“And when your children ask you”: Reflections on Exodus 12:26

Maxwell Institute Podcast

Christianity, Education, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 809 Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2026

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

In this week’s Old Testament Reflection, Kristian Heal explores the meaning and power of the question posed in Exodus 12:26: “And when your children ask you…” Drawing on the Exodus story, Heal reflects on what he calls the Bible’s tradition of prophetic audacity—the insistence that God is mightier than any empire, obstacle, or fear. This episode considers how story and ritual work together to sustain faith across generations. In Exodus 12, narrative gives way to law, memory becomes embodied in ritual, and parents are charged with passing on the reasons for hope through a culture of questions and answers. From Passover to Christian worship, Heal shows how sacred time, liturgy, and memory keep the mighty acts of God present and real. This audio essay invites listeners to consider how remembering—and retelling—God’s saving work shapes resilient faith in both ancient Israel and contemporary discipleship.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From Brigham Young University's Maxwell Institute, this is the Maxwell Institute podcast, Faith Illuminating Scholarship.
0:10.2	In 2026, we are releasing a series called Old Testament Reflections. Each week, a scholar offers a short reflection on the Come Follow Me Reading.
0:19.8	Today's piece, and when your children ask you,
0:22.9	reflections on Exodus 1226, is written and read by Christian Heel.
0:30.5	There is something prophetically audacious about the Exodus story. Norris is the only
0:35.9	prophetically audacious story in the Old Testament. Just think of
0:39.2	David and Goliath, Joshua and Jericho and Jonah and Nineveh. The message is the same in all of them.
0:46.3	God is mightier. God is mightier than Pharaoh. God is mightier than Jericho. God is mightier than
0:53.2	Goliath. And God is mightier than Jericho, God is mightier than Goliath, and God is mightier than Jonah
0:56.3	could even imagine. What do I mean by prophetic audacity? First, there is the sheer scale of the
1:03.7	events described in these stories. Exodus tells of millions leaving Egypt. Goliath is impossibly large. Jericho seems impenetrable,
1:14.6	and Nineveh was a vast and wicked city. And God's instruments in such work? A stammerer with a
1:20.9	staff, a boy, some wind instruments, and a reluctant prophet. I mean prophetic, in part, because these accounts are not just
1:29.8	about God's work in the past, but more about looking forward to future fulfillment and future hope.
1:37.0	Nephi captures the essence of the kind of hope inspired by the prophetic audacity of the
1:42.4	Exodus story. And it came to pass that I speak unto my brethren
1:46.1	saying, let us go up again unto Jerusalem, and let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord.
1:53.1	For behold, he is mightier than all the earth. Then why not mightier than Laban in his 50,
1:59.4	yea, or even than his tens of thousands?
2:02.7	Therefore, let us go up. Let us be strong like unto Moses, for he truly speak unto the waters
2:08.5	of the Red Sea, and they divided hither and thither, and our fathers came through,
2:13.0	out of captivity, on dry ground, and the armies of Pharaoh did follow and were drowned in the waters of the
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