Preaching on Exodus

At St James, Audley we are about to start a sermon series on Exodus – the whole book in 8 sermons.

I get to preach on 1:1-7:7, 12-14, and the first of the tabernacle sections.

Phew… it’s hard work. And I’m trying to work out why.

Part of it is that I am far less familiar with the content of the OT (to my shame) than I am with that of the NT.

Part of it is that the message of a narrative section is imparted to the reader through more intuitive in-gates than the message of (say) epistle. But to be certain I am teaching legitimate messages requires me to bring those intuitive impacts into the conscience mental process.

Part of it is that narrative requires handling in much larger blocks than some other genres. (Requires may be too strong. “There is a good case for handling narrative in larger blocks” is perhaps a better way to put it. Pace the Puritans). Which means the sheer amount of data to integrate is vast.

On the other hand – it does me the power of good to be stretched this hard, and it is a real privilege to start to see what God is teaching through this part of Scripture. I wouldn’t swap jobs for the world!