It is good to have more than one person ready to verify facts, especially when they are well-informed and honest.  In the case of the remarkable life of Jesus, we have four accounts written by people close to the source, which we traditionally call the Gospels, because they record the gospel, or good news, about Jesus.  After considering their authorship, we look at their overall structure and the curious methods that Jesus used to reveal himself little by little to his followers and to others.  These culminated in the crowning acts of his work: his death and resurrection.

With the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, we arrive at the end of Old Testament history with the Jews back in their land after having been taken away by Babylonia and sent back by Persia.  They returned in at least three phases, under the leadership of three men – Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah – in order to rebuild the Temple, the people, and the city, respectively.  All was set for a glorious ending to the history, but things took a bad turn right at the end, leaving us hanging and wondering what would become of God’s people.  In fact, the ending of Ezra-Nehemiah points us forward some 400 years to the real end of the story, since God’s final plan for his kingdom was not merely to have one nation gathered in one city walled off from everyone else but to embrace all the people of the earth.

Although the books of Kings and Chronicles cover much of the same history, they have different and complimentary perspectives, focusing mostly on the time of the united Kingdom of Israel under Solomon and then the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Kings answers the question: What went wrong? Chronicles answers the question: Is there any hope for us? It turns out that there was more hope than the people could have conceived, but it wasn’t realized until the coming of Christ in whom the apparently failed promises of the Old Testament find their fulfillment.

Thanks to Pastor Rick Hunter of CityChurch for his sermon on Acts 17:16-34, where Paul had a unique opportunity to preach to a group of well-educated men who did not know the Bible.  This sermon sounds very different from those he preached in the Jewish synagogues but contains the same Gospel message.  As Christians present this good news to people of all backgrounds, we can learn much from Paul’s ability to deliver an unchanging message in a form that was accessible to his audience and even persuasive to some of them, who went away wanting to hear more.

Ringing in our ears from the book of Judges is the cry for a king, so we are not surprised to find that the book that is now divided into 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel answers the need for a king.  However, the process was not very neat, since there was a first failed attempt to have a king and then a second more successful one, which was not without its own problems.  As we see in all the books of the Old Testament, God fulfills his promises, but the promise of an anointed king to save God’s people was not finally and completely fulfilled until Christ came.

When people read the Bible, they may be surprised to find shocking stories of wickedness mixed with stories of great faith, sometimes in the very same people.  In other words, it contains stories of people like us.  Judges reports on the chaotic situation in Israel after the death of Joshua during which a series of deliverers rescued God’s people time and time again from self-inflicted problems.  At the end of the book, things spiraled out of control, but this failure reveals the main point of the book.  In the end, the judges could not have lasting success but were signposts pointing forward to the answer to their failures and ours.

In Exodus, the focus was on coming out of Egypt.  Numbers recorded the wandering in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land.  Deuteronomy was preparation for entering the Promised Land.  In Joshua, we read of the fulfillment of God’s long-standing promise to give the land to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The corresponding call of the book is for God’s people to be faithful to keep his commandments.  Although the book ends on a pessimistic note about their ability to obey, it also points forward to another Joshua who would finish the work.

In Deuteronomy, the fifth and final book of what is called the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses, we have three sermons that Moses gave to the people before his death and before the people were finally to enter the Promised Land: one focused on the past, one on the future, and one on the present. A summary of his message is: God loves you, so trust and obey him. Along the way, Moses touched on important themes that run through the whole Bible and find their fulfillment in Christ.

Who would have thought that a book called Numbers would contain interesting stories that are applicable to our lives today?  Actually, the Jews call the book In the Desert, which is not only a more engaging title but also more descriptive of the history the book records about the wanderings of the people of God in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land.  The New Testament refers several times Numbers in order to point us to Christ and to call us to persevere in faith until we reach our Promised Land.  If you need some encouragement for the journey, it’s Numbers to the rescue!

While Leviticus makes for difficult reading for people today, it contains a simple message that everyone needs to learn: God is holy, so we may approach him only in the manner he determines. In the context of Leviticus, God determined that his people approach him through a holy priest offering a perfect sacrifice.  However, the fact that the people had to offer many sacrifices through many priests over many centuries indicated that none of the sacrifices finally took away their sins.  It turns out that the whole system was pointing forward to Jesus, the only truly holy priest who offered himself as the only perfect sacrifice.