ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK EXODUS DR. DAVID ADAMS #47 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. *** >> Isn't it clear from Chapter 19 Verse 5 that Israel's status as the chosen people of God depend upon their keeping not only the Ten Commandments but also all of the other laws that he gives them? >> Well, Joshua, you've really hit upon something we are going to be talking for most of the rest of this course now. Because this question and this verse in Chapter 19 introduces what rapidly becomes the central thematic question throughout the second half of the book. What does it mean for Israel to be the people of Yahweh? This passage here in Chapter 19 Verses 5 to 6 certainly suggest that what it means to be the people of Yahweh is that Israel must keep all the commands of God. As you say, not just the Ten Commandments but all those little commands in Chapters 21 to 23, as well. And keep them perfectly. Let's just take a moment to read the passage. "Now, therefore, if you will, indeed, obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." It's pretty clear from this or seems clear anyway that if Israel wants to be the treasured possession of God, they must obey God's torah perfectly. So how does Israel respond to this? In Exodus 19 Verse 8 we read "All the people answered and said together 'All that the Lord has spoken we will do.'" So here the gauntlet has been thrown down as it were. Yahweh has said, "If you want to be my people, you have to keep my torah perfectly." And Israel says, "We will keep your torah perfectly." So this introduces an issue that's going to be one of the central issues that we will follow until we get through with this course. Because it's an issue that dominates the rest of the book of Exodus. Basically the question as we'll see as we go along is: What happens if they don't? Well, I guess all I can say is stay tuned as we see how this matter unfolds. We can't really rush ahead to the answer at this point. Otherwise, we'll miss some of the important material that lies in between. That's why I sometimes like to say that, you know, one of the hard things about understanding theology as it's expressed in narrative is that it's sort of like doing theology in slow motion. You know, we're so used to things like Pauline letters where things are stated directly and in a straightforward manner. We -- when we have a question, we want the answer now. And we want it in a plain straightforward clear-cut way. Sometimes particularly in a book like the book of Exodus that's primarily narrative -- and also this applies to the gospels in the New Testament to a certain extent, too -- you have to wait and see how the story unfolds. You can't jump to a conclusion too quickly. Otherwise, you're likely to jump to the wrong conclusion. *** 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. ***