In this segment, I want to recap all the principles we've talked about so far and then move from theory into practice by taking a real example from the Old Testament of a text that we would tackle with all the tools that we've discussed so far and try to see how I would develop a lesson from the text. So I want to first give a little review of the steps that we talked about in preparation for a lesson from the previous segments.
First is reading the Bible regularly and thoroughly, the New Testament and the Old Testament because we want to be able to see the connections between any passage of Scripture we're looking at and other related passages of Scripture. And then in connection with that, whenever I'm reading a passage in the Bible, if I can think of other passages that quote it or tie into it or might present a counterpoint that might be some tension between this and another passage, I want to read those passages at the same time.
So I'll read the passage I want to preach from and any related passage. Particularly if I'm preaching from the Old Testament, if any of the New Testament writers quote from or allude to that passage, I want to read everything that they said before along with the text itself from the Old Testament before I start to craft a lesson. I want to have all of that before me at the same time. Obviously, we've got to deal with our own lives. We're preaching the Word of God.
We don't want to be hypocrites, and so we need to be clean vessels. The Holy Spirit inspired the Word of God. We want to be asking for more of the Holy Spirit.
That God will give us the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and godliness, fear the Lord, that we can that the Holy Spirit will open up our eyes, that we can see more clearly what the Spirit put into the lessons to be able to be a blessing to the church, to understand what the author intended first, and then after understanding that, how we can make appropriate application today for the church. We want to become excellent readers. This is a lifetime goal, excellent active readers.
And that means asking tough questions of the text. As we talked about before, that passive readers ask no questions and they get no answers. So as active readers, we have to ask the tough questions of the text and then do the hard work of digging out the answers to the questions that we have received we come up with. So if there's something disturbing, if there's something that appears to contradict something else in the Scriptures, don't ignore it. Dig in. Take a look at it. Wrestle with it.
Just try to understand how the pieces all fit together. This is going to make you a better Bible reader and a much sharper teacher and a much sharper question by being in the habit of asking tough questions of the text. If there are any keywords that are in the text, see how they're used elsewhere in Scripture to get a sense of what the words mean in this particular context. And then don't just stop at level one. This is really important when doing expository teaching.
We understand not only the storyline, but then we go to level two, what are the moral applications for us? And then level three, are there possibly any foreshadowings in this story that can shed some light on things that are revealed more fully in the New Testament. And also, if you come up with any ideas or theories, that's a wonderful thing, but put them under the test. Put them to the test. Don't be too attached to your own theories or ideas. It's good to be analyzing and thinking and coming up with ideas.
But even remember Michael Faraday, he said over 90 percent of the wonderful ideas that I come up with that I love. I basically crush them and kill them. They don't make it out that only the good ideas make it out when we're teaching. Those who teach will be judged face a more severe judgment. We want to be very careful about teaching accurately and if anything is speculated to make it very clear that that's just an opinion or a speculative thing.
So the example that I want to take, this is a tough scripture from another angle. I want to take some passages of scripture. They're not the easiest to wrestle through. Genesis chapter 18. This is the story of Abraham and Sarah having lunch with three unusual visitors. Genesis chapter 18 we'll take verses 1 to 15.
So we're going to read the text and then see if there are any questions in here that we want to ask of the text and then dig out and also to ask ourselves the question, are there any New Testament passages that quote from this or allude to this story here so we can get the insights of the New Testament writers. Genesis chapter 18. " Then God appeared to him," which is referring to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre as he was sitting at the tent door during the noon hour.
So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood before him. And when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the ground and said, " Oh Lord, if I have now found grace in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let water be brought, let them wash your feet while you cool yourselves under the tree, and I will bring bread for you to eat.
After that, you may pass by inasmuch as you have come to your servant." They said, " Do as you have said." So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, " Quick, make ready three measures of fine meal, knead it and make cakes." Then Abraham ran to the herd, took a young calf, tender and good, gave it to his servant, and he hastened to prepare it. He took butter and milk and the calf he prepared, set it before them, and he stood by them under the tree as they ate.
Then he said to him, " Where is Sarah your wife?" And he replied here in the tent. Again, he said, " I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah, your wife shall have a son." Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.
Therefore, Sarah laughed within herself, saying, " I have not yet had a child until now, and my lord is old also?" Then the Lord said to Abraham, " Why did Sarah laugh within herself, saying, " I shall surely bear a child since I am old? " Shall I surely bear a child since I'm old?" Is anything impossible with God? At the appointed time, I'll return to you according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.
But Sarah denied that she had laughed where she was afraid saying, " I did not laugh," but he said, " No, but you did laugh." So any other places in Scripture, particularly in the New Testament, where this incident is alluded to, where Sarah is told that she's going to have a son by the Lord, and this conversation takes place. I think of two places in the New Testament. One is Hebrews chapter 11 in the account in the heroes of faith.
It says, " By faith, Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised." So even though Sarah laughed in the beginning that she believed and it was by faith that she had a son. So she believed him faithful who had promised that the Lord who came to her door, she believed in the end that she would have the son. So she's held up as an example of faith as a result of this interaction that she believed the promise.
And then in 1 Peter chapter 3, let's turn to there. I think that this is referring to this example. 1 Peter chapter 3, when Peter is speaking about submission, about submissioning to various authorities, to the government, servants to masters, wives to their husbands. In 1 Peter 3 and verse 1, he says, " Wives likewise be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some of them do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives.
When they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. Do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging of the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel. Rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.
For in this manner in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves being submissive to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror. Well, where does it say he's referring Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord? Where does it say that Sarah called Abraham Lord? The only place I'm aware of is in this passage here, Genesis 18:12, where she refers to her husband as my lord.
So Sarah is held up as someone who respected her husband, who had the inner beauty that God really values, the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. So those are the two passages I can think of in the New Testament that talk about Sarah and talk about that allude to this interaction right here. So that's the first thing.
I look at any passages in the New Testament anywhere else in the Bible that talk about this that could shed more light on this, about lessons that the apostles think we should gain from this, or the New Testament writers, and then difficult questions. Well, the first question that I have that I had when reading this passage here in Genesis chapter 18, let's take a look at how it starts off. That's the first question. Tough questions for an active reader. Perhaps you had the same question.
It says, " Abraham lifted his eyes and looked in verse two, and behold, three men stood before him. When he saw them, he ran to the tent door to meet them and bowed down to the ground. And so three men came to him. Who were the three men? This is the question, an active reader question. And since Moses isn't around to answer the question, I have to go and dig through his writings to answer the question myself.
Further along in Genesis chapter 18, verse 22, it says, " Then the men turned away from there and went towards Sodom, but Abraham remained before the Lord." So Abraham drew near and said, " Would you also destroy the righteous with the ungodly?" Of course, this is talking about the dialogue they're having about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Suppose there were 50 righteous within the city. Would you also destroy the place and not spare it for 50 righteous in it?
Far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that the righteous should be as the wicked. Far be it from you. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right. And then in chapter 19, after the two continue on, the other two continue on, this is one's referred to as the Lord is referred to as the judge of all the earth.
And Genesis 19 says, " Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening and Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom." So the other two, the other two men are the angels. So one is referred to as the Lord, the judge of all the earth, and the other two are angels. But unfortunately, that throws me to another question because if the two men are angels, okay, I get that, the other one is referred to the Lord, the judge of all the earth, is Abraham speaking with God here? And it seems like he is.
He's speaking with the Lord, the judge of all the earth. So let's think about this. Abraham sits down, slaughters a calf, feeds lunch to two angels, I get, but he's feeding lunch to God himself. He has lunch with him, goes for a walk with him down the road. He's doing this with God. Now, the problem that I have thinking about that is there are several scriptures that say it seems rather clear to me that this isn't possible, that you can't see God. You can't have lunch with God in this way.
In Exodus 33, first one that comes to mind, when Moses asks to see the face of God, he says, " Can I just see your face?" And in Exodus 33:20, the Lord says, " You cannot see my face, for no man can see my face and live." I said, " Well, okay, maybe when the Lord showed up to have lunch, he had a little hood over his face so he couldn't see his face, and he's just doing something like that." I don't know. But then we move on to the New Testament and it gets even tougher.
In John chapter 1 and verse 18, it says, " No one has seen God at any time." 1 John 4:12 says the same thing. No one has seen God at any time. And then perhaps the toughest one to me is in 1 Timothy chapter 6 verses 15 and 16. And Paul here is speaking about God, the Father.
He says, 1 Timothy 6:15 and 16 says, " He who is the blessed and only potentate, the king of kings, the lord of lords, who alone has immortality dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom the honor and everlasting power amen." So, okay, Paul says, " The Lord, the Father dwells in unapproachable light. No man has seen him or can see him." Well, who was this who had lunch with Abraham and went for a walk with him on the road? What do we do with that?
What do we do with the other examples of people who it seems like they're having a personal direct encounter with God in the Old Testament? So what do we do with this apparent contradiction? I say it's an apparent contradiction because there are two opposing ideas, and I believe that they're both true, but I'm having a difficult time understanding how do we fit these two together. How is it that both statements are true?
And so I turned to the early Christians and say, " How did you guys understand this?" And they had a very interesting explanation. Dictionary Christian beliefs, this is basically it's a topical guide to many of the subjects that are discussed in Ante-Nicene Fathers. There's an article here on Theophany. Theophany is a fancy word that means basically appearances of God. And when God appeared in the Old Testament in passages like the one we just read, the early Christians comment on how they understood that.
And this is from Irenaeus, an early Christian writer. I'll read a few quotes. Irenaeus, an early Christian writer writing around the year 180, which is found in Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 1 Page 473. So you can look this up for yourself and read in context. Irenaeus said, " The Son of God is implanted everywhere throughout Moses' writings." At one time indeed, he spoke with Abraham when he was about to eat with him. At another time, he was with Noah giving him the dimensions of the Ark.
At another time he inquired after Adam. At another time he brought down judgment upon the Sodomites and again he became visible and directed Jacob on his journey and spoke with Moses from the Bush. So according to Irenaeus, that this is the Son of God, not the Father, who is appearing to men and speaking with them. But it's not just Irenaeus.
There's a quote from Clement of Alexandria writing around the year 195 and Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 2 pages 223-224 says, " This was he referring to the Son of God who appeared to Abraham and said to him, " I am your God, be acceptable before me." Furthermore, Jacob is said to have wrestled with him. Jacob calls the name of the place face of God.
He says, " For I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved." The face of God is the word by whom God is manifested and made known, the word, the logos, the Word of God. Then also was Jacob given the name Israel because he saw God the Lord. It was God the Word. So he's saying this was the Son of God, the Word of God that Jacob saw when he wrestled with the Lord. And a longer quote from Novatian and Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 5, page 627.
He's writing around the year 235, and this will show you how the early Christians viewed the Father and the Son in this regard. Moses everywhere introduces God the Father as infinite and without end. He is not enclosed in any place. So with reason, he can neither descend nor ascend because he himself both contains and fulfills all things. However, Moses speaks of God descending to consider the tower that the sons of man were building. That's the Tower of Babel.
Whom do they pretend here to have been the God who descended to that tower? God the Father. But then he is enclosed in a place. So how does he embrace all things? Accordingly, neither did the Father descend nor did an angel command these things. Then it remains that he must have descended of whom the apostle Paul says he who descended is the same who ascended above all heavens that he might fill all things. That is the Son of God, the Word of God. Yet the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us.
This must be Christ. Therefore, Christ must be declared to be God. That's from Novatian. So this is very, very interesting to me to see how the early Christians put this together. So for them, there's no conflict whatsoever. In fact, they push the argument back to the Jews of saying, " How can it be that God who fills all things and who dwells in unapproachable light, how could when it says that God appeared to Abraham or that Jacob wrestled with God, how could that possibly be the father that's impossible?
It must be for referring to the Word of God, to the Son of God." So there's no contradiction here in the Scriptures. If the early Christians are correct, it was the Son of God who was indeed. I mean, think about what Abraham said, " Will not the judge of all the earth do right? Christ, the Son of God, is the judge of the living and the dead." And if the early Christians are right, it's certainly believable that he met with Abraham because he was the Son of God.
The Word of God was before all ages, all things were created through Him. He is the Word of the Father and that He appeared several times in history of the Old Testament in various forms before the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth. So the early Christians used events like this in the Old Testament to prove the divinity of the Son of God, the divinity of Christ. When they wanted to explain the divinity of the Son of God, they didn't start with John chapter 1.
They started with all these passages in the Old Testament and explained that this makes no sense, that there must be another who is referred to as God who was divine, referring to the Word of God, the Son of God, the Son meaning the one who came from the Father. So, let's go back to the story here in Genesis chapter 18. By asking the questions and digging to find the answers, sometimes we find some wonderful, beautiful things in the process. Are there any moral lessons in the story here?
A lot of people will read Genesis 18 and disparage Sarah for laughing and then for covering up and saying, " Well, no, I really didn't laugh about the whole thing." And it's easy to criticize people in the Old Testament for their shortcomings. However, think about this. Sarah was 90 years old. She's either 90 or 91 at this point in time. So she's a 90-year-old woman who has passed way past the age of childbearing and has never had a child.
And it says in Hebrews chapter 11 that she had a child by faith, that she believed the promise. So she is held up as a heroine of faith. She made it into the Hall of Heroes in Hebrews chapter 11 because she did believe God after all. So let's not be too hard and critical of Sarah. She's a wonderful example of us, first of all, in believing a promise of God, that most of us would have an awful, hard time believing much lesser promises.
And then second of all, as Peter points out, that she showed tremendous respect for her husband, Abraham, who was a man of faith, but he was also a very imperfect man. And she's held up by Peter as a wonderful example of a godly wife for all Christian to imitate that spirit. So there are wonderful moral lessons in the story. There are things that we can learn about the nature of God from the story from this story here. And then the third level is the foreshadowings.
Well, is there anything in the New Testament that points to Sarah having a son as being an allegory of something that is fulfilled later on? I think there is in Galatians chapter four. Paul points to this in Galatians 4. Let's take a look at the point that he makes. He says that this whole story of Sarah conceiving and having a son has allegorical significance as well. So there is a third level to the story. Let's read from Galatians chapter four starting verse 21.
So the issue in Galatians is do Christians need to follow the law of Moses or just live by faith and follow the commands of Jesus? Are Christians bound by the law of Moses or not? And we know where Paul lands on this one. But let's look at the argument that he uses to support his position. One of the arguments goes back to the story. Galatians 4:21, " Tell me you who desire to be under the law." Do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bond woman, another by a free woman.
But he who was of the bond woman was born according to the flesh, he who of the free woman through the promise. Which things are symbolic? For these are the two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia corresponds to the Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage with their children. But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, " Rejoice O barren, you who do not bear. Break forth and shout.
You who are not in labor. For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband. Now we brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as he who was born according to the flesh, then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what does the scripture say? Cast out the bond woman and her son, for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.
So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond woman but of the free." So the point that Paul is making this has got to be very insulting to the Jews, he said, " Abraham had two sons, the first one of Hagar, the bond woman, the slave, and then the second one of the free woman, his wife Sarah." And he says, " That represents you Jews who are trying to follow the law. That's the kind of descendants from Abraham that you are. You're the descendants of Hagar.
And those who are living by faith in Christ and following his commands, not the law of Moses and not circumcision, those are the sons of the promise, the sons of the free woman, the sons of Sarah. So the two sons and the two births, one of the slave woman, one of the free woman, represents the Jews and the Christians, those who would live by faith.
Let's stop there and in the next segment, we will take on another example, continuing with how to do expository preaching and teaching using the Old Testament, and we'll look at the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.