This Covenant experience will guide participants in a comprehensive, in-depth study of the Bible over twenty-four weeks. Unlike the learning participants may have experienced in other groups, this in-depth study of the whole Bible emphasizes the biblical concept of
covenant as a unifying pattern through all the books in the Old and New Testaments. It underscores the unique relationship that God chooses to have with us as God’s people. This relationship is grounded in the faithfulness of God’s love and on our ongoing commitment to stay in love with God while we share signs of that love with others.
The cohosts for the twenty-four video episodes are Reverend Shane Stanford, senior pastor at Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and Reverend Christine Chakoian, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lake Forest, Illinois. They will meet with a different biblical scholar in each video episode.
Each video in the coming weeks features a conversation between the hosts and a biblical scholar around the Covenant table. Their conversation is a model for the kind of learning dynamic that is central to this study.
This is Episode 2 Additional Video: The Tower of Babel and the Unique Role of Israel
The Babel tower story is traditionally interpreted as a story of pride and rebellion.
But the text itself tells us that the tower builders wanted to live as one single culture that couldn't be scattered.
This is not the world God had in mind so God enters and diversifies the world, not as punishment but because this is the world that God had designed. The first covenant draws into the community all forms of life and human cultures into a gloriously and richly diverse family, not a family that all look alike. The writers of Genesis are telling a story about their own relationship to God and how they understand their responsibility to God and their connection through that responsibility to others. Being the "chosen people" doesn't mean all others are unchosen. It simply means that within the whole human race that God is in covenant relationship with, this is their particular role: they are blessed to be a blessing to others.
Running time: 4:40
Individual video episodes are
available to purchase for streaming to computers and mobile devices from http://www.covenantbiblestudy.com/Shop.
In
addition to the twenty-four episodes of streaming video (more than seven
hours of video) are twenty additional streaming videos and ten streaming
storytelling videos from http://www.covenantbiblestudy.com/Shop.
To
stream a purchased video, login with your cokesbury.com user account, click on
My Cokesbury.com, and select Downloads/Subscriptions.
More
Questions? Visit http://www.covenantbiblestudy.com/Shop
for more information.
