Understanding Genesis is foundational to understanding the rest of the Bible. It’s where our grasp of who God is and what he is doing in the world begins and develops. But when I sat down with Richard Phillips, who spent the last three and a half years preaching through Genesis, I found it interesting that he described Genesis as a prologue to help us understand the redemption story of Exodus.
Over the course of our conversation, Phillips—senior minister of Second Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina—suggests some ways for organizing teaching through the book and discusses several themes central to the book: offspring, covenant, God’s surprising choice of the weaker and younger, and the nations.