Gods OT Strategy (17) - Exodus Rescue

The Exodus was the first big rescue executed by God. The Israelite slaves were all descendants of Abraham, so they knew about God, even if they did not always obey him. They cried out to him for deliverance, which gave him authority to act on their behalf. I presume God let Joseph and Jacob go to Egypt, so this would happen. The people of Canaan had filled up their sins, so God had authority under the rainbow covenant to remove them from the land.

Establishing the children of Israel in the land of Canaan was a really important step forward in God‘s plan. For the first time in history, God had authority over a piece of the earth on which he was free to operate. Humans could not take it off him. He also had a people he could sometimes count on to release his power on earth. With some land and a people, he could now start some serious work on earth. His goal was to expand from Canaan into the rest of the earth.

Rescuer or Bystander

A good quote from David Gushee.

In my doctoral dissertation I studied Christians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. I discovered that in that horrible drama there were essentially four categories of behavior: victim, perpetrator, rescuer and bystander. Most instances of mass evil involve a small number of direct perpetrators killing a large number of hated victims in the presence of a much larger group of acquiescent bystanders, and resisted by a tiny number of rescuers. Scalded by that research, I have vowed with God’s help to be a rescuer kind of Christian.