The Promise of Passover – A Reason to Party!

Exodus 6:7a

Nearly three years ago a popular evangelical pastor told his church that people were turning away from God because of the Old Testament. He said, “The church needed to unhitch from the Old Testament.”[1]

Fourteen years ago, another group of Christians began a movement called “Red-Letter Christianity” – where they focus only on the red letters (the words of Jesus) and pay very little attention to the black letters (the rest of scripture). On the web page for www.redletterchristians.org, one of their stated values says that “Jesus is the lens through which we understand the Bible …”[2]

I disagree with both of these positions. I believe that people are turning away from Christianity, not because they understand and reject the difficult portions of the Old Testament, but because they have failed to understand it in the first place. I believe that the Word of God, including both the Old and New Testaments, is the only lens through which we can truly understand Jesus and his mission. It’s the only lens through which we can understand the character of God.

Saying that we are only going to focus on the actual words of Jesus, is like saying, “The only part of my house I like is the second floor. The first floor is okay, I hardly spend any time in the basement, and I’ve never even seen the foundation and footers. … I think I’m going to detach the second floor and remove the first floor, basement, and foundation.” Any builder or architect knows that even if you could accomplish that feat, your second floor would lose its structural integrity and eventually collapse. And the church has tried this before.

In the early 1900’s, many in the German church decided to remove the “Hebrew Scriptures” from the Bible and the result helped create the environment that nurtured Nazism and culminated in the horrors of WWI and WWII.[3]

Now, I get it. Some stuff in the Bible is hard to understand. Given what most people think they know about the Old Testament, the God of the Old Testament seems angry and punitive. The Old Testament is difficult to understand in places. There are portions of the Old Testament that seem unloving, cruel, and many times just bizarre. My theology professor says, “In the Bible, if it’s weird it’s important.”

We don’t need to jettison the Old Testament and all of its strangeness from the church. What I hope to show you today, is that instead of avoiding the Old Testament, we need to spend more time studying it. We need to dig in and when we do, we’ll discover unexpected gems hiding in the pages of the first 39 books of scripture. I think you’ll be surprised by what we find!

Three times a year, the people of Israel were to travel, from wherever they were, to Jerusalem to have a party! (Deuteronomy 16:1-17; Exodus 23:14-17; Exodus 34:18-24; Leviticus 23:4-44)

The first party is Passover/Pesach – Feast of Unleavened Bread – It is a time to remember the Exodus – It also foreshadowed what was going to happen on the day we call Good Friday. Today we’re going to look at Passover and the leadup to the Exodus.

The second party (50 days after Passover) is Pentecost/Shavuot – Feast of Weeks – Pentecost is a Greek word that means fifty days. Shavuot is the Hebrew word that means “weeks” (7 Sevens plus One = 50 days). It’s a time to remember when the law descended from Mt. Sanai and the Nation of Israel was born. It is also the culmination of the First Fruits harvest. Pentecost foreshadowed the second significant event in the life of the church – the day that the Holy Spirit descended on all believers and the church was born.

The third party is the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles)/Sukkot – Feast of Ingathering – This is a time to remember how God protected and provided for the children of Israel during the wilderness wanderings before they entered the promised land and is also the celebration of the final agricultural harvest. I believe this will be the next significant spiritual event in the life of the church. It will be the celebration after the second coming of Christ when we celebrate how God provided for us during our time on THIS earth before we enter his promised rest, and also a celebration of the final spiritual harvest.

Unfortunately, we don’t have time today to talk about all three of these parties, so we’ll focus on the first one – the Passover/Pesach – Feast of Unleavened Bread.

A 30,000 Ft. Review:

But to get there, we’re going to take the next few minutes in a quick 30,000 ft review of scripture.

This review is going to go fast, so we can get to the Passover/Exodus story, but we need to do this review so that we can understand the truths we will find in the Passover. We are going to see how the Passover story, foreshadows Jesus’ ultimate mission, and we are going to discover one of the core characteristics of God that’s true in both Old AND New Testaments.

Abram, who was renamed Abraham, fathered Isaac, who fathered Jacob, and God had face-to-face interaction with each of them. God promised each of them that he would bless their offspring and through them he would bless the world. Jacob was renamed Israel and had twelve sons. Joseph was one of those sons, and ten of his brothers, who were jealous of Joseph and contemplating murder, decided to sell Joseph into slavery. Pastor Jerry talked about his story last week. Joseph ended up in Egypt, and through a series of events, orchestrated by God, became the second most powerful person in Egypt. God warned Pharaoh through Joseph that a seven-year-famine was coming, and Egypt, under Joseph’s leadership stored up grain during the next seven fertile years.

When the famine came, Egypt survived by using the grain they had stored up. The family of Israel also survived the famine by moving to Egypt.

Living In Egypt and Moses

Pharaoh then asked the Israelite midwifes to cause the Hebrew women to kill their male babies as they were being born. (Let’s not whitewash this – it was infanticide and there is some indication in the text that it was a command to abort the babies before they were born).

The midwives, fearing God, told Pharaoh that by the time they got to the women, the babies had already been born. Israel continued to multiply, so Pharaoh ordered the people of Egypt to throw every male Israelite baby into the Nile River to be killed – a genocide of a whole generation. (This was intentional. Israelite babies and toddlers either drowned or eaten by alligators.)

Now, during this time, a young Hebrew baby boy was born, but instead of being killed in the Nile, he was rescued by the daughter of Pharaoh. Though Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s household, he could not escape the ethnic and racial tensions in the culture. Moses, being immature but passionate about justice, killed an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite – and tried to cover up the murder.

Moses soon discovered the demand for justice works both ways, and Moses had to flee into the land of Midian. While Moses was in Midian, the Pharaoh whose house Moses grew up in died, and a son took his place and became the new Pharaoh.

Egypt’s Gods

In Egypt these transitions between Pharaohs were serious events. The Pharaoh was considered to be the son or Re (the Sun God) and also the incarnation of Horus (another Egyptian God). As the son of Re, Pharaoh’s job was to maintain the natural order – He was considered the source of all life. When one Pharaoh died, these supernatural duties were transferred to the next in line.

Egypt had several other gods as well and they each were supposedly responsible for geographic areas, or specific functions. The control of the Nile River was the job of the god Hapi. Hekhet, the goddess of fertility (she had the head of a frog) was married to Khnum the god who they believed shaped the bodies of humans inside the womb. Hekhet also protected the crocodiles who would control the multiplication of frogs. The god Khepre controlled the flying insects. Apis was one of the sacred bull gods whose job was to provide protection and fertility to the livestock. The goddess Sekhmet was responsible for epidemics, and was thought to be able to heal from plagues. Nut, Shu, and Tefnut were three heavenly deities thought to control the sky and the moisture in the atmosphere. Senehem was the god who was responsible for protection from ravaging pests like locust, and grasshoppers. And these were just a few of the pantheon of Egyptian deities.

The Israelites lived in the midst of this culture that worshiped, served, and sacrificed to these gods and goddesses. You need to remember that the stories of how a God in Canaan met with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob were the only connection the Israelites had to a deity of any kind. This was before the covenant at Mt. Sanai. This was before the Ten Commandments. It was before the Levitical priesthood – Israel had no lineage of priests – and there was no sacrificial system established to serve Yahweh.

Like I said, the idea that most people had was that gods and goddesses where either geographically bound (the god of the mountains, the god of the valleys, the god of the sea) or they were bound by their function (the god of thunder and storms, the god of fertility, the god of healing from diseases).

This was the culture within which Israel had spent 400 years. This was a culture that despised the Israelites. This was the culture that kept them captive and treated them cruelly. This is the culture that slaughtered their children, and yet the Egyptians could still sleep well at night.

The Cry

“During that long period of time [while Moses was in Midian] the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites groaned because of the slave labor. They cried out, and their desperate cry – because of their slave labor – went up to God. God heard their groaning, God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, God saw the Israelites, and God understood.…”

“Who is Yahweh, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:2)

Just because the Israelites were the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of three men that Yahweh had talked with in Canaan more than 400 years earlier, doesn’t mean that he would or could intervene, … does it?

But God … the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob had made a promise – a covenant – with each of the forefathers. And that promise had something to do with these great-great-great-great-grandchildren.

God’s Reply

So, God got Moses’ attention by appearing in a bush that was on fire but wasn’t being consumed. God told Moses to go back to Egypt. God said, “I have heard the cry of my people, and I have seen what the Egyptians are doing to them.” Then God says, “Moses, I’m going to send you to Pharaoh, and you are going to bring my people out of Egypt.”

Well, Moses isn’t thrilled about going back to Egypt, and he even has to ask what God’s name was, but eventually Moses agrees after God sends Aaron, his older brother, with him.

Aaron and Moses talk with Pharaoh in Exodus chapter 5 (The Passover events are found in Exodus chapters 5 thru 12.). They ask Pharaoh to let the Israelites go on a three-day journey so that they can worship Yahweh God. Pharaoh objects and tells Moses and Aaron to stop taking the people away from their work. Then Pharaoh orders the people back to work but tells them they have to collect their own straw to make bricks – it would no longer be provided.

The people get mad and take it out on Moses and Aaron. Then Moses complains to God and says basically, “I told you that you shouldn’t send me! Look at what’s happened to the people now!”

Moving on to Exodus 6 we read where God responded, and this is where we find our memory verse – our weekly promise. This is the Promise of Passover. This is the reason to party!

But the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.” [This is actually a play on one of Pharaoh’s other names which means ‘strong arm’]

2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, … 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. 6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am [Yahweh], and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am [Yahweh] your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am [Yahweh].’” 9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

This was GREAT NEWS but the children of Israel didn’t listen – because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. Did you know that sometimes the bondage and brokenness in our lives, make it hard to believe that God WANTS to deliver us? He DOES! Did you know that God WANTS to keep his promise to you, even when you reject him? HE DOES! And Christians: don’t get mad at people who reject God – that’s the time to love them more. The last part of Romans 2:4b reminds us that it is “… God’s kindness [that] leads [us] to repentance.” Broken and enslaved people have a hard time believing God wants to deliver them – but he DOES!

And he won’t give up. He continues to be faithful to his promise – “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God” – That’s part of his character – it’s who he is. And this is your play of the week! It’s the thirteenth message and the eighth promise as we walk through a year of promises.

And here is where Yahweh God begins to go directly at the little-“g” god’s of Egypt using the Plagues. He does this, not only because He wants to deliver Israel from Egyptian enslavement, but He also wants to show that He is not geographically bound, and He wants to dispel this idea that there are other gods who rival Him. He has no rivals; he has no equals. Now and forever, HE is the God who reigns.

The Plagues

In the first plague, Yahweh goes after Hapi (the god of the Nile). God tells Moses to strike the water of the Nile and it turns to blood. Hapi is supposed to control the health of the Nile but is revealed as powerless. The Nile turning to blood recalls the lives of the innocent babies and toddlers that were sacrificed in the same river to this Egyptian god.

Now the hartumim were there – that’s their Hebrew title. Most translations call them Pharaoh’s magicians, but they were really “chief lector priests.” Lector priests recited spells and rites in temple ceremonies and funerals. Egyptian literature portrays them as wise men who can foresee the future, and who can perform miraculous feats, and possess secret knowledge. They also performed something called the “Opening of the Mouth ceremony” on household idols.

(The people in the Ancient Near East who worshiped idols and used household idols understood that the idols themselves were merely wood, or stone, or metal images. But they believed that a god or goddess would only establish a “presence” in the idol once a priest performed an “Opening of the Mouth” ceremony. Until that ceremony was performed, it was just a piece of wood, or stone, or metal.)

So, the hartumim, these Egyptian priests of Egyptian gods, were there and they could actually replicate what Moses did to the water (they could turn the water into blood too), but that was a problem. They weren’t reversing what Yahweh did through Moses, they were simply making it worse by echoing what Yahweh did!

Anyway, Pharaoh’s heart wasn’t moved and seven days later Yahweh sent the plague of frogs. Frogs were everywhere! In the Nile, on the land, in the cupboards, in the ovens, in the food. This was a direct attack on the deities Hekhet and Khnum. Again, the hartumim were also able to make frogs come out of the Nile but they weren’t reversing what Yahweh did through Moses, they were simply making it worse! And Pharaoh wasn’t moved.

Then God sent the third plague – Gnats. The hartumim – the Egyptian priests – tried to replicate what God did through Moses, but they could not. At this, they told Pharaoh, “The finger of a God is in this!” But Pharaoh wouldn’t listen.

After that the fourth plague came – the Flies. But here God began to differentiate. The flies would swarm only the Egyptian houses, and avoid the Israelite houses.

Have you ever tried to keep flies out of your house, car, or tent (or your face)? These flies were directed by Yahweh and only impacted the lives of the Egyptians, not the Israelites.

These third and fourth plagues were a direct attack on the Egyptian god in charge of flying insects – Khepre. Now, we usually miss that something else happened in these two plagues that caused the hartumim major problems. Because they couldn’t keep the gnats and flies away, these lector priests became ritually unclean. When you are ritually unclean, you cannot perform your duties in the temples or at events like funerals. The worship of all the Egyptian gods came to a standstill, and when people died, the funeral rituals couldn’t be performed.

But still, after each plague, Pharaoh would not budge.

The fifth plague was an attack on the Egyptian god Apis – it caused the Egyptian livestock to die. Think of that. There is a sudden shortage on hamburger! No bacon! No eggs! But the Israelites lost none of their livestock.

The sixth plague – the plague of boils was a direct attack on Sekhmet the Egyptian god thought to control pandemics and healing. At this point the hartumim (these priests of other gods) became totally incapacitated – scripture tells us they could not even stand before Moses. Yet Pharaoh remained defiant.

So, Yahweh sent hail like had never been seen before in Egypt. And he warned even the Egyptians, if you value your lives, take your remaining livestock, and any person you care about and find shelter. Any living thing left in the fields will die. Now, some of the Egyptians were becoming believers in the power of Yahweh. Those that did what God suggested saved all that they protected. Those that didn’t believe God lost everything.

After this seventh plague, that was a direct attack on belief in the sky deities of Egypt – Nut, Shu, and Tefnut, some people today start to feel sorry for the Egyptians. But remember, these were the people that were holding the Israelites in bondage. These were the slave holders. These were the people who gladly killed Israelite infants and toddlers, and yet God warned them ahead of time to seek shelter.

Even when you do horrible things, God doesn’t want you to suffer – he wants to protect you.

The eighth plague targeted Senehem. Massive swarms of locusts were sent to eat every remaining plant and tree that remained in Egypt. There were so many locusts they totally covered the ground and blotted out the sun. But Pharaoh remained defiant.

The ninth plague targeted Pharaoh himself, the supposed Son of Re – the Sun God – the greatest god in the Egyptian pantheon of gods. For three days darkness covered Egypt. It was a darkness that could be felt.

(By the way, remember the August 2017 solar eclipse? People wore those funny glasses, and used other contraptions to try to get a glimpse of the eclipse. You could actually feel the temperature drop! It got slightly darker, but you could still see the people around you. In April 2024 we will experience another solar eclipse in Indiana.) Let’s get back to Egypt and the ninth plague.

For three days darkness covered Egypt. It was a darkness that could be felt. It was so dark that the Bible says they couldn’t see each other. Nobody left their house. Re, the sun god, was not only defeated – nobody was sure that he was ever coming back. Would the Sun God ever mount his chariot and ride from east to west again? This was frightening! But not every place in Egypt was dark. The places where the Israelites lived experienced no darkness.

Still Pharaoh refused to release the Israelites, so Yahweh sent one final plague.

“The LORD said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. 2 Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” 3 And the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people.”

Before they ever fought the last battle, before the last plague even started, Yahweh told the Israelites to take the spoils of victory. Long before midnight, before the cries of mourning were heard throughout Egypt, before the Passover Lamb was slain, God told the Israelites to ask their neighbors for gold and silver jewelry. Before darkness fell on the firstborn in Egypt, Yahweh gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moses was no longer the outcast, the troubler. He was now “very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants AND in the sight of the people.”

The Israelites were acting like Super Bowl champs before time ran out in the fourth quarter. They were standing on God’s promise – I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God. What the people didn’t realize is that God was already providing for them the resources they would need for building the tabernacle – a place where heaven meets earth, a place where God could dwell with his people. This was God’s desire from the beginning of creation.

The Passover

God gave them instructions on how to celebrate the Passover Meal. This would become an annual time of remembrance. A teaching tool for every generation to come. Thursday night we will experience a Passover Seder (online) to remember Jesus’ last supper on that first Holy Week. Jews all over the world celebrated Passover at sundown last night.

Each family household was to take a one-year-old male lamb (or goat), without blemish, and at twilight they were to kill the lamb. They were to put some of the blood of the lamb on a hyssop plant, and “paint” it on the two doorposts on either side of the door, as well as over the top of the door. The blood of the Passover lamb would protect them.

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Yahweh the LORD. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”

They were to roast the lamb on the fire and eat it all that night. They were to eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. If you couldn’t eat it all, you were to burn what you couldn’t eat before morning.

You were to eat the meal with your belt fastened, sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. In other words, be ready to move. Here’s a truth – When God delivers you from bondage – you need to be ready to leave. Don’t hang around that thing that enslaves you – get up and go – embrace your freedom!

No one was to go outside until morning. They were told that the Lord was passing through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the two doorposts and over the door Yahweh would protect them and not allow the destroyer to enter the house.

“At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. 30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. 31 Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said. 32 Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!””

There’s More to Come

This is how the Exodus began. Ahead of them would lie the wonder of the pillars of fire and cloud. The miracle at the Red Sea. The bitter waters of Marah. The mana and the quail. The water from the rock.

They would fight their first battle before they ever got to Mt. Sanai. They would soon experience the thick cloud and the thunder and lightning on top of the mountain. Moses will climb the mountain and return with the Ten Commandments (the Ten Sayings). The Sanai Covenant with Israel will be established. The Nation of Israel will be born from the Children of Israel.

But during the Exodus, Yahweh proved faithful to his promise – “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God” before any of that had happened. God delivered them BEFORE they had a covenant relationship with him.

A Loving God Sends The Passover Lamb

And it foreshadowed how God would reveal himself in the New Testament. Jesus Christ would be sacrificed on Passover revealing that he was the true Passover Lamb. His sacrifice is what delivers each of us from the sin that enslaves us. The promise that drove Yahweh to deliver the people of Israel, is the same promise that motivates him to pursue us.

You see, the God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament. The promises he made to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob still hold true for us today. The God who used ten plagues to deliver the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of Israel, is the same loving and compassionate God that wept at Lazarus’s tomb before he raised him from the dead.

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Before they knew how to worship him properly, before they understood what would be required to make them fit to represent God, before they understood their role as a Kingdom of Priests who were commissioned to restore this whole broken world to a right relationship with its Creator, while they were still in bondage, before they did anything to reach out to him, when they simply cried out because their suffering was too great to bear any longer, this God – Yahweh God said, “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God. And through you, I’m going to bless the whole world – even the people who would hold you captive and abuse you.”

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” – John 3:16-17 (ESV)

Our Response

Are you in bondage to something or someone? God wants to deliver you, today. You don’t need to get cleaned up to make that decision. You don’t need to know about the covenant or the commands of God. If you have rejected him your whole life, or if you’ve never even heard of him, he can still deliver you today.

He’s already done the hard part. God sent his son, to be the Passover Lamb, whose blood will protect you and deliver you. 2 Peter 3:9 (ESV) reads, “The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

Do you want to be delivered? You can do that today! Are you tired of pain and despair? He’s inviting you to the party! Are you ready to place the blood of the Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ, over the door of your life? He offers it free to you – He’s already paid the price. Place yourself on that first Passover night; how will you respond?

After the Response

The God who likes to party, is inviting you to the party. And the more we understand the parties He planned in the Old Testament (like Passover, Pentecost, and Sukkot), the more we’ll understand His unchanging character. There are gems in the Old Testament just waiting to be explored! So don’t unhitch. Dive in!

A Party Within A Party

As I close, I want to tell you of one other aspect of the weeklong Passover Celebration that God planned even before the Exodus. The date of Passover is determined by the moon cycles and covers seven consecutive days, but it can start on any day of the week. During the seven days of celebrating the Passover there will always be a Sabbath (a weekly day of celebration). Now, the Sabbath is always on the seventh day of a normal week – Saturday.

In Leviticus 23:9-14 we read that something special (a party within a party) was supposed to happen one day after the Sabbath that occurred during Passover. The day after the Saturday Sabbath during Passover – on the first day of the week – they were supposed to begin celebrating the Feast of First Fruits. The celebration of First Fruits marked the first harvest of the year.

The Feast of First Fruits would culminate (over the next fifty days) in the next Pilgrimage Feast on the calendar called Pentecost – but that’s a story for another time. But during the seven days of Passover, they were supposed to begin celebrating the First Fruits on the day after the Sabbath day – on the first day of the week.

Do you remember what remarkable event happened on the day after the Sabbath during that first holy week? We’ll celebrate that event next Sunday. If you want a hint read 1 Corinthians 15:20.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] CBN News, dated May 11, 2018, downloaded on March 8, 2021. “’Christians Need to Unhitch the Old Testament from Their Faith’: Andy Stanley’s Sermon Draws Backlash” https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/may/christians-need-to-unhitch-the-old-testament-from-their-faith-andy-stanleys-sermon-draws-social-media-backlash

[2] https://www.redletterchristians.org/mission-values/ downloaded on March 9, 2021. Under the “About Us” tab.

[3] Bill T. Arnold and David B. Weisberg, “Babel und Bibel und Bias. How anti-Semitism distorted Friedrich Delitzsch’s scholarship” from the Bible Review, February 2002 Volume 18, Issue 1, Source URL (modified on 2015-11-05 20:45): https://www.baslibrary.org/bible-review/18/1/5