Follow up posts from 9/2 Class Session: Exodus, Beach Party and Kingdom

Today's video on The Exodus and the "Dance Party on the Beach" is not online in any form (though you can buy it as episode 5 on this DVD.    The points to remember are how this was the seminal/foundational/formative microcosmic event of   (perhaps all) Scripture, in that:

1)It presents a pattern and prototype of any deliverance from bondage/slavery; and every "way out" (Ex-Odus)
from an old way/world to a new way/world.  We had some good discussion about "in-between times" in our lives that we recognized  (maybe only in retrospect) as pivotal  and formative.  Crossing the sea is often meant to call to mind crossing a barrier (remember the Jordan River video from Week One) into a while new world, creation  or order; from allegiance to forbidden gods to The One God.

2)It is really the first time God's people are formed/forged into a community; they have "been through stuff together" and are inevitably bonded and changed through a corporate experience.

Also, remember  (for the test) that Jewish tradition that the Kingdom of God functionally, and for all practical purposes began (or landed in a foundational way on earth) when God's people there on the beach danced and sang, "The Lord is reigning" ( Exodus 15:18 )...remembering that "reigning" could be translated "King" or "Reigner".  Thus, God's Kingship "began" when God's people publicly recognized it after seeing God in action in dramatic way as King.  Vander Laan: "The Kingdom begins when God acts":

• "The Lord is   reigning from this point onward."
• "The Lord is   King      from this point onward."