We're going to do our best to look at that outline in just a moment. Toward the end of class, I'm going to do my best to go over this outline with you. So you can put this aside for now, but this is just something to take home with you. And hopefully, we'll give you help in memorization and interpreting the Old Testament. All right, so the first thing we want to do here today is we want to remember the primary storyline of Scripture. I want us to keep that before us, because as we're looking today at the diversity of Holy Scripture, we want to focus still that there is a unity. And the unity is because God has spoken. He's the ultimate author, as I've pointed out. Jesus is the ultimate character and the reason for the Scriptures. And the unity of the scripture is that there's one storyline, there's one drama that unfolds throughout history. So the primary storyline of scripture that we looked at last week, can someone remind me of what that is? It's in four parts. Someone remind me? Starts with creation. Okay. And then what's the second part of this storyline? The fall. OK, and then what? OK, redemption. And then what? New creation. Now, we're going to try to keep this storyline before us throughout the class. We're going to try to keep this storyline before us throughout the class. And let me remind you of the meta story, and we'll put this storyline on there. to remind us of this. You know, if we look at this meta story, here's what we call tragedy. Here's what we call comedy. Comedy, not merely laughter, but that which ends with happy ending. We start with creation here on this meta story and culminates in this great fall, this tragedy, the story of the human race. And then because of God's grace, Redemption begins. God begins to turn things around because of his promises. And this ends and culminates in a consummation, or new heavens and new earth, or a new creation as we're using it. So just to put that on our metastory paradigm for plot lines, The plot line of the Holy Scriptures, this plot line is that creation, the fall, the rebellion of man against his king, redemption begins, and then it's consummated with new creation. And so this begins at home or a state of blessedness. This is a state of exile, far from home, Bible calls it East of Eden. This is a blessedness, home, exile, cursed, a state of cursedness, a state of death. This is the place of the abyss. And then this is the getting home. This is the grand homecoming. that happens through trial, suffering, ultimately God's grace that brings us back home as people glorified through faith in Jesus Christ. And, you know, as I said last week, and you can listen further if you'd like or look back at last week, but any great story in the history of mankind is based on this story. And, you know, even when you begin with the seasons, You know, creation is like summer. And writers know this. And even if they don't know consciously that they're doing this, good writers know the changing of the seasons because they're image bearers. And so this kind of reality is written on every man's heart because of common grace, though they exchange it for a lie. But you can see the summer, fall, winter. the winter of our discontentment. You see this kind of language, springtime of redemption, rebirth. You see this kind of language in the seasons of a good book, that writers will know these things, yet they're borrowing these ideas ultimately from God, the master storyteller. And with the fall, you can start a story that begins with rags, as you remember, and you go to riches. So in the storyline, you can go from crime to punishment on this storyline. You see, it all works, doesn't it? You can see the microcosm of this in the stories of Job, the story of Joseph, Jonah. Jonah spends time in the abyss. in the underworld, Jesus himself through death and resurrection, through encounter with the evil one. Though he doesn't receive redemption from sin, it's death and suffering on behalf of his people to get back home, to finish the father's will. So this is worth memorizing, isn't it? Because you see, you could say that the comedy that we have in scripture is with Saul of Tarsus. He starts out as a Pharisee and ends up a righteous man, or in this you could see Saul of Gibeah, King Saul of Gibeah, who starts out great but becomes a tragic figure and ends up dying on his sword unsuccessfully, even in his suicide attempt. Some of you will hear from that soon. So we want to remember that main storyline of scripture is what unifies everything in Christ. So now our project is, our goal for this next moment, considering the diversity of scripture, is consider what's called the Tanakh. The Tanakh is very important, I think, with seeing unity of scripture in the storyline, but seeing that diversity in the way that the story of God is given to us. Now, the Tanakh is, there are just three consonants, in Hebrew that you're given two vowels so that you can say Tanakh, right? But very simply, Tanakh just means Torah or law or instruction. Those two terms are interchangeably. You know, sometimes if law doesn't fit when you're reading about Moses and the law, sometimes maybe Moses and his instruction or what have you. But the law is intended for instruction in God's will, God's character, God's will. I won't write this out, but this stands for the Nevi'im, which is the Hebrew word for prophets, Hebrew word for prophets, the Nevi'im. I can write it in transliteration, something like that. So the Nevi'im are the prophets. And this K stands for the writings, something like that. But the Tanakh is just a helpful reminder that we're talking about three volumes. Again, stressing the diversity. We're talking about three volumes of the Old Testament. We're talking about the first volume being Torah or Moses. Let's just put it down as Moses. The prophets we would distinguish between former and latter. And I'm going to tell you more about this in a moment. And then the writings. And the Tanakh or the Torah prophets and writings This is the organization that the Lord Jesus Christ had in his mind when in Luke 24, he says that beginning with Moses and the prophets and the writings, he saw how the Old Testament pointed to him. So this arrangement of the canon is not necessarily better than the Protestant Christian canon we have. It's not necessarily better, and it's not to teach you this so that this is to say that this is the only canon. It is to say that there is another arrangement of the canon. Remember, the canon itself is inspired, but the arrangement of the canon is not any more than the chapters and verses in our Bible. It's hard to determine why the Septuagint translators in about the 3rd century BC, why they decided to rearrange the canon. It's very hard to find an answer on that. Even the best of the books that talk about the canon of scripture say that it's just not, we don't know. Unless somebody found out last night. I looked in the best resource yesterday and still most scholars would say they just don't know why they changed it. Some speculate that it's just a Greek kind of way of doing things. To put it more topically, arranged. Because our canon of 39 books is arranged with law, and then with history, and then the prophets, and then the poetry. To some degree, it's like four different kinds of ways of arranging. But what I think that is missing sometimes from our canon, what I think, let me put it a different way, why I want us to think of the canon as Jesus had it in his mind is because I think that it helps us to see the storyline of scripture better. So the reason I'm wanting you to learn this arrangement is, one, because it was the way Jesus had it organized in his mind, OK? And it's worth knowing, right? Two, it's an arrangement that emphasizes the storyline of Scripture, which is what we're all about here in this class, is trying to see the big story, OK? And it emphasizes the storyline. I'll show you in just a moment. Three, because I hope most of you know your 39 books and you've memorized the Old Testament in the Protestant arrangement, I think it's nice to know a new way of arranging and just think about a different way of looking at something. It's not a better way, again, but it is a different way of looking at something. Sometimes that piques our interest and makes us listen a little bit better and say, well, that is interesting. Let me state a few things about the arrangement of the canon. We're talking about Moses, the prophets, and the writings. We looked at this a little bit last week. In Luke 24, 25 to 27, if you'll pull that out, we'll look at that again. Luke 24, 25 to 27, and then we'll look at verse 44. I want to just read you a few things I think are helpful to look at. In Luke 24, verses 25 and 27, it says, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And then in verse 44, looking up down at verse 44, Jesus said, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. And so what Jesus is showing us is that the arrangement of the canon that he knew, that he organized in his holy mind was this. He's using the Psalms as shorthand for the writings, which was often the way it was done. And so Jesus is saying, Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms point to him. And that's, again, you see the diversity of Scripture, but the unity is Christ. It's very important, isn't it? This teaches us, well, I've already written it, haven't I? The unity and diversity together, you want to see. And so there are three volumes. Let's draw a picture of the three volume set here. It would look like this. And actually, the middle one would be a little bit bigger. Print. And then we have this volume, which according to Hebrews, let me write these things down. Hebrews 1, 1, and 2, this volume would be the New Testament. Okay, so this would be God speaking in his son, like we read, okay, from Hebrews 1, 1, and 2. All right, everybody following? This right here would be the Tanakh. So you'd have the Torah, or Moses, you'd have the prophets, and then you'd have the writings. And the prophets, I'm sorry, or have two volumes, okay? One called the former and one called the latter. So the former prophets and the latter. And I'm gonna get to it in a moment why I think this is helpful to know this layout for the drama of scripture, okay? So keep following me if you would. So what make up the books of Moses? Oh, by the way, by the way, listen, very, very important point to make here. Not only am I, I am not saying that this is a better way of seeing things in the Protestant canon, first of all. Made that clear, I hope. Second of all, I want you to know that they're the same, this arrangement, though they're only 24 books, and I'll tell you why in a moment, they're still equal to the 39 books that we call inspired Holy Scripture, okay? So how can that be? I'll tell you in a second. By the way, there's a fourth reason why this is a good way to learn this. And the fourth reason is because it's easier to memorize. So you'll like that part. But that was the lesser of the four. But there is a reason. The 24 books are equal to the 39. How could that be? 24 does not equal 39. All right, hold on just a second, I'll tell you. And that is beautiful. Let me emphasize that for a second. That's beautiful that God in his good providence preserved the canon of scripture. That what Jesus had and spoke of as authoritative scripture from beginning to end, what Paul said was God breathed the holy scriptures. Every single one of those books, the 39 books we call, the 24 that is in this canon, are the books that are authoritative scripture. So nobody can ever say that there's a circular argument going on with Holy Scripture that says that the Scripture is the Word of God because it says it's the Word of God. No. A man from heaven came down who rose from the dead, who was God in the flesh, and he said, this is the Bible. So there you have it. You have authority. You have witnesses. And you have two or more witnesses to him and his testimony. And then you have the resurrection. As far as the Old Testament is concerned, we can see an inspired, holy writ preserved providentially by our great God that is arranged differently by Protestants today, Christians and Protestants, and Christian Protestants particularly. That's who we are, so that's why I'm mentioning that. and Jesus and the people of Jesus's time who would have arranged it this way. Now, the Torah, what would be the books making up Moses then? Everyone help me here and we'll do this together, okay? Let's do this in summary form, okay? So what would be the books of Moses? Very easy. Okay, so let's just say the Pentateuch. Isn't that easy? So Pentateuch means just the five books of Moses, okay? And what are those? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, okay? All right, that's the same. So we won't take a lot of time with that until we get there. Prophets, former prophets or latter prophets? This is where we want to focus our attention on the fact that the former prophets, very simply, are Joshua through Kings. And notice I didn't say 2 Kings because that's one of the reasons why there's only 24 books is because one of the things that the the Greek translators did in not only rearranging the canon, which was okay, that's fine, it's not inspired, was they also divided some of the bigger books into two. So that's why you get the 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, which are meant to be just three books, not six. All right, so Joshua through Kings, okay? And that's, so you'll see, this is why it's going down, and you're going to see 12 that are missing in just a moment, okay? The latter prophets, Can anybody guess who the latter prophets are? Instead of making the Greek distinction between the major and minor prophets, which is what we do, and which is okay. It's okay. This canon makes a distinction between the former prophets and the latter. Can you tell me what you think the latter prophets would be? Who would they be? All right. You got three of them right. Very good. All right, so we've got excellent. And I'll tell you why Daniel's not there in a moment, but great. So the latter prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and you ready? The book of the 12. Can someone tell me what that book is? The Minor Prophets. Isn't that wonderful? You just got 12 books here. Aren't they always hard to memorize anyway? You've got the Book of the Twelve. And by the way, when you interpret it as one book, there are a lot of insights in that. In fact, when you do a sermon series on the Book of the Twelve, it's awful hard not to get the same sermon over and over with, repent, repent for the kingdom. You failed Moses. You failed the law of Moses. God's coming. His kingdom's going to be set up. And you failed. Repent, repent. It's hard to get a lot of sermons out of that. No, no, no. But they do have a common theme, which again, is a reason why to consider this canon when we're studying the Old Testament story, okay? Again, that's the reason I'm bringing this to your attention, is it's helpful to understand the Old Testament story. Now here, what you have is, you have in the writings, you have what you would consider, what would you think of when you think of the writings? What's that? Okay, the poetry, right? So let's do Psalms, of course. Okay, Proverbs. Okay, what else would you consider poetry? Good. Song of Songs or Song of Solomon? Good. Job. Excellent. What else? Very good. Ecclesiastes. How about Ruth? How about Esther? All right. And then how about Ezra Nehemiah? Ezra Nehemiah or Ezra Nehemiah is one book. And then finally you have Daniel and Chronicles. Chronicles being one book. So what you have is Ultimately, you have 24 volumes, or 20, let's not, you know, that's, we have three volumes, we've done that, so let's say you have 24 books, or yeah, let's just do 24 books, okay? So you have 24 books. And let me show you something here from the scripture, something that Jesus says that I think is helpful. If you'll turn to Matthew 23, Matthew 23, oh, we forgot Lamentations. Lamentations would be part of the writings too, okay? There's something that's, I think, helpful in looking at Matthew 23. 33 to 35. Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, all right? And again, notice what the organization of the canon in his preaching to them and what they would have understood. He says to them, you serpents, verse 33, you serpents, you brutal vipers, how are you escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes. Okay? Prophets, wise men, and scribes. Again, you know, language that is a summary statement of prophets and writings. Some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town. Verse 35, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakiah. You have here in Jesus's statement two martyrs. Who's the first martyr of the church? Abel. And what book is that story found in? And who is Zechariah? Where's the story of his martyrdom? is found in Chronicles. And what does that mean? It means what Jesus is doing shorthand here is he's saying from Abel to Zechariah, or if you will, from Genesis, the martyrs of Genesis to Chronicles, their blood will be upon your head. In other words, Jesus, again, is using the organization because the last book of this organization, this canon, this of the Tanakh, the last book is, guess what? So I think it's clear in Scripture that Jesus saw that unity and diversity in the way that he says things. You know, he says, from Abel, Genesis, to Chronicles. I love the way Malachi ends. It ends with us knowing that a Christ is going to come, and it sets us up and informs us that there's a priest that will come and purify the sons of Levi, right? And the day of the Lord is at hand, you know, and it tells us all those things. But what if, for this class, we seek to understand the storyline by ending with what we call 2 Chronicles, or at the end of Chronicles, what would happen? Look at 2 Chronicles at the end. And what I'm wanting to demonstrate is that what we have here is unity and diversity in the actual story of Scripture that is how we ought to interpret the Old Testament. That's what I'm asserting here. I'm suggesting very strongly that if you take this, you get a better understanding of the storyline, the drama, all right, with an ending that emphasizes something most important that I'll tell you in just a second. In 2 Chronicles, and by the way, I'm not alone in this. If you read any good, conservative, confessional Old Testament teacher today, they will point you in this direction for help. This is, and I don't know of any of them that say this is better necessarily, it's just with an emphasis on the story itself, okay? I'm just wanting to emphasize that over and over. So it doesn't mean you've got to get rid of your process of Bibles, but here, mark my words, someone soon, just as there's a reader's Bible, that has been printed in the ESV with no references, no marks, just a story that's emphasizing story. That's a beautiful time to be alive right now in the church, is that people are trying to emphasize the glory and story in God's word, okay? Lots of good conservatives are doing that, ESV particularly. Mark my words, there will be an ESV soon with this, with this arrangement. It just has to happen, because those guys at Crossway are very sharp, and they're on top of this kind of thing. And they will give us a story Bible with a storyline of Scripture. All right, mark my words. All right, if it's not already in place. So listen, to the end of Chronicles. Now, this was the end of the Hebrew Bible. This is the end of the Hebrew Bible. So this, if you're reading through the Hebrew Bible, you're going to read through Genesis to Chronicles, okay? And you're going to read in that order. Listen to the end, verse 22. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him, Let Him go up. What I think is clear here that's often missed in our canon is that the story ends in the Old Testament with hope. And it's not just any kind of hope. It's a resurrection kind of hope. So that when Jesus says in Luke 24 that He was He said, you foolish ones, slow to believe what the prophets have spoken. Did you not know that the Christ had to suffer and on the third day rise again? Starting with Moses and the prophets and the writings, he showed that all the scriptures were about him. I want to suggest to you that what he's saying is not just that the death and resurrection of Christ were these different scriptures on death and resurrection like the servant of Isaiah. chapters 42 or 49 or 52 and 53, those kind of things. That's true, too. But I want to suggest to you that with Jesus' organization of this canon, what he was talking about is the whole Old Testament story is one of exile, exodus, death, resurrection. The whole Old Testament story is one of creation, exile, Exodus, new creation. So that Jesus says from Genesis to Chronicles, you've been taught the resurrection. The last bit of hope that you knew of was about the resurrection. When God's Messiah, Cyrus, Isaiah 45.1, he's called the anointed one of God. Even though he's an unbeliever, he's anointed by God to do something to proclaim that Israel will return to the land. It's beautiful. So, I suggest to you that this story emphasizes unity, and more importantly, most importantly perhaps, it emphasizes that movement throughout the Old Testament we oftentimes miss that is exile, Exodus, which we'll get to when we get to the book of Exodus, and then exile from the land into Exodus. And what's interesting about this that we'll look at more when we get to the book of Exodus. But what I want to encourage you about is listen to Mark 9. Listen to what happens here in Mark 9. You ready? Again, emphasizing this arrangement. Listen to Mark 9. Tell me if this is not interesting. So Jesus is meeting with Moses and Elijah. And if Moses represents this part of the Bible, where would Elijah fit? He's representative of the prophets. Yeah, that's right. And he's standing there and Jesus is transfigured. What are they talking about? Verse four. There appeared to them Elijah with Moses. This is Mark 9, 4. And they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it's good that we're here. Let us make three tents. Where are they? Let's make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified, and a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, this is my beloved son. All right, so in this passage, we have Jesus at a climactic moment with two of the representatives of the old covenant, Moses the mediator, Elijah the great prophet, And they're talking with Jesus, and they're experiencing what they had hoped from the Old Testament, that they would see the face of God. And they're given that privilege and that opportunity. But if you look at the... If you look at the other passage, I'm having a hard time remembering. That's why I'm pausing for a moment. I'm trying to remember where this is in, oh, it's in Matthew, Matthew 17, that's right. Look at Matthew 17. There's something that I want you to note here. In Matthew 17, The same thing is happening at the transfiguration. In Matthew 17, 3, we're told that, let's see, verse 4. No, no, verse 3. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him. All right. And again, we hear this climactic moment where the son is reaffirmed by the father. This is my beloved son with whom I'm pleased. Listen to them, all right? Now, look at the Luke account, Luke 9. Luke 9, beginning in verse 28. You might say, wouldn't it be great if you could know what they were talking about? Because you see the representatives of the Old Covenant, what would they be talking about? Luke tells us. 9, 28, let's begin with verse 29. As he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Does anyone have an ESV that has a footnote? What does that footnote say? That's the word, Exodus. So what were they talking about? They were talking about the Exodus. What exodus? The resurrection go up. So Moses and Elijah are talking to Jesus about his exodus, his departure. Exodus is a theological word, and it's particularly that he is referring to an exodus, which is the delivery of his people ultimately through death and resurrection. So it's fascinating how you can see, then, that it's worth memorizing the 39 books in this way that gives us 24. Now, let's pause for a second and do something. Let me go over with you, then, what I'd like you to do with these cards. Did everyone remember to bring the card? If you did, grab your card. I want to do something very practical with you. Looks like some of this class is going to get probably pushed to another class, all right? This is taking longer than I expected, but that's good. We can take our time with this. What I want to do now is look at what I'd like you to think about in memorizing this as the way you're looking at the Old Testament canon, OK? take your card out and what you would do, I believe I've given you a ... an outline of what's in the 24 books. Have I sent that to you? Is that in your papers? If not, I'll make sure I get that to you in the email. What you could do is, here's the memory card, and this might be very helpful to you. You're going to do 24 books. For instance, there are not two books of Chronicles. There's only one book of Chronicles. And that's going to help you, for instance, not only see that it's at the end of the canon and see the end of the storyline in scripture, but that may also help you to think about looking at it as a whole. You know, when you start looking at 1 Samuel and you get to 2 Samuel, did you notice the story goes over into 2 Samuel 1, actually ought to be still part of 1 Samuel. So the chapters are helpfully arranged, but they're not the best, are they? Because you find yourself still going into another book. You know with content that should be seen as a whole so this will hopefully help you to see Samuel as one book Kings as one book even the minor prophets the twelve as one book of the twelve So what you'll do is and this is just a suggestion. This is very helpful I think and and and by the way, you'll be doing this starting particularly in January you can do this as you're reading and rereading the Old Testament and But I'd like you to bring these cards as you do them, starting in January especially, so that when we're going through each of the books, you know, that's the third part of the class, third cycle, when we're going to go through each one of the Old Testament books, I want to have you have your cards here so that we can have that as discussion and help together. So what you might do is, let's just do Genesis. You'd put Genesis up here as the book, or your card, and then you would write Torah, or you could put Moses. All right? So you're reminding yourself that it's part of that first volume. All right? Then I'm going to do something else in a moment. But for now, let me just write down what you would put here as covenant law. And I'll tell you why in just a second. I forgot that step. Then what you would do is you'd have your outline here, a very simple outline, OK? You'd have a theme here, very simple theme. The theme of the book, by the way, is often helpful that you find a verse that is at the heart of the book. I think Samuel, sometimes, if you're thinking about the heart of the book, it's really hard to find one thing. But, you know, like with the book of Samuel, it's something like, you know, that man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. You know, that God's looking for a king after his own heart. And that might be the theme. So you take something that's thematic or something that's central to the whole story, and then you make it into a theme like that. So that you can find, if it's true, you can find the theme running through the whole book in different ways. And then here, you'll ask these questions that I gave you last week, like God's self-revelation, and you can just take your questions, but you could put them down right here. How's God revealed, the triune God? What's the fallen condition focus? You could write that down. You could write down application for your life, okay? And then you could always remember your circumspect, retrospect, and prospect. All right? So with Genesis 12, with Abraham, you might look around and see what the promises to Abraham are. That's the circumspect. You're always looking around in the context of the book itself. Then second, you might look backwards and look at Adam and the promise made to Adam, looking backwards, retrospect, seeing that Abraham is blessing the world through salvation. And then prospect, you might look forward to how these promises made to Abraham unfold throughout redemptive history. All right? So that's just a way that you can memorize it. And then you can have the card before you. And as you're going through the 24 books, you can just look down. You can put it on one of those little rings. And you can bring it to class. You can study it. You can memorize it. And it'll be, I think, quite useful to you. It's a little hot in here. Sorry about the problem with air conditioner today. So let me draw one other picture that I hope will be helpful. And I get this picture from an excellent book on Old Testament biblical theology. by Myles Van Pelt. I think he's made up of mostly scholars from, teachers from RTS, Reform Theological Seminary. And what they do that's interesting in showing this layout is they have a box like this. And by the way, to keep you on track, this is what's going to explain this right here in just a moment, okay? Again, for ways of seeing the whole story, seeing the diversity, I think this is helpful. What they do is they show that there's Torah, so there's prophets, and there's writings, and you have these three throughout the scriptures, and then the way that they lay out particularly the application or the way to think about a summary way or theme to understand each of these volumes that I'm using as part of the outline for this class, is they say that Torah is covenant law. So it's helping us to see covenant, covenant law. The second of the, The second is covenant history. Covenant history. And that's basically what the prophets are doing, both the former and the latter, beloved, is that they're looking back on the covenant that was laid in the time of Moses. And they are looking back constantly in both history, both in the former prophets and the latter prophets, interpreting that history for the people of God, bringing the past into the present. bringing the past into the present, saying, this is what God said to you, this is how you should be living. Or this is what God said to you, and this is how you're living, and you need to repent. So the covenant history. And then finally, covenant life. All right? And I have laid out the rest of the class with this helpful way of thinking about, especially when we get to the third cycle, I'm looking at the actual volumes of the books, looking at actually the books of Moses, the books of the prophets, the books of the writings. I think it's helpful to think about covenant law, covenant history, covenant life. All right. What they then go on to show that's quite helpful, again, that emphasizes why the arrangement that I'm giving you today is a helpful arrangement to memorize, is they show us that though this is the Old Testament, in the New Testament, what we have as part of Torah is gospels, Acts and epistles. And I'm just going to use this when we get Lord willing to the New Testament class too, because I think this is most helpful. Because what you have in the gospels is the covenant law fulfilled, primarily. What you have in the Acts is the covenant history. In fact, there's a lot of history in the preaching or proclamation in the book of Acts that connects us back to the history, back to the history of God's people in the old covenant. And then the epistles. And then they go one step further that I think is most helpful. And they show how in the Bible, there's also a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue foundation for the world, for creation, for the covenant promises to the patriarchs, to the life of the patriarchs. the prologue, because Exodus actually begins the action of salvation from slavery. So Exodus is the beginning of that big actual work of God in delivering his people. But the epilogue at the end of the Bible is Revelation. I think this is a helpful way of looking at this. Again, you see unity and you see diversity. And you also see something very important. You see the storyline, the storyline from beginning of creation, fall, redemption, new creation. So what you find at the beginning of Genesis, all right? So what we're going to do is we're going to follow this helpful way of laying out the Torah and the prophets and the writings as we go, especially in the third cycle. But as we go in these next few weeks, Lord willing, we're going to look at creation, we're going to look at the fall, we're going to look at salvation, and we're going to look at new creation. So we're going to look at them as topics or themes throughout Scripture, trace those, and then we're going to look at covenants and how they're revealed, and then we're going to look at the whole, looking at each book of the Old Testament in the third cycle, or each of the 24 books. So if you do your math and you see the layout of what's called the Tanat, or this canon that I'm encouraging you to memorize, you'll see that they're still equal to our 39 books. They're still the same book. And in a different arrangement because of the storyline. Now, this memory card, what you want to do with that is, you see, this is covenant law. So you just write that down to be reminded. But if this were one of the prophets, you know, say this was Samuel, you'd put, you know, former prophets and then you'd put covenant history. All right. And that's how you do it. And then you would have 24 cards and it would be helpful for you for the rest of your life, Lord willing. All right. All right, any thoughts or questions about that? And I'll make sure I send you my copy of my notes on the layout of the Tanakh. I'll take a picture of both sides of that as well. So let me summarize for a moment what the reasons why looking – let me summarize what we've learned about the Tanakh today. There are 24 volumes that equal the 39 books of the Protestant canon. Jesus' organization of the Old Testament canon, they focus and emphasize the storyline or the drama of Scripture. They emphasize the death and resurrection scheme, or the exile from Eden, then exodus, redemption, back into exile from the promised land, exodus and redemption, all the way to Christ and his exodus through death and resurrection. And then there's one other place that we want to show. Why does Matthew begin with a genealogy? You ever ask yourself that? Well, do this for me. Go to what we call 1 Chronicles 1. and hold. All right. So go to First Chronicles, Chronicles and put your finger there and then go to Matthew chapter one. Put your finger there. So if we were following the organization that Matthew would have had. He's beginning under the inspiration. Of the Holy Spirit, right. The new covenant, the new teaching, new covenant, the fulfillment teaching, that is. The New Testament. Look at 1 Chronicles 1. What name does it begin with? Adam. And from 1 to 2, chapter 2, verse 1, we have the sons of Israel. So essentially, what's being summarized at the beginning of the end of the Hebrew Bible, the first chapter, the first couple of chapters, at the end of the Hebrew Bible in Chronicles is a reminder of Genesis. You see the unity again? So it's going back to say that this goes back to Genesis. So why does Matthew begin the way it begins? How does he begin? Well, because he ends with a genealogy. As the final book, he opens with a genealogy. And guess what it's focused on? Christ, particularly as he fulfills B, exile and exodus. Notice chapter 1, verse 1 of Matthew, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And then verse 2, Abraham was the father. It brings us all the way to David, verse 6b, David was the father of Solomon. Then that brings us all the way to 11, Josiah, the father of Jeconiah at the time of the deportation of Babylon, the exile. Verse 12, the deportation of Babylon, the exile. then 16, Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and then verse 17, he summarizes Chronicles. So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ, 14 generations. So there's a resurrection hope. If you see the end of Chronicles as being go up, then they were awaiting, the Old Testament people were awaiting, we're going to go into more of this when we get to this time of this period. They were awaiting Messiah to come and bring them fully out of exile and to bring God's kingdom into the world and let righteousness reign. And God's rule would reign over his people in a special place forever and ever. So at the end or at the beginning of the New Testament, we're told that this has begun, this exile that's been waited on, this return from exile, this exodus, this salvation, this redemption has begun. And as the New Testament authors will show, the kingdom has come. It's been inaugurated with the coming of Jesus. The main preaching, the main sermon topic of Jesus was repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And so I think Matthew is one final reason to look at that, let him go up. And a book that ends the Old Testament as Jesus and Matthew would have had it, has the beginning of the New Testament with a genealogy that matches Chronicles and has the same intent and purpose to show David Christ. So it's wonderful, isn't it? It's wonderful. I think we better start closing today. That's a lot. I want to say something about genre. I'm frightened to do so. I might do that at the beginning of next class. But I'll just say this, in genres, there are essentially two genres, and we'll look at all the more distinct genres. So I'm not able to get to these today, the authors and the timeline, okay? So I will save this part. The literary genres, I think we can do quickly, but then I will unpack that a little bit more, okay? Essentially, there are two literary genres. and songs. Very simple, huh? That's a really helpful way of looking at it. And of course, under those two main topics, there's poetry. But essentially, there are two. And that, again, emphasizes the diversity. The diversity here of authors and timeline will do more, although we touched on this one with looking at the overview. Any questions about that? I want to look at this as our final thing, the handout. Yes, sir. The way we have it now is helpful. It's topical. I don't know. I did look for that answer. It seems like the ones who are most knowledgeable don't know either. It's acceptable because it was a good organization, nothing wrong with it. But I don't know the full answer. I'm going to be thinking more about that, and I'll seek a more fuller answer to that. But so far, and I invite anyone to do that, but so far I don't... Without going into detail, it does have something to do with the fact that Sometimes when you're up against a false teaching, what's at stake is greater than the organization. And I think what took the attention were the Deuterocanonical books and making sure that none of those uninspired books that had been added in some of the Greek translations were any part of the canon. And I would say that that's an educated guess as to, you know, why the attention was not on the arrangement so much, but just on what is inspired and what should be kept out. I do know that what was acknowledged as inspired was taken from the Old Testament canon that Jesus had. It can. Right. It can. I don't think any arrangement, perhaps we could say no arrangement is going to be, well, no arrangement's going to be perfect because no arrangement's inspired. But it's very comforting, the thing I would focus on, it's very comforting to know that whether you're looking at the 39 books that we normally have as our table of contents, whether you're looking at the 24, they're all the same and they've never been disputed. And that's, I guess, the most important thing. Well, let's look at this. I just want you to take this home and look at it, but let me share a few things about it. And again, I will send you also the books, if I haven't done that, the actual layout of the ... the storyline of scripture, the Tanakh, the Torah, the prophets, and the writings. But here's what I want you to memorize, this simple overview that many teachers come to this summary as another way of seeing all of the storyline of scripture. And it's this, God's power or rule over his people redemption in his holy presence. And so I just want you to memorize that. I don't know who to give credit to. There's several men who will use that in different ways. I came to some degree to the same definition that other men are coming to. I think I'm copying this from Goldsworthy. I can't remember. But Goldsworthy has one, too. That's very helpful. I think this may be his. But God's power over his people in his holy presence. Actually, I think, I'm not sure if that's mine or his, but anyway, it's based on his, and it's based on others, that what you want to see as an overview of scripture is not only creation, fall, redemption, new creation, but see this primary focus of God's kingdom as God's rule, or his law, over God's people, that's redemption, he saves the people for himself, in his holy presence. Okay? That's the goal of the whole Bible, right? Is it not? The ultimate goal of the Bible is, I will be their God and they will be my people. And what do we see at the end in the epilogue of Revelation? What do we see at the end of the Bible? God dwells with his people. Right? God, the king, rules over a redeemed people with them in a special place. So just take another look at these. And then in the second part, on the second side, you'll see just some other primary patterns to memorize that you'll see throughout scripture. And I'll go over these further with you at another time. But creation, fall, redemption, new creation, Eden, Megapolis, Metapolis is a great city of God. So that's seeing Eden going from a garden a great city that we see at the end of the Bible. And then, finally, let me go over the three cycles again that we're going to do starting next time. The first cycle is a theological overview, and we're going to look at kingdom, creation, fall, redemption, new creation for four classes. And then the second cycle, we're going to look at themes. So from Genesis to Chronicles, Abraham to Moses, Moses to David, David to Exile, we're going to use the genealogy of Matthew as an overview. for looking at themes, okay? And then the third cycle will be starting in January. That's when your cards, I think, will be helpful, is doing the biblical book overviews, all right? We'll look at the outlines of books, dates, authors, Old Testament truth contrasted to paganism, that sort of thing, okay? All right.