The College Church

After generations of slavery, Israel is finally free! But freedom turns out to be more frightening and complicated than anyone imagined. As God leads his people into the wilderness, the road ahead makes little sense, and the past refuses to let go. What happens when following God seems to lead us into danger rather than safety? And what does it really mean to be free?

This is it! One last terrible plague upon the Egyptians and God will deliver his people from 400 years of slavery. If this were a Western movie this would be the big showdown at high noon. And God tells his people...to make a meal?!? Why does God command the Israelites to prepare a meal and repeat it year after year after year? And what message does this strange story have for us today?

Ten plagues. A devastated nation. A ruler who refuses to back down. The confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh raises some unsettling questions: Why does God bring such terrible judgments? Why does Pharaoh keep resisting, even as his world falls apart? And what does this ancient struggle for power have to do with us? As we wrestle with these questions, we may discover that Pharaoh isn't quite as different from us as we'd like to believe.

Have you ever done what you believed was right, only to watch everything get worse? That's exactly what happens when Moses returns to Egypt. What begins with excitement and hope quickly turns into disappointment, anger, and despair. Where is God when obedience seems to backfire? And what do we do when God's promises seem so far removed from our experience?

What do you do when you sense God calling you toward something that feels too big for you? When you don’t feel ready, qualified, or even sure what God is doing? Moses knew that feeling. His encounter with God at the burning bush raises questions we still wrestle with: How can we trust a God we don’t fully understand—and what happens when trusting Him means taking a step before we feel ready?

Sometimes we see a problem so clearly that we’re convinced we have to do something—now. But what happens when our good intentions get ahead of God’s timing? Moses discovers that wanting to help isn’t the same as being ready to lead. And what do we do when God seems silent while we wait? Perhaps the waiting is doing something in us that we cannot yet see.  

What do you do when the system is unjust, the powers are against you, and your ability to change anything seems almost nonexistent? Exodus 2 introduces us to six women who find themselves in precisely that situation. They don't have much power. They don't know how the story will end. But they do have choices. And what they do next changes everything.  

What happens when fear takes hold of a people? How does fear reshape the way we see our neighbors—and what are we capable of doing once we stop seeing them as fully human? Exodus 1 gives us a disturbing look at how oppression takes root, but it also introduces a different kind of courage: people who refuse to participate. What might this ancient story have to say about the world we’re living in—and the people we’re becoming?  

Exodus is a story about slavery, freedom, and a God who rescues. But beneath that familiar story is something deeper: a God who pursues a people who have forgotten who He is—and perhaps forgotten who they are. Before we follow Israel out of Egypt, we need to understand what God is up to, and the Story He wants to tell.  

We can spend our whole lives trying to live for God, learn from God, obey God, or even receive from God—and still miss the heart of Christianity: living with God.  The Bible’s vision of the Christian life is not primarily about what we do for God, what we get from God, or how we live under or over God. It’s about the relationship we can have with the One who moved heaven and earth to be with us.