The Pentateuch, sometimes called the Torah or the Law, refers to the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. If you’ve ever preached from any of these books, you know they can be challenging. What follows are five pitfalls to avoid.
1. Don’t preach only the fun parts of the Pentateuch.
For most pastors, I suspect the fun parts are the stories. Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, the tower of Babel, the patriarchs’ accounts, the Joseph cycle, the exodus from Egypt, the wilderness wanderings—who doesn’t like the stories! Not only are they instructive, they’re enjoyable.
Or perhaps the fun parts for you are the obvious messianic prophecies and types. You love preaching about the serpent-crushing offspring, Melchizedek, the scepter in Judah, the bronze serpent, or the prophet like Moses.
Or maybe you get a kick out of preaching the genealogies, or the tabernacle measurements, or the holiness code. To each his own!
The point is, it’s tempting as pastors to preach only those parts of the Bible that personally interest us. We need to resist that temptation. God has breathed out all Scripture, which means every bit of it is profitable for shaping
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