Moses was called by God to a burning bush that was not actually burning. That will get your attention! Actually, all three persons of the trinity Godhead were present at the burning bush! The Lord says He "knows" and "remembers" His people in Egypt. What does that mean? Moses said, "I have become a stranger in a strange land." What did he mean? And what was it about life in Egypt for the Israelites that moved God to rescue them through Moses?

After Moses struck and killed an Egyptian slave master, he spent 40 years in the wilderness of Midian tending sheep. Why was it necessary for Moses to be there for so long? How did God need Moses to change before God could use Moses to free His people from slavery? What was the difference between the pre-Midian Moses and the post-Midian Moses? How is the change in Moses identified by the language used in Exodus chapter 2?

Moses had been living in the Egyptian royal palace forty years when he decided one day to go check on the Hebrew slaves. Within hours, he had killed an Egyptian man who was a slave master. Moses' actions make us ask several questions. Why did Moses "look this way and that" before he sprang into action? Why was he so frightened by what he had done, and why did he hide the body? When Moses returned to the scene of the crime the next day, what kind of reception did he expect from the Israelites? And why was Pharaoh so angry when he found out what Moses had done? Lots of answers, some of which may surprise you, coming up in this episode!

As we read Moses' birth narrative, we are introduced to some very interesting people. In Exodus, chapter two, we will learn about Miriam, Moses' sister, and the role she played in his early life. We will wonder why Pharaoh's daughter, who pulled Moses from the Nile, let a Hebrew woman nurse him (instead of hiring an Egyptian). We will be amazed by the "rest of the story"" of Pharaoh's daughter's later life. And we will try to determine who gave Moses his name. This episode is all about the women in Moses' early life!

After Moses was born in Egypt, he was placed in a small basket, (or "ark") by his mother and placed in the Nile. She was trying to save him from the edict of Pharaoh which ruled that all male babies born to Israelite mothers should be drowned. How was Moses' ark similar to Noah's ark? Eventually, Moses was rescued by Pharaoh's daughter who snatched him out of the river. Did Moses' mother intend for him to be found by Pharaoh's daughter, or was it just a "God thing," or both?

When Pharoah commanded that all male babies born to Israelite women be thrown into the Nile and drowned, head midwives Shiphrah and Puah chose to disobey. When asked about it by Pharoah, their response served to further objectify the Hebrew women in his eyes. Even though Pharoah had Plans A, B and C to try to stunt the growth of the Jewish population in Egypt, they all failed. What were those plans and why were they unsuccessful?

As the book of Exodus opens, the Israelites find themselves in a predicament in Egypt. Once seen as a blessing by the Egyptian people and Pharoah, they are now feared as a blight, because their small group of immigrants has mushroomed into a nation which outnumbers the Egyptians themselves. As a result, a new Pharoah makes a ruling that all male babies born to Hebrew women should be drowned in the Nile. But Pharoah did not know that the two midwives who oversaw those childbirths had other ideas!

As we start a new series about Moses and the role he played in God's plan to deliver the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, we look at a bit of history. How did the Jewish people end up in Egypt in the first place? What did the Egyptians think of them from the beginning? And what promises did God make to their forefathers about bringing the Jewish people back to the Promised Land someday? During this series, we will learn some new things about Moses as we follow him from his tenuous birth, to the burning bush, across the parted sea, and o the top of Mt. Sinai.