10: Summer 2018
Week 10 – Nehemiah
August 5
Check out the Bible Project video to learn more about Nehemiah. The Bible Project: Ezra-Nehemiah Ezra and Nehemiah used to be one unified book, so this video addresses both. Start at 4:55 to learn more about Nehemiah specifically….
Week 9 – Esther
July 29
Beauty pageants, public impalings, and tons of drinking; we see all that and more in the story of Esther, with plenty of ethical questions along the way. Check out the Bible Project video on Esther for the full story, it’s super…
Week 8 – Daniel
July 22
The book of Daniel starts out with very little backstory for Daniel himself. We know he’s from the royal family of Israel, one of the captives taken to Babylon to be trained up in the court of Nebuchadnezzar alongside his friends and…
Week 7 – Isaiah
July 15
The job of being a prophet was a lonely one. Usually, God used prophets to call his people to repentance, warning them that their faithlessness towards God was leading them to ruin. As you can imagine, this was a really unpopular message,…
Week 6 – Jonah
July 8
Jonah is the worst. Watch the Bible Project video on him and maybe you’ll agree. At every turn in the story he’s a cranky, stubborn, stone-hearted man, always disobeying God, spurning God’s mercy, and even fussing at God directly. Worse,…
Week 5 – Ruth
July 1
I don’t think I can summarize the book of Ruth any better than the Bible Project video included here; just go watch it. Towards the end of the video, the narrator points out one of the unusual aspects of Ruth: God is hardly mentioned in…
Week 4 – Deborah
June 24
In Judges 4 we pick up shortly after Joshua’s death. Joshua was the primary leader of Israel after Moses, who helped Israel drive out the Canaanites from the Promised Land. Unfortunately Israel didn’t drive out all the Canaanites, as God…
Week 3 – Rahab
June 17
By the time we get to the second chapter of Joshua, the people of Israel have been wandering in the desert for 40 years and are finally about to take hold of the land God had promised them. Unfortunately, that land was already occupied, so…
Justifying Rahab
Rahab turns up a surprising number of times in the bible. After helping the two Israelite spies (Judges 2) and being spared in the downfall of Jericho (Judges 6), she’s mentioned on three other occasions, the third providing the real question for this discussion. As...
Week 2 – Joseph
June 10
Joseph’s life started out with headline-worthy examples of family dysfunction. As a boy, Joseph was pretty arrogant, and had a bad habit of bragging in front of his brothers and his parents…
Week 1 – Abraham
June 3
In Genesis 12, God speaks to Abram, whose name changes later to Abraham. But who is Abram? Aside from mentioning Abram as a descendent of Adam and Eve from the land of Haran, scripture doesn’t say much about his origins. However, once we…
Series Intro
This summer we’ll be studying 10 people from the Old Testament who met God and were changed forever. These people cover a massive spectrum of humanity, from destitute widows to disobedient prophets, from judges to prisoners, and span…