“Dying is one of the two most difficult acts of faith (the other is coming to Christ for the first time). But the dying believer who is able to rehearse the blessings of God’s providence in his or her life will surely know God’s peace” (Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, 177).

“The man who supposes that baptism . . . acts mechanically, like a medicine, and that godly and ungodly, praying and prayerless parents, all alike get the same benefit for their children, must be in a strange state of mind” (J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 55).

Genesis – Creation

• Genesis 1 – Creation
• 1:28 – Dominion/Cultural Mandate
• Genesis 3 – Fall
• 3:15 – Inception of the Covenant of Grace
• Genesis 6-9 – Flood
• Genesis 10-11 – Nations/Tower of Babel
• Genesis 12-50 – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph
• 15:6 – Abraham believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Exodus – Redemption/Deliverance

• Exodus 3-4 – Moses Called
• 3:13-15 – I AM WHO I AM
• Exodus 7-11 – Ten Plagues
• Exodus 14 – Red Sea
• Exodus 19-40 – Sinai
• 19-24 – Marriage Ceremony (Israel wed to God)
• 20:1-17 – Ten Commandments (Marriage means new rules)
• 25-31 – House (God gives instructions for Tabernacle)
• Exodus 32 – Idolatry – Golden Calf
• 32-34 – Marriage Ceremony #2 (Covenant renewal after idolatry)
• 35-40 – Build House (Israel builds the Tabernacle)

Leviticus – Holiness

• Leviticus 1-10 – Sacrifices
• Leviticus 11-18 – Purity Regulations
• 17:11 – “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”
• Leviticus 19-27 – Holiness Laws
• 19:2 – “Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.”

Numbers – Unfaithful Israel

• Numbers 1-10 – Promise Land/Preparations
• Numbers 11-25 – Promise Land/Rebel – Thus, Wander in Wilderness
• 11 – Israel wants to eat meat – given meat and judgment
• 13 – Twelve spies scout out the land but ten spies provide evil report
• 21 – Rebellion – judgment by fiery serpents/deliverance by bronze snake lifted up
• Numbers 26-36 – Second Generation: Promise Land/Preparations

Deuteronomy – Covenant Renewal/Second Law

• Deuteronomy 1-30 – Moses Speaks to Second Generation
• 4:2 – “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”
• 5 – Ten Commandments reviewed
• 6:4-9 – The Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord…”
• 29:29 – “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
• Deuteronomy 31-34 – Epilogue
• 32 – Song of Moses
• 34 – Death of Moses

“We do not need the authority of personal experience to counsel one another because the Bible is sufficient for this task” (Carolyn McCulley, Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World, 75).

In interaction with John Owen’s Communion with God: “The Holy Spirit produces consolation, peace, joy, and hope in believers. The Holy Spirit produces real effects in the experience of believers, experience revolving around Christ as revealed in Scripture. Thus Owen rejected both the rationalists who dismissed the experiential work of the Spirit and the fanatics whose “spirit” disregarded the Word and Christ” (Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, 112).

“The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 97).

“Thou the elect experience the Spirit’s regeneration passively as so many dry bones (Ezek. 37:1-14), believers put their trust in the promises of the comfort of the Spirit and pray for Him and His work in them (Gal. 3:2, 14; John 7:37-39; Luke 11:13). Thus believers have a responsibility to seek the Spirit” (Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, 111).

“But systematics [Systematic Theology] helps ministers to preach the whole counsel of God, and thus to make God central in their work” (Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (ed. William Edgar), 22).

“The first part of effectual calling is a right hearing of the Word by those who were dead in sin; their minds are illuminated by the Spirit with irresistible truth. The preaching of the Word accomplishes two things [following quotation from William Perkins’ Golden Chaine]: ‘the Law shewing a man his sin and the punishment thereof, which is eternal death’ and ‘the Gospel, shewing salvation by Christ Jesus, to such as believe.’ Both become so real that ‘the eyes of the mind are enlightened, the heart and ears opened, that he [the elect sinner] may see, hear, and understand the preaching of the word of God'” (Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, 126).

“Christ discharged the debt of sin. he bore our sins and purged them. he did not make a token payment which God accepts in place of the whole. Our debts are not cancelled; they are liquidated. Christ procured redemption and therefore he secured it” (John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, 58).