Old Testament History - Part 17

Tomorrow night will be the second to last class in our study through the Old Testament Historical books.  In this session, we’ll be looking at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.  The notes for tomorrow as well as the synthetic outline for Ezra-Nehemiah are below.

Ezra-Nehemiah Synthetic Outline
Ezra and Nehemiah

 
Next week will be our wrap up [...]

OT History - Part 16

I’m a little late with uploading the notes for tonight’s OT History class.  Tonight we’ll be looking at a broad overview of 1&2 Kings tonight and touching on 1&2 Chronicles as well.  The main intent for tonight is to help the class to be able to see how they should study Kings and Chronicles and [...]

OT History - Part 15

Tonight in the Old Testament Historical Books class, we’ll begin our look at the book of 1 Kings and looking primarily at the life of Solomon. In doing so, we’ll be covering 1 Kings 1-12. I will be providing multiple resources tonight: notes, 1 Kings synthetic outline, 2 Kings synthetic outline, and an [...]

The Chaos of 2 Samuel

I can still remember the first time I read through the book of 2 Samuel as a new believer. I remember being blown away that this stuff was in the bible. Just taking a high-level look at the craziness across the chapters reveals:

Ch1 - execution
Ch 3 - murder
Ch 4 - murder, then retribution
Ch 6 - [...]

OT History - Part 14

This week we’ll be focusing on 2 Samuel 13-24 and continuing our look at the reign of David. We’ll give special attention to Absalom and also David’s census in Chapter 24.
Below are the class notes for tomorrow night and also the prep questions:
2 Samuel 13-24

Why doesn’t David take action against Amnon?
What is a result of [...]

OT History - Part 13

This week we’ll be focusing on 2 Samuel 1-12 and looking at the reign of David. We’ll give special attention to the Davidic Promise in 2 Samuel 7 and also on David’s sin with Bathsheba in Chapter 11.
Here are the class notes for tomorrow night.

2 Samuel 1-12

Below are the questions I posed last week [...]

OT History - Part 11

In the Old Testament Historical Books class tonight, we’ll be focusing on 1 Samuel 10-15.  More specifically, we’ll be looking at the reign and fall of Saul.
The notes for tonight’s class can be found here:

1 Samuel 10-15

Here are the questions that I’ve challenged the class to think through in preparation for tonight:

Read 1 Samuel 10-15

These chapters [...]

OT History - Part 10

Tonight we’ll be focusing on 1 Samuel 4-9 in the Old Testament Historical Books class (part 10 of 20 - half way there!).  We’ll look at the Ark Narrative, Israel’s demand for a king, and the meeting of Samuel and Saul. 
The notes for the class can be found here:

1 Samuel 4-9

As a primer for tonight, I’ve [...]

OT History - Part 9

1 Samuel 1-3 is the passage we’ll be looking at tonight in the Old Testament Historical Books class.  We’ll spend some time talking about Hannah and then turn our attention primarily to the calling of Samuel.
The notes for tonight’s class as well as my synthetic outline for the book of 1 Samuel are below.

1 Samuel 1-3

1 [...]

OT History - Part 8

Tonight in the Old Testament Historical Books class, we’ll be taking a look at the book of Ruth and also going through an intro to 1 & 2 Samuel. 
We will be looking at Ruth primarily in the context of Israel’s history.  Ruth 1:1 reads: “In the days when the judges ruled…”  Given the time of [...]

OT History - Part 7

Tonight we’ll wrap up the book of Judges in the Old Testament Historical Books class.  We’ll look at Samson briefly (chapters 13-16), then look at the crazy conclusion to the book in chapters 17-21 where things get a little crazy…
 The notes for tonight’s class are below:
Judges 13-21

OT History - Part 6

Tonight in the OT Historical Books class, we’ll be talking about Judges 9-12, specifically of Abimelech and Jephthah as judges.  The notes for tonight are below.
Judges 9-12

If Solomon Was So Wise…

We’ve been working through the Old Testament Historical Books in our Sunday morning young adult class and for the last couple of weeks, we were talking about Solomon (1 Ki 1-11).
One person in class kept asking the question, “If Solomon was so wise, why did he fall away like he did?”  The basic foundation behind [...]

OT History - Part 5

In the OT History class tonight, we’ll be focusing on Gideon from Judges 6-8.  Below are the notes for tonight (2/20).
Judges 6-8

Provan on 1 Kings 11:9-13

In his commentary on 1 and 2 Kings, Iain Provan asks (commenting on 1 Kings 11:9-13 - i.e. the fall of Solomon):
Is the continuance of the Davidic dynasty really conditional upon obedience?  Or rather, will the wrongs of David’s successors in the end be punished with measures other than the deprivation of the dominon suffered [...]

Intermarriage and Following After Other gods

I had an interesting venture through some Scriptures a while back that we covered in the OT History class, but that I’d also like to share here.  It started when I hit Judges 3:6 with the intermarrying and worshipping other gods.
That rang a bell with me and took me back to Joshua and from there [...]

OT History - Part 4

Tonight (2/13) in the OT Historical books course, we’ll be looking at the first five chapters of the book of Judges.  Below are the notes for tonight.
 Judges 1-5

Solomon’s Temple on YouTube

I made mention of this on Sunday morning.  Someone has put an impressive animation of Solomon’s Temple on YouTube.  Although I will not vouch for the Scriptural accuracy of the animation, it certainly does a good job of capturing the magnificence of it.
 Enjoy (it’s about 5 minutes in length).

OT History - Links

If you’re just looking for the OT History documents, click on “OT History” under Categories on the right side-bar.  This will pull up all of the relevant posts in summary form.  You then need to click on the title of the post (i.e. “OT History - Part 1) to see the links to the documents.  [...]

OT History - Part 3

Tonight in the OT Historical books course, we’ll be finishing the book of Joshua (see notes posted under Part 2) and then moving on to the topic, “What Do We Do With a God Like This?”  Below are the notes for tonight as well as a synthetic outline for the book of Judges which we [...]

OT History - Part 2

Here are the notes from the January 30 class in which we covered the book of Joshua (we actually only made it through chapter 9).
Joshua

OT History - Part 1

The Old Testament (OT) course that I’m teaching actually started back on January 23rd.  Here are the handouts from that session.
Hermeneutics and Resources
Pentateuch and Joshua 1-2
Textual Outline Sample
Joshua Synthetic Outline

OT History Course

So I’m teaching a course on Wednesday nights at church.  The course is covering the Old Testament Historical books.  Have a look at my OT History Syllabus for more information.  Perhaps some of you will want to follow along this spring.  I’ll be posting additional information and future sets of notes as the course progresses.