group 2 prophets minister after the Northern 10 Tribes enter captivity. Nahum prophesied against Nineveh 130 years after Jonah preached there. Nineveh would fall to Babylon some 38 years after Nahum declared God's warning to them. What a patient God we serve.
Micah influenced King Hezekiah and prophesied to both the Northern and Southern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom would fall in about 8 years from his writing.
The great prophet Isaiah warns the nation of impending judgement and assures them of coming blessing through the Messiah
Hosea is the final warning to the Northern 10 Tribes. He uniquely embodies his message as his marriage to a prostitute is a living analogy of the 10 tribes unfaithfulness. Hosea 5:4-7 is to the Northern tribes what 2 Kings 21:10-15. It is the sealing of their captivity. No repentance would stop God's hand, their captivity is now set unchangably in place.
Amos carries a message of judgment to the heart of the disobedient Northern 10 tribes of Israel during the days of King Uzziah of Judah.
Jonah records the history of God's prophet to Ninevah. In the end, Nineveh repents. And they are spared. The Prophet Nahum speaks to them over 100 years later and the outcome is very different then.
Benware gives a short section in the book to the "Day of the LORD." We review that here.
This is the 2nd prophet in the divided kingdom timeframe. Joel warns of judgement on Judah. "The Day of the LORD" is explored both in it's near and far fulfillments.
This prophet spoke against the descendents of Esau, the nation of Edom. God's great patience with Edom is coming to an end.
The Prophets break up into 4 chronological time periods. This introduction sets the stage to follow Benware through the prophetic books.
The Lamentations of Jeremiah record the lament of a righteous prophet at the occasion of Jerusalem's destruction at the hand of Babylon.
This is a wonderful account of the physical love between a newly married man and woman.
Ecclesiastes demonstrates the futility of life without God and His word. It ends with great encouragement for all people.
The book of Job records a unique situation where Job's life becomes a stage to display how a righteous man suffers faithfully.
In this episode, we begin looking at the Kings of Israel. This history begins with Samuel being born and eventually coronating Saul as the 1st King.
We continue our study of the Book of Judges, using Paul Benware's OT Survey as a base text.
This file concludes our study of Deuteronomy, leaving us in a good place to begin The Book of Joshua.
Numbers is just so good! I mention that we will finish the book in this segment, but go on for 2 more segments!
Chapter 14 of numbers makes it clear that the nation will die in the wilderness, except for Caleb and Joshua.
This continues our look at the book of Numbers as taught in Paul Benware's "Survey of the Old Testament"
Leviticus is a critical supporting book to Exodus. The events take place at Mt. Sinai in a very short period of time.
In this episode, we explore another part of Benware, Chapter 4 and the remainder of the book of Exodus.
Continuing our study in Genesis. This segment works through Joseph. Exodus begins about 1/3 of the way through this episode.
This is the 2nd part of review to get everyone back up to speed, having taken off the entire month of April due to the Corona Virus.
We need to get back up to speed on the class, therefore, we will review where we have been so far. As the class has been through March, 16, 18, 21, and 23. and now we had been off for the entire month of April due to stay at home order.
This Episode is here because COVID19 struck. We suspended our class in March of 2020, and picked it up in May when it became clear that there was not going to be a physical class anytime soon.