Exodus 23:20-24:18

• Someone who was here last week (and perhaps even last year for our first series in Exodus!), see if you can get the group up to speed: what has happened so far in the Book of Exodus, and where are we picking the story up now?

Read Exodus 23:20-33

• In light of God's Covenant relationship with his people, what is the role of this angel/messenger?

  • What does it say about God's character, that he wants to send his angel to do all this for His people?

  • What is required of God's people in this passage? What does that say about God's character?

Read Exodus 24:1-18

• Why do you think the Israelites were so quick to agree to the terms of the Covenant? What do you think the attitude of their hearts was at this time, and why?

• Why do you think the Covenant needed their agreement and the sacrifices of animals and sprinkling of blood? Do you have any ideas about what that might be about?

• How is our New Covenant through Jesus different to this Old Covenant (and how is it the same?

Read Hebrews 10:19-35

• What parallels are there between this passage and the passages we read from Exodus 23 & 24?

  • How do you think the writer of Hebrews would have answered the previous question, "How is our New Covenant through Jesus different to this Old Covenant (and how is it the same?"

• What do each of these phrases mean for you:

  • "we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus"

  • "having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience"

  • "He who promised is faithful"

  • "For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

  • "you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded."

• What do you think the writer of Hebrews means by his dire warning in verses 26-31? [1]

• How should we relate to God's grace, mercy, faithfulness, and judgement? Do you find that you focus more on some aspects of God's character than others? If so, why?

• Spend some time in prayer together:

  • give thanks for Jesus and the New Covenant relationship we have through his blood shed for us on the cross

  • repent for the ways we have taken this for granted or failed to live up to what God has done for us

  • ask God to give us a greater sense of assurance in our faith, and help us to hold unswervingly to our hope

[1] N.T. Wright writes a clear and helpful explanation of these words, for those who are particularly confused or disturbed by them. I'll reproduce the whole thing here:

It is absolutely basic to both Judaism and Christianity that there will come a time when the living God, the creator, will bring his just and wise rule to bear fully and finally on the world. On that day, as unanimous early tradition insists, those who wilfully stand out against his rule, live a life which scorns the standards which emerge in creation itself and in God’s good intention for it, and spurn all attempts at reformation or renewal, will face a punishment of destruction. The images of fire and vengeance — they are only images, but that doesn’t mean the reality is any the less fearful — are as frequent in the New Testament, if not more so, as they are in the Old. If there is no place in God’s world of justice and mercy for someone who has systematically ordered their life so as to become an embodiment of injustice and malice, then there must come a point where — unless God is going to declare that human choices were just a game and didn’t matter after all — God endorses the choices that his human creatures have made. I know, of course, that there are other views held on these matters today, but this seems to me the one which comes closest to what we find in the New Testament. This passage, then, is a warning about a more specific danger: that someone who has come close to Christian faith, and perhaps shared in the life of Christian worship, will then turn round and publicly deny it all. As we noted when looking at 6.1–8, this seems to relate to a quite specific situation of persecution, coming from the direction of non-Christian Judaism, directed (as that of Saul of Tarsus had been) against fellow Jews who were embracing Jesus as Messiah. This will become clearer, once more, as the present chapter proceeds. But the passage remains as a warning to us as well. If we have got as far at least as reading Hebrews, and trying to see what it might mean for us, we should be all the more eager that there will never come a time when we might give in to the temptation to declare that the whole thing was worthless. The living God, to whom everyone will render account (4.13), is neither to be trifled with nor presumed upon. It was after all a nineteenth-century cynic, not a Christian believer, who said, ‘God will pardon me; that’s his job.’

N.T. Wright, Hebrews for Everyone, p.122