If you go to church regularly, you will likely be regularly exposed to teachings on major Christian topics such as grace, faith, gifts of the Holy Spirit, and salvation. You might spend weeks or months studying one of those topics.
There are probably many times you have heard a Scripture and said to yourself, “I wish someone would give me a short lesson on a particular word or topic. Not a long treatise, but enough to get a better understanding.” The purpose of this series is to do that for a wide variety of topics. For that reason, some of these videos are shorter than the typical Eyewitness episodes.
As we often caution, we are not trying to add to what the Bible says, we are trying to add context that will help you understand the Bible better. So, please read the applicable Scriptures in the study guides for these stories so you will know exactly what the Bible says.
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The Exodus stories of Moses, Pharaoh and the ten plagues are well known to any Bible reader. No matter how familiar they become, details sometimes slip by. One such detail is in Exodus 8:16-18 in the third plague of the gnats. The first two plagues were duplicated by the magicians of Pharaoh’s court. You can imagine that Moses might have been a little embarrassed by that, and Pharaoh a little less than impressed by Moses and God.
In the third plague, the Lord turned the dust of Egypt into gnats which gnawed on all of the people and animals. In a desert land like Egypt, the amount of dust was immense, so the plague of gnats must have been disgusting beyond imagination. The wizards of the court could not duplicate the miraculous plague. Their answer to Pharaoh was, “This is the finger of God.”
God is spirit, so he doesn’t have physical fingers like human beings do. When the Bible uses the description of God’s finger, fingers, or hands, it is using a metaphor for God’s direct intervention and his power. This sort of analogy has been used by preachers throughout the centuries. One of the most famous sermons of all time was given by Jonathan Edwards in 1741, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
