Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Welcome to our April Reflections and Corrections episode. Let's start with The Reflections.

We recently finished our 10th Book of the Bible and are currently working our way through

three others, so let's get the 30,000-foot view on where we are in the chronological timeline

of the Bible's overall metanarrative. The Bible is one unified story. Way back in Genesis,

God set out to build a relationship with one particular family. But things go terribly wrong when they fracture the relationship through sin.

But their sin doesn't surprise God.

He already had a plan in place to restore this relationship even before it was broken,

and he continues working out that plan immediately, undeterred and unhindered by their rebellion.

He sets apart a man named Abraham to be the patriarch of the family,

and he gives this family a name, the Israelites. They're a busted bunch of people who lie, cheat,

and steal. God blesses them despite their sin, but sin still has its consequences. One of the long

storylines of consequence is of the 400 years they spent enslaved in Egypt.

God sends a man named Moses to demonstrate his power to the Egyptian ruler who reluctantly agrees to let the Israelite slaves go.

They flee to the desert, led by God and his servant Moses, and then little by little, God gives these people the basic rules of how to set up a stable society.

All they've ever known is slavery under a cruel dictator. They've never seen good leadership demonstrated.

They're a bunch of uncivilized, ungrateful people who have only just met God and Moses,

and they're not keen on obeying either of them. But in the midst of their sin and stubbornness and foolishness,

God knows that what their hearts need is him.

So he sets up camp among them in the desert.

More than anything, he wants them to remember who he is to them,

the God who rescued them out of slavery.

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