ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK EXODUS DR. DAVID ADAMS #27 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> What is the main theological point of this section? What if I were to preach on this text? What would I teach? >> In the last question we talked about the literary structure and saw what the main literary point was in the text. And Nick, you've done just the right thing by following up with the question: What's the main theological point in this text? Now, most people when they it look at this text tend to fixate either on the burning bush or on the revelation of God's name in Verse 14. So let's take just a second to look at these two things and see what function they perform in the text. The burning bush is part of the setting of the context. It's the mechanism that God uses to get Moses' attention. So God appears in the burning bush. Moses is walking along tending the sheep. He sees this miraculous sign of the bush that's burning but isn't consumed by the fire. And he says, "Hey, I think I'll walk over and take a look at that." That's my translation of the Hebrew at that point. And after that the burning bush is not mentioned in this text again. So clearly the function of the burning bush is to get Moses there in the presence of God so that God can announce this plan that he has for Moses. So the burning bush is clearly not the main theological point of the text. But what about the revelation of God's name? This is something that when most people read this text sort of leaps off the page to them. And if you pick up most commentaries, this is a point about which they will spend a considerable amount of time in discussion. Is it the main theological issue of the text? Well, let's ask two things. First: Where does this fall in the discussion of the dialogue? This revelation of the name is God's answer to Moses when Moses objects to the plan for the second time. So it's not part of what God intended or planned to tell Moses in this conversation. It's something that God says in response to an objection that Moses raises. That fact becomes even clearer when we realize that when God does introduce himself to Moses at the beginning of the text it, he doesn't do so by giving this divine name. Rather, he introduces himself by saying, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." That's the way that God introduces himself. That's the way that he wants Moses to know him in this text. And the whole discussion of the name only comes into the text because of an objection that Moses raises. So as important as the revelation of the divine name is here, it's not the main theological point of the text, either. So perhaps we can get at this question by asking: What was it that God wanted to say to Moses? What did God come down and appear for the purpose of telling him? And the answer, of course, is the same thing that we identified as the central literary feature of the text. Namely, Exodus 3 Verses 7 to 10. Let's look at that passage for just a moment. "Then the Lord said, 'I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their task masters. I know their sufferings. And I have come down to deliver them out of the land of Egypt and bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land. A land flowing with milk and honey. To the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites.'" Aren't you glad we didn't stop and talk about all of those people in the introductory section? Well, the text continues. "Now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me. I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." This is the main theological message of the text. This is what God appears to Moses in order to tell him. This is the introduction to the main theological emphasis in the first half of the book that we've called the drama of redemption. Well, Nick, actually you asked what would you preach from this text. And don't take this personally when I say this. But I can't answer the question of what you would preach. And the reason I can't answer the question of what you would preach is I've heard any number of pastors preach on this text. And I'm here to tell you, they do some pretty odd things with this text sometimes. I remember one sermon in particular where the pastor preached on the fact that Moses was a shepherd of Midian, which is an incidental point of the First Verse of the text. It has nothing to do with this text and what it has to say. So I don't know what you would preach on. But I can tell you what I would preach on -- if I were preaching on this text, I would preach on the main point of the text. Namely, the announcement of Yahweh's redemptive plan. Because that's where the Gospel is to be found in this text. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***