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Luke is a Gentile writing for a particular person, another Gentile named Theophilus. In his Gospel, Luke provides a detailed and orderly account of the life and ministry of Jesus. Although Matthew, Mark, and Luke draw from many of the same sources for their material, each Gospel writer adapts his material for his particular audience and purpose. Luke presents his material in a brilliant prose style, as he creates a specific voice for his narrator and specific, identifiable voices for his characters.

Sennarcherib, king of Assyria (705-681 B.C.), attacks Jerusalem in 701 B.C., while Hezekiah is king (715-686 B.C.) and Isaiah is prophet (740-686 B.C.). Working together, Hezekiah and Isaiah implore the Lord to save Jerusalem and Judah. And he does. God vows that “[Sennarcherib] will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here” (2 Kings 19: 32). “That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp."

When Cyrus the Great king of Persia allows the Jews to return home and rebuild Jerusalem, only 42,360 do (Ezra 2: 64), about 10% of the population. The rest stay behind in Assyria, Babylon and Persia. After all, it had been nearly 200 years since the Northern kingdom had been taken captive into Assyria and almost 70 years since the Southern kingdom had been taken captive to Babylon. The Jews had built homes, started businesses and settled into their new lives.

Notice that from Genesis through Judges, our story moves across a linear timeline: We move in a straight line from Genesis through Judges, from creation through roughly 1,000 B.C. Ruth is a recapitulation; it turns around and goes back to “the days when the Judges ruled” (Ruth 1: 1). Back in those awful days, there was Ruth, Naomi, Boaz—and the greatest love story in the Bible.

Paul had a special love for the church and people of Philippi, a Roman military garrison town in northern Greece, known as Macedonia in Paul’s day. During his second missionary journey (A.D. 50-52) this was the first church he founded on the continent of Europe, and it is the home of Lydia, Paul’s confidante and very close friend. Join Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as he explores the tone and content of this very affectionate epistle, written during Paul’s stay in Rome, A.D. 60-62.

Saul of Tarsus was one of the most brilliant young men of his generation. Growing up in a wealthy family, receiving a world-class education, and being groomed for leadership at the highest level of Judaism, Saul became the great persecutor of the emerging Church shortly after Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. On the road to Damascus to round up Christians and have them brought back to Jerusalem for punishment, Saul encounters the risen and glorified Christ - and his life turns upside down.

From Genesis through Judges we have a straight, linear narrative; in Ruth we have a recapitulation, a backward glance into the main story. When we look over our shoulders at the linear path we have followed, we see only a charred, smoking and bloody landscape. Ruth is a diamond lying in the muck and mire of Judges, flashing in the sunlight. “Back in the days when the Judges ruled”... there was Ruth—the greatest love story in the Bible, a story of redemption.

Working hand-in-hand with the prophet Haggai, Zechariah also encourages the people to resume work on the temple in 520 B.C.; but unlike Haggai, Zechariah extends his prophecy to foreshadow future messianic and end-time events. Like Ezekiel, Zechariah has several “weird” visions, including that of an ugly woman in a flying bushel basket! Listen as Dr. Bill Creasy of Logos Bible Study explores this fascinating book.

As the Psalms take us into the heart of David, so do Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs take us into the heart of Solomon. The book of Proverbs fits squarely into the genre of “advice to a son” literature. In this book Solomon offers advice to his son, advice to a young man going out into the world for the first time.

With Moses dead, Israel stands on the threshold of the Promised Land, looking to Joshua for leadership. Join Logos Bible Study as Dr. Bill Creasy takes us across the Jordan River and into the land of “milk and honey” in a brutal conquest - a campaign of extermination that raises profound moral and ethical questions in its day, as well as in ours.

Join Logos Bible Study as we continue the story of redemption. As told by Dr. Bill Creasy, Israel falls into the cruel bondage of slavery in Egypt. And it is no accident: God had said to Abraham 500 years earlier that his descendants would be “enslaved and mistreated four hundred years”.

As we rebuild the temple in Ezra, so we rebuild Jerusalem in Nehemiah. Ezra and Nehemiah work together, priest and layman, to complete God’s work—and you will not find two more different characters in all of Scripture. When Ezra learns that the Israelite leaders have been unfaithful to God, he sits on the ground appalled and pulls out the hairs of his beard; when Nehemiah hears the same message, he gathers the leaders together, sits them on the ground, and he pulls out the hairs of their beards!

In Ezra we witness the exiles’ return to rebuild the temple. Destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., the temple is rebuilt and dedicated in 516 B.C. But it is nothing like the fabulous temple Solomon built. In fact, when those who had seen Solomon’s temple see the second temple, they weep at its inadequacy!

Seventy-three of the 150 psalms are traditionally ascribed to David. As we read the "Davidic Psalms," we see deeply into David's heart as he struggles with God, with others and with himself. These psalms are deeply moving and often, brutally honest.

Read through a Christian interpretative lens, Daniel foreshadows the coming of the Messiah as well as the “end time” events in the book of Revelation. Daniel is a very important book for Jesus, who draws his self-referential title “Son of Man” from Daniel 7:13-14; who quotes directly from Daniel 12 in the Olivet Discourse; and who seals his “guilty” verdict before Jerusalem’s religious leaders by reference to the book of Daniel.

In 1 Samuel we continue our narrative. Samuel is the last of the judges, and with his end approaching the people demand a king “so we can be like all the other nations.” As God tells Samuel, “it is not you they have rejected, they have rejected me as their king.” And indeed they have. The people choose a king, Saul of the tribe of Benjamin. Saul will rule Israel for an entire generation, but although he looks like a king, he does not have the heart of a king, and the weight of kingship crushes him.

Although remembered as a stunningly successful king, Solomon is the Bible’s greatest failure in the end. And in Ecclesiastes, he admits it. Join Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as he explores Ecclesiastes, a study of Solomon in sharp contrast to his father, David.

Seventy-three of the 150 psalms are traditionally ascribed to David. As we read the "Davidic Psalms," we see deeply into David's heart as he struggles with God, with others and with himself. These psalms are deeply moving and often, brutally honest.

In Leviticus, God tells his people to “be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19: 2). Leviticus is a handbook of holiness. Here God prescribes the five great sacrifices that enable a sinful people to be brought into fellowship with a holy God: 1) the burnt offering; 2) the grain offering; 3) the peace offering; 4) the sin offering; and 5) the guilt offering. Four of these five are animal sacrifices.

In the Bible’s longest soliloquy, Moses imparts his final thoughts to the people of Israel. Deuteronomy is not a “repetition” of the Law, but a retelling of it to a new audience, on the backside of 40 years of experience. Join Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as we listen to Moses address a new generation of God’s people on the plains of Jericho.