The Believers Church Bible Commentary Series is published for all who seek more fully to understand the original message of Scripture and its meaning for today—Sunday school teachers, members of Bible study groups, students, pastors, and other seekers. The series is based on the conviction that God is still speaking to all who will listen, and that the Holy Spirit makes the Word a living and authoritative guide for all who want to know and do God’s will.
Each volume illuminates the Scriptures; provides historical and cultural background; shares necessary theological, sociological, and ethical meanings; and, in general, makes "the rough places plain." Critical issues are not avoided, but neither are they moved into the foreground as debates among scholars. The series aids in the interpretive process, but it does not attempt to supersede the authority of the Word and Spirit as discerned in the gathered church.
The Believers Church Bible Commentary is a cooperative project of Brethren in Christ Church, Brethren Church, Church of the Brethren, Mennonite Brethren Church, and Mennonite Church.
Overall Outline
The commentaries are organized into sections according to the major divisions of the text. Each section comprises five parts:
- An introductory preview
- A summary outline of the section
- Explanatory notes
- The text in its biblical context
- The text in the life of the church
Exodus
Waldemar Janzen (Mennonite Church) offers a fresh approach to the book of Exodus. The liberation from Egypt is a prelude to Israel's unique calling to model before the nations a new life of service under God. Exodus portrays how God, through his servant Moses, wages a dramatic battle with Egypt's mighty ruler for the release of enslaved Israel.
After wresting Israel from Pharaoh's enslavement, God fights for the soul of his doubting and resistant people. Even after Israel's covenant commitment to be God's "priestly kingdom and holy nation," Israel breaks away again.
God's grace wrests Israel away once more, this time from captivity to its own doubts, fears, and self-centeredness. In the last chapters, Exodus portrays a people focused in faith on the imageless presence of God in its midst.
