How did the small pagan world of five thousand years ago, maybe as few as 10 million people, become the current global population of eight billion souls, approximately 30% Christian and another 30% or so believing in one God but rejecting the Trinity?
Christians rightfully see the 1st Century ministry of Jesus as the origin of the Christian Church, but that miracle was preceded by 1700 years of preparation, beginning with God’s command to Abraham to get up and go. That was the first step in setting apart a Chosen People who would lead the way from pagan polytheism through henotheism (one God for us) to monotheism (one God period, for everybody) to the Incarnation and establishment of the Church.
We might have a tendency to think that once those Chosen People, the Jews, had escaped from Egypt, had spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness, grumbling and eating manna, and had entered the Promised Land with total victory over Jericho (Joshua 6), all would have been well. Not so. There was still some 1400 years to go before the Incarnation.
For a quick feel of how much preparation was still required after the initial defeat of Jericho, skip ahead a few hundred years to 1 Samuel 4 to read about two consecutive battles lost to the Philistines, 7,000 Jews killed. Description of the battles shows that henotheism, was alive and well.
Preparation for Jesus is the essential theme of the Old Testament story, beginning with that call to Abraham about 1700 BC. It climaxed about a thousand years later when the Jewish prophet Isaiah proclaimed one God for all and the promise of a Savior. Other Old Testament heroes between Abraham and Jesus include Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, King David, Cyrus, Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Judas Maccabeus, and the prophet Isaiah. The list below assigns some approximate dates with links to Bible verses about each of these heroes.
Just to get thing off to a start, here is a quick and simple review of the ancestry of the Jewish People, who led adoption of and advocated the concept of One God for everybody but did not abandon their Jewish faith for Christianity. The earliest Christian Church included many Jews, but the Jewish establishment didn’t accept Jesus as the promised messiah.
And here, beginning with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph from the list above, are 33 great Bible stories about those heroes. Click on the links to the right for more information and then use the back arrow at upper left to get back to this post.
| God chooses and sends Abraham | ~1,700 BC | Genesis 12:1-9 |
| God promises the birth of Isaac. | Genesis 17 | |
| God renames Jacob (Israel) | Genesis 32:22-32 | |
| Joseph, Jacob’s son, sold into Egyptian slavery. | Genesis 37:12-36 | |
| Joseph’s rises to power in Egypt | Genesis 41:37-57 | |
| Joseph dies, his family all in Egypt. | ~1450 BC | Genesis 50:22-26 |
| Israelites are enslaved in Egypt | Exodus 1:8-22 | |
| Moses is born, kills, and fleas | Exodus 2 | |
| God calls Moses and gives him a job. | Exodus 3 | |
| The first Passover | Exodus 12 | |
| Moses leads the scape from Egypt | Exodus 14 | |
| The Ten Commandments (other gods?) | Exodus 20 | |
| Arrival at promised land | Numbers 13 | |
| Moses reviews the greatest commandment. | Deuteronomy 6:1-15 | |
| Joshua replaces Moses | Deuteronomy 31:1-8 | |
| Death of Moses | Deuteronomy 34 | |
| Entry to the Promised Land | ~1,400 BC | Joshua 3 |
| Birth of Samuel, the last of the Judges | 1 Samuel 1 | |
| God Calls Samuel | 1 Samuel 3 | |
| Israel demands a king. | 1 Samuel 8 | |
| King David rules after failure of Saul | ~1000-961 BC | 2 Samuel 7 |
| Division of the kingdom after Solomon | 922 BC | 1 Kings 12 |
| God calls Isaiah the Prophet | 740 BC | Isaiah 6:1-8 |
| Northern kingdom Samaria defeated by Assyria | 721 BC | 2 Kings 17 |
| Southern Kingdom Jerusalem defeated by Babylon | 586 BC | 2 Kings 25 |
| Only One God Period | Isaiah 45:1-7 | |
| Prophecy of Jesus and Mary | Isaiah 7:10-17 | |
| Prophecy of God to bless all nations | Isaiah 2:1-4 | |
| God uses an outsider, Cyrus. | 538 BC | Ezra 1:1-11 |
| Zerubbabel led temple reconstruction after exile. | 537 BC | Ezra 3 |
| Ezra was a leader in recovery from exile. | Ezra 7 | |
| Nehemiah was a leader in recovery from exile. | 440 BC | Nehemiah 2 |
| Judas Maccabeus led return to Jerusalem after victory over Syria. | 164 BC | 2 Maccabees 10 |