This sermon is only tangentially related to our journey through the story of the Bible together this year, but it is a topic I get asked about a lot. How should Christians think about Israel today?
(Preaching on the promises made to Israel. This sermon was preached at the Dewey Church of Christ on August 3, 2025.)
The book of Ezekiel has a lot to say about how the failure of Israel’s leaders led Israel into destruction. The book still has much to teach modern readers about the importance of righteous leadership today.
(Preaching on the exile of Israel. This sermon was preached at the Dewey Church of Christ on August 3, 2025.)
The stories of Daniel and Esther take place outside of Israel, a hundred years apart. What can we learn from God’s people as they continued to live faithfully in the midst of ungodly people?
(Preaching on the exile of Israel. This sermon was preached at the Dewey Church of Christ on July 27, 2025.)
The exilic writing of the Old Testament is some of the most powerfully applicable Old Testament Scripture to the modern reader. I am excited to arrive at them in our journey through the story of the Bible this year.
The Babylonian exile is one of the most complicated narrative backdrops in the Old Testament, spanning many prophetic and historical books in Scripture. Understanding the scope of the exile and the return will inform our reading of dozens of Old Testament books, and help us gain a better understanding of the story of God’s people through history.
(Preaching on the exile to Babylon. This sermon was preached at the Dewey Church of Christ on July 20, 2025.)
Lamentations might be the hardest book to read in the Bible; not because it’s obscure or overly intellectual, or because it is simply a compilation of census data, but because it’s extremely heavy and emotional. Why was it written, and why is still just as valuable for modern readers?
(Preaching through the prophets. This sermon was preached at the Dewey Church of Christ on July 20, 2025.)
This was by far one of the most difficult charts/timelines to put together in our journey through the Bible this year. The Babylonian exile and eventual return serves as the backdrop for many Old Testament books. I hope this can give you a clearer overall picture of this momentous period of Biblical history.
Jeremiah is a hard book for modern readers to understand (like many of the Israelite prophetic books). What are some of the factors that contribute to this difficulty, and how can modern readers understand the book in its own context while also making application for ourselves?
(Preaching through the prophets of Israel. This sermon was preached at the Dewey Church of Christ on July 13, 2025.)
The book of Jeremiah is not arranged chronologically, so in our reading through the Bible our text for this week comes a little out of historical order. Jeremiah 29 is addressed to people living in exile after Babylon had come against Israel and carried many of them away. What did Jeremiah have to say to these exiles, and how does their situation mirror our own?
(Preaching through the prophets of Israel. This sermon was preached at the Dewey Church of Christ on July 13, 2025.)
Jeremiah is one of the most challenging books to understand, both in the theme and content of his message, as well as the structure and chronology of the writing and the prophet’s own life. I hope this chart will help give you a broader perspective on the prophet’s work.
Watts in the Word 