The Prophets And The Promise

Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings are known as part of the historical books of the canon. However, in Jewish tradition, except for Ruth, they are labeled as prophetic literature.

This book is a series of sermons summarizing the books of prophecy in the Old Testament. I intend these sermons to be studied, preached, or used as Bible lessons or for simple reference. The books of prophecy express God's heart for His people, the Jews, and He chose them to be the primary vehicle of His message to mankind, as the initial means of fulfilling God's mission of redemption and His kingdom being established on earth. However, after repeated attempts to call His people back to that mission, God decided not to speak for four hundred years until John the Baptist showed up in Judea. The proclamation of the prophets is also a promise of victory for the people of God. The cry of God, in the words of Malachi, "Return to me and I will return to you," expresses God's commitment and unrelenting love for His people. This proclamation is not based on replacement theology, which assumes that the church has replaced the Jews. But instead on God's promise to restore His people. I hope you enjoy and are blessed with this work. Use it as a beginning point in your study and research. And in the end, may God be glorified and may you be enlightened.

What is the central theme of the Bible?Given the diversity of authorship, genre, and context of the Bible’s various books, is it evenpossible to answer such a question? Or in trying to do so, is an external grid being unnaturallysuperimposed on the biblical text?These are difficult questions that the discipline of biblical theology has struggled to answer.In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition of his classic Toward an Old Testament Theology,Walter Kaiser offers a solution to these unresolved issues. He proposes that there is indeeda unifying center to the theology and message of the Bible that is indicated and affirmed byScripture itself. That center is the promise of God. It is one all-encompassing promise of lifethrough the Messiah that winds itself throughout salvation history in both the Old and NewTestaments, giving cohesiveness and unity to the various parts of Scripture.After laying out his proposal, Kaiser works chronologically through the books of both testaments,demonstrating how the promise is seen throughout, how the various sub-themesof each book relate to the promise, and how God’s plan to fulfill the promise progressivelyunfolds. Here is a rich and illuminating biblical theology that will stir the emotion and theintellect.

Covenant: A Vital Element of Reformed Theology provides a multi-disciplinary reflection on the theme of the covenant, from historical, biblical-theological and systematic-theological perspectives. The interaction between exegesis and dogmatics in the volume reveals the potential and relevance of this biblical motif. It proves to be vital in building bridges between God’s revelation in the past and the actual question of how to live with him today.

The Old Testament both tells the story of Israel and points to the coming Messiah. Kaiser distinguishes between Old Testament passages that describe national Israel's glorious future and those that point to Christ and his kingdom. Kaiser's chronological approach traces Israel's developing concept of Messiah through different time periods.