Faith Works 3-28-2025
Jeff Gill
A Lenten journey through Scripture
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Jeff Gill
A Lenten journey through Scripture
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If you relate to my question last week, of "Why bother reading the Bible?" — then I hope you'll jump in for a four week overview of the sixty-six books in the testaments both older and newer.
Let's begin at the beginning, and look at the origin stories we find in the first five books, so-called then as "the Pentateuch," or the "Five Books of Moses," perhaps best known as the Torah, or the Law.
Lots of names because Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy have a whole history of their own. They are a traditional unit in their own right; Hebrew designations of what Christians call the "Old Testament" are basically in three sections, the Torah or Law, the Writings, and the Prophets.
That's worth noticing because when we get to the "New Testament," there's an intentional echoing in how they're organized. The four Gospels are set together, paralleling the Law; the Writings include the history accounts in Samuel and Kings and Chronicles, which the second testament parallels with Acts, somewhat separated from its partner book, Luke's Gospel… but it makes sense as the stand-in for the Writings's history, then the letters as wisdom. The Prophets of the Hebrew scriptures are then matched in the Greek New Testament with the Book of Revelation.
Back to the first books in the Bible: they tell us where we come from, who made us and claims us. Yes, creation accounts, stories of origins, narratives of simpler outlines which flesh out more complex realities to come, like the story of Joseph and his brothers an accounting of the twelve tribes of what would become the nation of Israel, united, divided, destroyed all but a remnant, then rising and united again for a time . . . all with promises that God's intention is going to expand beyond any prophet's expectations.
So even in a scientific age we need these origin stories, because they are an anchor point to a thin red line, weaving through all of the books, which we will ultimately be able to follow all the way from Genesis to Revelation, from Alpha to Omega (using the Greek alphabet), from A to Z (in what's more familiar to us). The creator of heaven and earth has a plan for us, a hope for us, made known in various ways through history, explained through laws and guidelines, but always expanding in purpose to where ultimately that plan will reclaim us all.
Genesis gets us from the Fertile Crescent to the shores of the Mediterranean, through Canaan and on into Egypt; Exodus takes us back out of Pharaoh's land, and through Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy to the very banks of the Jordan River.
History books in the "Writings" like Joshua, Judges, and Ruth get us across the river and into the land of promise; how God's people can thrive and mess us and find redemption we see in Samuel's two books, likewise paired volumes of Kings and their parallel in Chronicles, telling the same story again from a new perspective. Ezra and Nehemiah and Esther tell us something of the period of exile to come, which we learn more about later in prophets like Daniel and Ezekiel.
Out of those eras arise the poetry of the Psalms, the insights of Proverbs, the ironies of Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs's lyrical beauty. And the five major prophets, plus twelve minor (as to length) ones, are dotted through that whole history as witnesses.
What I skipped over as the hinge between history and poetry is a vast book in both length and understanding, with the shortest title: Job.
We'll come back to Job's story next week.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's a big fan of Job. Tell him where the Old Testament inspires you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Let's begin at the beginning, and look at the origin stories we find in the first five books, so-called then as "the Pentateuch," or the "Five Books of Moses," perhaps best known as the Torah, or the Law.
Lots of names because Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy have a whole history of their own. They are a traditional unit in their own right; Hebrew designations of what Christians call the "Old Testament" are basically in three sections, the Torah or Law, the Writings, and the Prophets.
That's worth noticing because when we get to the "New Testament," there's an intentional echoing in how they're organized. The four Gospels are set together, paralleling the Law; the Writings include the history accounts in Samuel and Kings and Chronicles, which the second testament parallels with Acts, somewhat separated from its partner book, Luke's Gospel… but it makes sense as the stand-in for the Writings's history, then the letters as wisdom. The Prophets of the Hebrew scriptures are then matched in the Greek New Testament with the Book of Revelation.
Back to the first books in the Bible: they tell us where we come from, who made us and claims us. Yes, creation accounts, stories of origins, narratives of simpler outlines which flesh out more complex realities to come, like the story of Joseph and his brothers an accounting of the twelve tribes of what would become the nation of Israel, united, divided, destroyed all but a remnant, then rising and united again for a time . . . all with promises that God's intention is going to expand beyond any prophet's expectations.
So even in a scientific age we need these origin stories, because they are an anchor point to a thin red line, weaving through all of the books, which we will ultimately be able to follow all the way from Genesis to Revelation, from Alpha to Omega (using the Greek alphabet), from A to Z (in what's more familiar to us). The creator of heaven and earth has a plan for us, a hope for us, made known in various ways through history, explained through laws and guidelines, but always expanding in purpose to where ultimately that plan will reclaim us all.
Genesis gets us from the Fertile Crescent to the shores of the Mediterranean, through Canaan and on into Egypt; Exodus takes us back out of Pharaoh's land, and through Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy to the very banks of the Jordan River.
History books in the "Writings" like Joshua, Judges, and Ruth get us across the river and into the land of promise; how God's people can thrive and mess us and find redemption we see in Samuel's two books, likewise paired volumes of Kings and their parallel in Chronicles, telling the same story again from a new perspective. Ezra and Nehemiah and Esther tell us something of the period of exile to come, which we learn more about later in prophets like Daniel and Ezekiel.
Out of those eras arise the poetry of the Psalms, the insights of Proverbs, the ironies of Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs's lyrical beauty. And the five major prophets, plus twelve minor (as to length) ones, are dotted through that whole history as witnesses.
What I skipped over as the hinge between history and poetry is a vast book in both length and understanding, with the shortest title: Job.
We'll come back to Job's story next week.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's a big fan of Job. Tell him where the Old Testament inspires you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
