My sister sent me this email about a friend of ours I haven’t seen in a long long time. They started an organization called I Choose Hope after their daughter was killed. Here is an announcement I would encourage you to watch:
Parents Won’t Want to Read This but Should
God help us. This is a sobering post by Mary Kozakiewicz on the Covenant Eyes blog, “My Daughter Was Caught by a Predator: A Word of Warning from One Parent to Another.”
Reader discretion advised. This is a broken and dangerous world.
I’m thankful for Proverbs 23:10–11, which teaches that the defender of the fatherless is strong and will plead their case against violators.
Almost Heaven, West Virginia
We’ll be singing along with John Denver as we drive to West Virginia on Friday:
I’ll be teaching Genesis through Esther at Randolph Street Baptist Church in Charleston, WV, on Friday and Saturday, preaching there Sunday morning. You can find more info on this page. Would love to see you there.
@DennyBurk Interview on Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches
My dear friend and fellow pastor Denny Burk blessed me with a blog interview on Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches. Here are the questions:
What is the main point of Revelation? What is the genre?
If much of the prophecy in Revelation symbolizes early Christian conflict with Rome, then why not take a Preterist reading of the book?
Did John write Revelation, or did some other John write it? Is that relevant to our interpretation of the book?
Is rapture doctrine taught in Revelation?
What about the interpretation of Revelation 4:1 that says “come up here” is a reference to the rapture?
Does revelation teach that there will be a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ on earth?
Here I list seven reasons to be pre-mil
What’s your millennial position, and how does Revelation inform your view?
What do you say to pastors who do not preach Revelation because it is either too difficult or too divisive?
Did you split your church when you preached it?
Check out the interview here. Amazon should have the book soon, and it’s available now from Crossway.
I assume that anyone who looks at this blog is already subscribed to Denny’s, but just in case there’s someone who isn’t, I highly recommend it. Don’t miss him on twitter, either.
Thanks for the opportunity, Denny!
Another Reason To Be Premillennial
So I’m sitting in church on New Year’s Day and my friend C. T. Eldridge gets up to do the New Testament reading. The reading is Revelation 15, and these words jumped out at me:
“Then I saw another sign in heaven . . . And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire–and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass . . .” (Rev 15:1–2).
Why is this another reason to be pre-mil? Because of the way it fits with everything else in Revelation, but before I go into that, consider how the amillennial interpretations won’t work. The amil explanations I have in mind are what is sometimes said of Revelation 20:4,
“Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.”
Amillers will say that this is a reference to these people coming to life in the presence of God. That view fails because back in Revelation 15:1–2 they’re already alive in the presence of God. Another amil attempt to explain this is that it refers to regeneration, which won’t work because we’re dealing with people who have been “beheaded for the testimony of Jesus,” which means that they were already born again believers before they got beheaded.
Some amillers will say that Satan’s inability to deceive the nations in Revelation 20:3 just means that the gospel can go to the nations, but that fails to fit everything in the book together. What I mean is this:
Satan is deceiving the nations in Revelation 13:14, which is when this “image of the beast” and the mark “on the right hand or the forehead” with “the number of its name” first became an issue (Rev 13:15–18). It’s here, too, that the beast is killing Christians (Rev 13:7), and it’s here that the Christians are “conquering” the beast by not loving “their lives even unto death” (Rev 12:11). Revelation 13, 15, and 20 all mention the beast, the mark, and the number of the beast’s name.
So the beast is deceiving the nations in Revelation 13 when the Christians who come to life in Revelation 20:4 were being put to death. Moreover, those same Christians are already alive in heaven with God in Revelation 15:1–2 (note how they are “in heaven” and “standing beside the sea of glass”).
Thus, the depiction of the saints there in Revelation 15:1–2 is one more reason to be premillennial.
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Related:
Response to JT on What Premillennialists Must Believe
@CrosswayBooks Interview on Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches
Since the questions are somewhat controversial, and since my answers are not necessarily textbook, I’d be interested in your reaction to what I say in this interview on the Crossway blog. Here are the questions:
Why should pastors preach on Revelation?
What’s the best way to prepare to interpret apocalyptic literature in general and Revelation in particular?
If a pastor knows that his congregation takes a very different view of Revelation than he does, how should he go about preaching the book? Should he be trying to convert them to or away from a dispensationalist perspective and why?
What is the relationship between the judgments that accompany the seals, trumpets, and bowls? Are these sequential or recapitulatory?
What’s with the exodus imagery in Revelation? Didn’t Jesus fulfill the new exodus and return from exile in his death and resurrection? Why are we getting that imagery again in Revelation?
My answers to these questions are here, and the explanation of those answers can be found in Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches.
The First Copy of Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches
Hearty thanks to Crossway for over-nighting a copy of my book, Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches!
This one is dedicated to my sons (baby girl came along after it was completed), and the inscription goes like this:
For Jake, Jed, and Luke
May the High King on the white horse
capture your imagination
and lay claim to your allegiance
Tom Nettles on Learning from Slaveholders
Trevin Wax’s post today on the Desiring God blog reminded me of this interview with Tom Nettles where he addresses the question.
Here’s the exchange:
How would you respond to someone who said he would never read your book for the simple fact that James P. Boyce was from the South and owned slaves?
I would try to resist the production of a long list of insults to the intelligence of one so bigoted, narrow-minded, unthinking and hypocritical as even to think such a thing. Employment of such a principle would shut one off from the study of the Old Testament, virtually all of the ancient cultures, Greek dominance of the intertestamental period, the Roman Empire, the history of England until the first half of the nineteenth century, the history of colonial America, the lives of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, the entire ante-bellum South and so forth. If one believes that the union of church and state has brought untold suffering and evil to both church and state as well as society in general (which I do), and feels that avoiding the documents produced in that context is a moral necessity for a Christian and that awareness of their viewpoints on theology, politics, philosophy, and society are reprehensible and unworthy of the intellectual and spiritual life of a Christian (which I don’t), then avoid the study of the German Reformation, the English Reformation and all western medieval culture. Bring to void any benefit from the study of Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas. Know nothing of the City of God, the Proslogion, and the Summa. If one studies history and gains interest in persons and nations simply on the basis of personal moral approval of the subject or the era in which he lived, he probably can find justification for the study of nothing and spend his life congratulating himself that he is ignorant of everything. But if one wants to see the operations of the mind of a highly gifted, intellectually and morally driven person, whose flaws are obvious and will not hurt us and whose strengths are massive and will inspire and help us, then go for Boyce. If one wants to see the way in which theological and biblical commitments transcend the ability of any individual to facilitate the moral, intellectual, and spiritual loftiness engendered in the study of divine revelation, study Boyce. If one want to see how that same commitment, nevertheless, raises a common sinner such as we all are to uncommon heights of self-sacrifice inspired by a vision of the divine glory, study Boyce. If one wants to see how Christian character constantly nourished by increased knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ can interrupt the natural tendency to bitterness and resentment and seething hostility fostered by the crushing destruction and snarling ridicule of deeply-held conviction and unfettered commitment to a cause and transform the soul to the sweetness of a reconciled and reconciling posture of mind, study Boyce.
(fake) Cormac McCarthy Reviews the Apple Store
Thanks to Josh Philpot for the link to this thought provoking imitation of the prose-style of Cormac McCarthy:
Union Square – San Francisco, CA
Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM
Two stars.
Given the way my uncle died havin a drink directly after his funeral just didnt seem right so I went for a walk instead. One of them downtowns where all there is is stores. Came across a store was a big cube. Two stories tall and all silver. There was folks outside just standin there. Line stretchin round the block. Maybe a hundred people. I saw a man who’d brought his own chair. He had a shirt on with the same logo as the one on the store. I figured he worked there so I asked him what the line was all about. What were all these people waitin for. He told me it was for a apple phone or some such. I said dont these folks have telephones already? He told me they all had apple phones but it was the older one. I asked him what would happen to the old apple phones. He told me about a fella named Craig had a list and everbody sold their old telephones on it. A telephone sellin list.
Well I told him that all made about as much sense as a horse with two heads and he laughed like that was the funniest thing he ever did hear. Said he was goin to twinkle it. I left before he said anythin else that didnt make no sense and I went to the nearest bar and ordered a double whiskey and sat there drinkin it. I guess I sat there for a long time. Wonderin if when Rome was fallin all the Romans was standin in line waitin to get that new chariot or the like. The barbarians at the gates and them just standin there waitin.
Other Cormac-imitator reviews available on the site.
A Biblical Theology of Gender in Chicago
If you’re in the Chicago-land area I’d love to see you on February 25, 2012 at the Iron Sharpens Iron conference.
Kenny Luck and Voddie Baucham are the keynote speakers, and I’ll be doing a seminar on “A Biblical Theology of Gender.”
Details on this page.
May God help us to man-up and be Christlike.
My Thoughts on Beale’s NT Biblical Theology
I’ve been asked several times now what I think of G. K. Beale’s massive New Testament Biblical Theology. I’ve mentioned repeatedly how much I’ve learned from Beale. It was a comment Tom Schreiner made in a seminar that first drove me to a Beale article that set me trying to understand how the NT authors understood the OT (moving me away from the assumption that they did not understand the OT correctly).
So I have learned a lot from Beale and am grateful for him. I was honored to receive an invitation to respond to some lectures Beale gave at Midwestern Seminary, and Prof. Beale asked that my response be written in light of his forthcoming New Testament Biblical Theology. I was grateful for an advance look at the book, and my response to his lectures also contains my basic thoughts on Beale’s big book.
If you’re interested, courtesy of the editor of the Midwestern Journal of Theology, here’s the essay:
James M. Hamilton, “Appreciation, Agreement, and a Few Minor Quibbles: A Response to G. K. Beale,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 10 (2011), 58–70.
Dan Phillips Interviews Just Another Nobody
Here’s one of the exchanges:
How was the reception?
It is so encouraging to teach people who have experienced Psalm 19:9-10, “the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.”
God’s people love God’s word. The Bible is a subtle book, though, and it’s not always easy to see how later biblical authors have interpreted what earlier biblical authors wrote. It is God’s rich mercy to get to serve God’s people by helping them see the intrinsic connections, the inner logic of the most important book in the world.
The word of God is living and active. It is able to make us wise unto salvation. It is all profitable. For two weeks, we the thirsty, we who had no money, delighted ourselves on the richest of fare (Isa 55). “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to thy name give glory, because of thy lovingkindness, because of thy truth” (Ps 115:1, NASB).
The whole thing is here.
What Higher Priv’lege Could I Have?
What higher priv’lege could I have,
Than loving you as Christ the church?
A nobler charge I could not ask,
So far beyond my just deserts.
Is there a greater task than this:
To nourish you as one with me?
No tale in life more epic is,
No song more challenging to sing.
How could a truth be more profound,
Than this we live in mystery?
That two in one the gospel sound,
The church in you, the Christ in me.
So may our one flesh union be
True gospel light, that all may see.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Composed Overseas, having been away from my sweet wife for a week, praising God for her.
Human Kindness at United Airlines
From December 2–19 I had the opportunity to teach Genesis–Esther to people training for ministry in the Far East. While I was there I bought a wooden sword as a toy for my sons. It was longer than any of the suitcases the three of us had, so I was a little anxious about how to get it home. Since I paid less that $10 for the toy sword in the market, I certainly didn’t want to pay the $70 fee to check it through as a second piece of baggage. Nor did I want to lug my bag through the airports and customs lines so that I could check the sword as my only bag.
There was no problem when I flew out of our location to our last stop before heading home, but the difficulties began when it came time to fly home from there. As we checked our luggage at the United Airlines counter, the very nice lady told me that the sword, which I had wrapped in cardboard, was too long to carry onto the plane. I explained to her that it was a gift for my sons. I showed her a picture of the sweet boys I hadn’t seen for 17 days. I told her they would be so happy to get this sword for Christmas. I told her I had paid less than $10 for the sword and couldn’t justify paying $70 more to check it through as a piece of luggage.
She said she would check with her supervisor, took two steps from the counter, and I don’t know if she didn’t see her supervisor or what, but she came back and gave me a couple tags that she thought would allow me to carry the sword onto the plane.
We proceeded to security. Once I got to the front of the line, a couple officials took me aside to examine the sword. They indicated that the sword was too much like a weapon for them to allow me to carry it onto the plane. I got my pictures out again and started talking about my sons, talking about how happy they would be, talking about how the airline would only let me check it if I paid $70. They called an older official over, who basically said I could either pay to have it checked through or they would dispose of it for me. I asked if he had grandchildren. He wasn’t budging.
So I told them that I guessed they would have to dispose of it for me, and I trudged toward the line to go on through customs, without the sword for my sons.
As I stood there in line with Ryan and Kevin, thinking about my sons, about how much they would love that sword, and about what my options were, I thought of what I tell my sons all the time: Never give up. It’s always too early to quit.
So I mentioned to Ryan and Kevin that I was thinking about making one more try. Ryan said: “You have time, and you don’t have anything to lose.” So I left the line and found one of those security officials. He fished my cardboard out of the trash, went and got the sword, and took me to the door out of that secure area. I made my way back to the United Airlines counter.
When I got there, I bypassed the line and made my way to the first class counter, where there was a lady with no customers. I explained the situation, and she flatly told me that the only way was for me to pay to check the sword through. I tried to show her how light it was, tried to explain that it was a toy, and she barked that everyone has to pay. Then she asked me who I had dealt with before. I told her, and she looked down the row, shouted at the nice lady that had helped me, and told me to go talk to her.
That nice lady considered my plight anew with patience and sympathy. She mentioned that there was a post office in the airport where perhaps I could ship it home. At that point I didn’t have time to go through all that. So she pointed out her supervisor, who was out by the long line of people, and said that I should ask her. I went straight to the supervisor, and I don’t think I got more than two sentences of my explanation out of my mouth before she had me back at the counter processing this sword, checking it through as a second piece of luggage at no extra fee.
So I give thanks and praise to God for the human kindness of these two sweet ladies at United Airlines. If anyone reading this wants to promote them or give them a raise, I’ll gladly pass on their first names and the city of that airport, which is really all I know of them.
Thanks to their kindness, my boys fought over who would get to hold the sword the whole drive home from the airport, and now we have to be vigilant about keeping them from whacking each other with it!
Joking aside, thank God for these two ladies. They showed me human kindness in the midst of a welter of people and a swarm of policies, and thanks to them my sons have the gift I got for them in a faraway land.
So thank you, ladies, my boys love their sword.
She Wields Her Weapons Too
I got to see the battle-front,
She stayed to fight at home.
The enemy I saw at work,
She didn’t get to roam.
I smelt the smoke and saw the flames,
She took care of our kids.
The fray I joined with the s-word of God,
Some more homeschool she did.
I got to see the fighters,
On the spiritu’l front lines,
Inspired by their hope and faith,
And how their courage shines.
She got to do the laundry,
And put the kids in bed,
She made their meals and got them dressed,
And held fast in her stead.
Without her, be here I could not,
She fights this fight with me.
I wish that she could see the front,
And feel the urgency,
For though she may not see it,
She wields her weapons too,
And holds the line and joins the charge,
In our cause most good and true.
Sunday, December 9, 2011
Composed overseas in honor of my sweet wife, who championed the cause of the gospel on the home-front, mothering our four children, while I was teaching the Bible to people training for ministry on the other side of the world.
Stands No Chance the Night
Into a land of darkness
Where the light not legal is,
We will go to sing the song
Of how the soul may live.
This is a land where evil men
Forbid the truth be known,
Though illegal, we will go,
God’s glory must be shown.
Doubt not the truth that in the end
The gospel will prevail.
Through flame and blood we testify
To one who did not fail
When into a land of darkness
Where the light not legal was,
The baby’s cry did pierce the night
Satan’s seed were set to flight
The blind were given back their sight
When came the one to set things right
The Lord of all, the light of light,
Against him stands no chance the night.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Composed Overseas
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From December 2–19, 2011, I was overseas teaching. The country I was in is among the 50 worst countries for the persecution of Christians (it’s in the top 20).
The nations rage, the peoples plot in vain, and the one who sits in the heavens laughs: the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ (Ps 2; Rev 11).
The darkness will be vanquished.
The Authorial Agony of Charles Dickens
My friend Scott Corbin sent me this poignant excert from Clair Tomalin’s Charles Dickens: A Life, 113-114:
“These were all distractions from the central business of the year, which was the story that had started as a few episodes and was being made into a novel, week by week, The Old Curiosity Shop. Against all the odds, it became the second-highest seller of all his books, surpassed only by the The Pickwick Papers, another improvised tale. What sort of a story was it? A very odd one, a picaresque tale of a child who tries and fails to escape from her fate, with a supposed protector, her grandfather, addicted to gambling, and a grotesquely wicked pursuer, the dwarf Quilp, both putting her at risk and driving her towards her death. Nell herself has no character beyond sweetness, goodness and innocence, which endeared her to male readers; and Lord Jeffrey, the great Scottish judge, critic and sometime editor of the Edinburgh Review, even likened her to Cordelia, although the only resemblance is in their untimely deaths. At the age of thirteen, Nell effectively has to look after her grandfather, who has been corrupted by his fascination with money, rather as Dickens’s maternal grandfather had been corrupted by money, and his father also, overspending, borrowing and failing to settle his debts; so this aspect of the story was quite close to home. And while there is very much more in the book than Nell, it is her death that made its fame. It was Forster who suggested that Dickens should kill her off: he seized the idea, and the slowly approaching death of Little Nell held readers in a state of excited anxiety on both sides of the Atlantic for many weeks. Letters came to Dickens imploring him to save her, and grave and normally equable men sobbed uncontrollably when they read that she was dead.
Dickens himself suffered as he wrote of Nell’s decline, and shared his sufferings with his friends through November and December 1840. He told Forster, ‘You can’t imagine how exhausted I am today with yesterday’s labours… All night I have been pursued by the child; and this morning I am unrefreshed and miserable. I don’t know what to do with myself… I think the close of the story will be great.’ Then, a few days later, ‘The difficulty has been tremendous — the anguish unspeakable.’ To his illustrator, Cattermole, he wrote, ‘I am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear to finish it.’ In January, Macready was told, ‘I am slowly murdering that poor child, and grow wretched over it. It wrings my heart. Yet it must be.’ A few days later it was Maclise who heard, ‘If you knew what I have been suffering in the death of that child!’
Another letter to Forster shows how Dickens used his suffering, deliberately summoning up painful feelings, in the cause of telling a better story: ‘I shan’t recover it for a long time. Nobody will miss her like I shall. It is such a very painful thing to me, that I really cannot express my sorrow… I have refused several invitations for this week and next, determining to go nowhere til I had done. I am afraid of disturbing the state I have been trying to get into, and having to fetch it all back again.’ “
Hope and Change and the Promises of God
What hath Whittaker Chambers to do with “Hope and Change”?
What hath communism and secular liberalism to do with the promises of God in the Bible?
What do racial equality and diversity, environmentalism, peace in our time, provision for all, the hope of socialism, the goals of liberalism, and the aims of all politicians have to do with Christianity?
On Sunday, November 20, 2011, it was my privilege to address “Hope and Change and the Promises of God” at Providence Baptist Church in Pasadena, TX.
This was an overtly evangelistic, gospel sermon. This was a sermon aimed at unbelievers pleading with them to embrace Christianity.
May the Lord be pleased to call many to himself.
Jeremiah 8:4–9:26, Understand and Know the Lord
“Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD'” –Jeremiah 9:23–24
On Sundays November 20 and 27, it was my privilege to preach Jeremiah 8:4–9:26.
In this passage Yahweh comes looking for fruit on the fig tree of Israel and finds none (Jer 8:13). Yahweh is grieved to the point of tears by the unfaithfulness of Israel and weeps over their sin (Jer 8:18–9:1). Then Yahweh says in Jeremiah 8:21, “For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken.”
There is a stunning correspondence here with the way that Jesus encounters the fig tree that has borne no fruit, weeps over Jerusalem, and then is broken for the brokenness of his people. It’s not that Jeremiah is overtly predicting what Jesus would do, it’s more that the pattern that Jesus would fulfill is woven into the fabric of Jeremiah’s prophecy. I’m inclined to think, too, that Jesus probably had these parts of Jeremiah in mind as he approached Jerusalem, saw that fig tree, wept over the city, and went to the cross.
I am so grateful for the ministry of Tommy Dahn, and I express my gratitude to and for him in the sermon at Providence.
Since he wasn’t there when I preached the same text at Kenwood, I opened the sermon with an illustration about my weedeater.
May the Lord bless his word.
Beautiful Words about the Baby in the Basket
Eric Schumacher has a good biblical-theological piece of fiction here:
Centuries after Moses died, after Joshua brought the people into the land, after the rise of King David and King Solomon, after the divide of the kingdom into Israel and Judah—the people of Israel have been carried off into exile, where they are worked as slaves.On the banks of a river, there is a makeshift city of little one-room Jewish houses, each with a small Jewish family. We look inside one of them.It is late at night. The family has just finished their supper. The children have crawled onto their straw mats and grabbed their tattered blankets. Father is about to extinguish there lamp, when a little voice says, “Papa, will you tell us a story?” And the others join in, “Yes, Papa! Will you tell us a story? Just one? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease?” Papa, unable to resist, sits on the floor beside their mat, as they gather around him, and says, “Ok, children, but just one. Papa is tired and must work tomorrow.”
In the dimly lit room, his story begins, “Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.’” And within a minute or so, it concludes, “When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.’” (He has recited for them our passage, with all the drama that a good father ought to use when telling children true tall tales!)
And as he moves to extinguish the lamp, he hears a noise, a small weeping. He turns to see his 7 year-old daughter crying.
“What is it, Naomi?” he asks.
“Papa, why is our life so bitter? We live in a foreign land. We had to leave grandma behind in Israel. You and mama work as slaves for wicked men. Yahweh has made our lives very bitter here. Why doesn’t he send us a Moses to lead back to the land, like he did for Israel so long ago?”
And then 12 year-old Jeremiah complains, “Mother’s last baby died in these conditions. And next year, I too must leave to be a slave or a soldier. Everywhere I go, mothers are weeping over their lost children, and fathers are dead and dying. Yahweh has forgotten us!”
And then little, 5 year-old Jacob, pipes in, “Is that true, Papa, has Yahweh forgotten us?”
And then the father, pierced to the heart, returns to knees before his children. He takes their faces in his hands and says tenderly:
“My sweet Naomi, life is very bitter for us now. But as sure as the sun and moon and stars, Yahweh will once again make the life of his people pleasant.
“Yes, Jeremiah, even as Rachel died, weeping over Benjamin, the mothers of Israel weep for their children. But keep back your voice from complaining, for there is hope for our future. Yahweh will redeem his people once again.
“And Jacob—hear, O Israel, Yahweh, our God, keeps covenant and steadfast love. He never forgets his people. He always keeps his promises.
“Yahweh did send baby Moses to deliver his people from Egypt. And before he departed, Moses said that Yahweh would said a prophet like him, one that we should look for and to whom we should listen. So, when you hear this story of Moses in the Nile, you should not hear a story of what Yahweh did once, but a story of what Yahweh will do again.
“Yahweh will send his Servant to redeem us. He will redeem us, not only from this foreign land, but from the sin that brings such judgment upon is. Look for this new Moses, this new David—set your hope in Him.”
See Eric’s post for introductory and concluding thoughts.
I think Eric is exactly right that Moses included what he did because he expected the patterns to be repeated, from Abraham’s sojourn in and plundering of Egypt being repeated in the nation’s exodus, to the deliverance of Moses from Pharaoh being repeated in that of Jesus from Herod. As someone has said, every story whispers his name.