Why and How to Study Exodus
Deuteronomy 29:2-6; 30:15-20; Matthew 3:13-4:2
4th Sunday of Eastertide - April 26, 2026
As you may have read in the eNews this week, we are beginning a long journey through the book of Exodus. It happens to have been my crazy idea to do this preaching quest, and it just so happens that I have been tasked with getting the ball rolling. Funny how that works.
It may be a daunting idea— we preachers certainly think so. But we think that in the end the juice will definitely be worth the squeeze.
Why Study Exodus
What we will find is that the book of Exodus is not only interesting, but fundamentally important for understanding all the rest of the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament. Central themes, ideas, and symbols like baptism, God’s presence, and atonement are introduced in Exodus, and carry through all the way to Jesus and into the life of the Church.
Let me say that even more simply:
Understanding Exodus will unlock and illuminate the entire rest of the Bible in new and beautiful ways.
Let’s look a bit more systematically at what we will find as we dig in to Exodus.
Here are a few of the ways that Exodus helps us understand the whole Bible:
It introduces important themes
It forms the national identity of Israel
It establishes a pattern of captivity and rescue, culminating in the Messiah
It continues to echo through the life of Jesus and the New Testament church.
Let’s look at just 4 important themes that we will see. There are more, but these are major ones to take note of: Deliverance, Covenant Relationship, Divine Presence, and Spiritual Formation.
4 Themes
1. Deliverance
Deliverance is probably the most obvious theme of the book. There are instances of this in Genesis, but the exodus out of Egypt becomes the foundational picture of God’s salvation. “God saved us from slavery in Egypt.”
2. Covenant Relationship
The second theme is that the relationship between God and his people, after their deliverance, has structure. It’s not a free-for-all; there are rules, and solemn vows made to define the relationship. The handful of attorneys in the congregation may be the only ones to have a full appreciation for this, but the fine print does actually matter.
But it’s not an agreement without purpose. Just like when a couple gets married, it answers the very important question: “So, how does it work for us to live together now?” “Who takes out the trash? How do we raise our kids?” And perhaps most importantly, “How do we get back on track, when things get rocky?”
3. Divine Presence
That relationship idea connects directly with the next one: Divine Presence. It’s one thing for two humans to be in relationship. It’s entirely different to have physical and spiritual access to the all-powerful divine presence of God.
Divine presence relates to questions like, “How do humans interact with the One True God without dying?” “What does it take to become ritually pure?”
And, “How does the people of Israel represent God’s presence to the broader world?”
4. Spiritual Formation
Finally, God’s people not only had to be told what the rules were, they needed time to stress-test the relationship and practice trusting their God and savior. They needed to be formed spiritually. The 40 years of wilderness become the paradigm for needing to struggle through their own fear and inconsistency, while God remained faithful, though not without discipline and rigor.
God assures them that he has prepared the Promised Land for them, but they need to learn how to trust him on the way there.
National Identity of Israel
All of those themes become important for the national identity of the Hebrews, later referred to as the nation of Israel. The exodus journey, the giving of the law, the journey and arrival to the Promised Land keep coming up again and again throughout the rest of the story of Israel in the Old Testament. It becomes a paradigm for future cries for deliverance in Israel, such as during the Babylonian captivity. It shows up in Psalms and the Prophets.
I came across a Gospel Coalition article by Matthew Swale which catalogues the many and varied references to the Exodus in the Psalms:
Praise: 66; 103; 105; 135; 136; 145
Exhortation to faithfulness: 15; 32; 81; 95; 114
Lament: 10; 17; 77; 80; 86
Reminders of protection: 18; 91; 118
Recounting the Past, warts and all: 42; 78; 88; 106
We could do the same with Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophets, but for time we won’t.
Pointing to Messiah
If we were to dig into the Prophetic books, we would see harkening back to the Exodus event in times of distress, like when Judah gets defeated by and exiled to Babylon.
But not only that, we would start to see pictures of an even greater deliverer, savior, Messiah. Deuteronomy 18:15 states this explicitly
15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me [Moses] from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen
Moreover, especially in Isaiah 42-53, we see a development in that messianic figure’s characteristics. In some ways it seems to be an ideal Israelite— the one who does everything Israel was always supposed to do. But in other ways, there are divine characteristics, setting the stage for a mysterious human-divine salvation figure. But it is rooted in the portrait of Moses as the initial primary law-giver, and the kind of faithfulness and abundance laid out in that Law, meant for Israel to follow and flourish in.
So when that fulfillment keeps falling short, it builds this deep longing for someone to come and do all that was meant to be done.
And that, as you may have guessed, brings us right into the New Testament.
New Testament Echoes
Exodus continues to echo through the life of Jesus and the New Testament church.
Firstly, Jesus is the fulfillment of that messianic template “another prophet like Moses”
Jesus himself said, “I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.”
And later, Peter testified, “You are the Christ”
Second, Jesus walks through each of these 4 major themes himself
As we saw in our gospel passage from Matthew 3, Jesus:
Entered the waters of baptism (Deliverance through water)
His relationship to the Father is affirmed by God’s words of being pleased with his Son. (Covenant Relationship)
He receives the Holy Spirit (Divine Presence)
He immediately goes to the wilderness to be tested and tempted, coming out the other side faithful and true. (Spiritual Formation)
Thirdly, the Epistles pick up on all these themes and apply them to Christian life.
Romans & Ephesians say things like “you have been delivered from the domain of darkness and into light” and “you have died and been raised to new life, united to Christ”
Paul teaches how the Law of God written on the hearts of his people resulted in a new way in life in lists of actions to refrain from and actions to do.
We get a picture of a new kind of presence of the holy spirit: the indwelling in believers at Pentecost, and in 1 Corinthians, and other passages.
Warnings of persecution and the process of sanctification and spiritual formation in 1 Peter and Philippians and Colossians, and others.
So those are some of the reasons why Exodus is worth our time. But how do we actually study it, especially the weird and confusing parts?
While just picking it up and reading it does give us important familiarity with the story, and the Holy Spirit does speak to us through Scripture, deeper study yields amazing fruit. But it isn’t easy.
How to Study Exodus
The reality is: Scripture is really hard to read because of four challenges:
Written in another language.
Written in another time and culture.
Authored by many writers in various genres.
Written over 1,500 years, but part of a unified story that leads to Jesus.
This is where commentaries, scholars, and teachers like those at the Bible Project are so profoundly helpful. They are one of the best resources for learning how to navigate these challenges in a simple and accessible way: videos, graphics, podcasts, classes.
We’re going to be looking at this graphic a lot throughout this series. We won’t say everything it says, but we think that it will serve as an extremely helpful scaffolding that you can keep returning to for context and framing.
First, we should acknowledge the major structure:
Exodus has 2 main parts, Chapters 1-18, and 19-40. If your main familiarity with Exodus is from the movie The Prince of Egypt, which is amazing, then you might have come away with the impression that the crossing of the Red Sea and receiving the Ten Commandments is basically the end. But that’s only the first half. The second half is primarily receiving the laws from God. On the surface, it is less exciting, seems repetitive, and can be kind of confusing.
But we are going to take our time, and use good study methods and tools together to discover the richness and depth of the whole book, especially how all those things point forward to Jesus.
In order to wade through the challenges of studying scripture like John Mark Comer named, we want to pay attention to several layers of context: Literary Context, Historical Context, and canonical /theological context (part of the Big Story of the Bible)
When we consider the Literary Context, we want to pay attention to things like:
What is the structure and genre of the book?
Who are the characters and what are they like?
What themes and motifs keep showing up?
And, my favorite question IS IT A CHIASM?!
Some of us struggled to care about these questions throughout high school literature classes. But those same people may have married to a literature teacher. And become preachers and are preaching right now.
Jokes aside, these are the tools for reading all literature well. And the Bible is literature worth reading.
When we consider the Historical Context, we need to pay attention to things like:
When and where was this written?
How does the culture and geography inform the story?
What can we learn about Exodus from comparable Ancient Near Eastern literature?
Lastly, when we consider the Canonical/Theological Context, we need to pay attention to things like:
How does it fit with Genesis, and the rest of the Pentateuch, which is the first 5 books of the Bible, and the Bible as a whole?
What does it show us about the character of God?
How do we enter into the story personally, and as a church community?
Conclusion
Again, this may feel a little academic, and we will certainly be using tools and teaching from trusted scholars and theologians. But just as John Mark Comer names the challenges, he also reminds us of the goal:
He says, “Our motivation for studying Scripture must always be love. The deeper we dive into its truths, the more we come to know, understand, and love the one it's all about— Jesus.”
More importantly, Jesus himself had something to say about this.
After the resurrection, Jesus was walking toward a town called Emmaus, and sidled up next to a couple of disciples. He was in post-resurrection incognito mode, so they didn’t recognize him. He asks them why they’re so glum, and they tell him how confused they are about the crucifixion of Jesus and his supposed resurrection. He responds:
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Later after Jesus left them,
They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
Friends: O that our hearts would burn within us when we read the Scriptures— not only the words of Jesus, and the more familiar parts, but all of it. All of it, even the weird and confusing bits we aren’t sure what to do with, they point to Jesus, our Joy and our Prize, our Hope and our Savior.
So let’s dig in, read well, and ask the Holy Spirit to burn within us as we study Exodus.
This morning, I was reminded that the Lectio 365 app has spent this week focusing on this account of Jesus appearing on the road to Emmaus. I’d like to close by praying a portion of Psalm 119 which they referenced:
10 With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
11 I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
15 I will meditate on your precepts
and fix my eyes on your ways.
16 I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.
17 Deal bountifully with your servant,
that I may live and keep your word.
18 Open my eyes, that I may behold
wondrous things out of your law.
