My new book, From Sinai to Sunday: Old Testament Studies from Jeff Griffin’s Sermons, represents a distinctive collaboration between the academy and the pulpit — two worlds that too rarely speak to one another with the depth and mutual respect they deserve. My pastor, Jeff Griffin, Senior Pastor of Compass Church in Naperville, Illinois, has an uncommon passion for preaching from the Old Testament, and that passion became the creative spark for this project.
As someone who served as a pastor for more than 50 years and taught Old Testament studies for 33 years at a Christian university and at the seminary level, I am genuinely amazed by Jeff’s dedication to bringing the Old Testament to life for a contemporary congregation.
Preaching from the Old Testament was always central to my ministry — over the years in the pulpit, I worked through every book of the Bible, preaching a series of sermons from each. As a professor of the Old Testament, I had the advantage of years of formal training and scholarship to draw upon. What impresses me about Jeff is that he brings that same seriousness and depth to the text without the luxury of an academic setting — and he does so in a way that connects profoundly with everyday believers.
Jeff’s approach to the Old Testament is nothing short of remarkable. Rather than treating the Hebrew scriptures as a source of isolated proof texts or moral lessons, he immerses his congregation in the sweep and texture of the biblical narrative. For instance, he preached a multi-week series on Samuel as a young man, and then returned to preach another series on Samuel as an adult, faithfully ministering to Israel during one of its most turbulent periods.
He preached a series on David before he became king — exploring the trials, failures, and character formation — and then another series tracing David’s reign and legacy after his anointing. Perhaps most impressively, Jeff is the only pastor I have ever known to preach a dedicated series of sermons on the Syro-Ephraimite War, a complex geo-political crisis from the eighth century BC that most preachers would never attempt to bring to a Sunday morning congregation. That alone is a remarkable accomplishment, and it speaks to both his courage as a preacher and his confidence in his congregation’s ability to engage with serious biblical material.
From Sinai to Sunday grew organically out of this preaching ministry. The book is not a compilation of Jeff’s sermons, nor is it a simple transcript of what he has said from the pulpit. Rather, it is a collection of scholarly essays that draw on Jeff’s ideas, insights, and interpretive choices to provide the academic and historical background that enriches and illuminates his sermons. Each chapter moves in two directions at once: I explore the ancient context, the literary structure, and the theological significance of the biblical text, and then Jeff speaks directly to readers, explaining how that same text addresses the life of the church today. It is, in the truest sense, a conversation between scholarship and proclamation.
The chapter excerpted in today’s post is built around one of Jeff’s sermons titled “Joel: The Treasure of Stories,” preached from Joel 1:1–4. In that sermon, Jeff takes a distinctive and moving approach to the book of Joel, focusing not on its apocalyptic imagery, which tends to dominate popular treatments of the prophet, but on Joel’s urgent exhortation to pass on the stories of God’s dealings with his people to the next generation. The heart of Jeff’s message was Joel 1:3: “Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.” Jeff pressed his congregation to take the responsibility of intergenerational storytelling seriously: to ensure that what the people of God had experienced, suffered, and witnessed would not be lost, but would be faithfully handed down as a living inheritance of faith.
My essay explores the historical and literary context of Joel’s call, situating it within the broader tradition of memory and testimony in the Old Testament. Following the essay, Jeff offers his own pastoral reflection on what this ancient exhortation means for Christians today. The excerpt below is drawn from that chapter, beginning with Joel’s summons to the people of Israel and the enduring challenge it places before every generation of believers.
THE OLD TESTAMENT SPEAKS TO THE CHURCH
On June 19, 2016, my pastor, Jeff Griffin, Senior Pastor of The Compass Church in Naperville, Illinois, brought Joel’s ancient message into sharp modern focus through his sermon “Joel: The Treasure of Stories.” His application of Joel 1:1–4 shows how this prophetic text speaks directly to today’s believers, challenging them to live with faith-filled purpose despite their trials.
The Sacred Obligation of Testimony
Jeff emphasized that Joel’s exhortation places a sacred duty on every believer: we must pass our stories to the next generation. This isn’t just about sharing happy memories or religious clichés, but honest testimony about experiencing God’s goodness and mercy during life’s toughest times. When parents and spiritual mentors share their genuine experiences of divine faithfulness, they build a living bridge that connects future generations to the same God who supported those before them.
This storytelling obligation goes beyond formal religious instruction to include the everyday rhythm of family life and community interaction. Children and young adults need to hear not only biblical stories but also modern testimonies—accounts of how the same God who delivered Israel continues to work in today’s world. These personal stories become compelling apologetics, showing that faith remains relevant and essential in contemporary life.
Embracing the Transformative Potential of Hardship
One of Jeff’s most thought-provoking insights focuses on the importance of embracing, rather than simply enduring, difficult circumstances. While no one welcomes hardship, Jeff reminded the congregation that every life has seasons of trial and testing. The main difference lies in how believers approach these unavoidable challenges.
Instead of seeing problems as meaningless suffering or divine punishment, Joel’s message encourages believers to view hardship as part of a future testimony. This view doesn’t downplay pain or imply that difficulty is desirable. However, it recognizes that God has the power to turn even the most tragic situations into “remarkable stories to be told to future generations.”
This transformative view of hardship requires a fundamental shift in perspective. Instead of asking “Why is this happening to me?” believers are challenged to consider, “How might God use this experience to demonstrate his faithfulness?” This reframing does not eliminate suffering, but it infuses it with purpose and hope, creating space for divine redemption within human crisis.
The Courage of Anticipatory Faith
Perhaps the most challenging part of Jeff’s application involves the difficulty of taking risks based on God’s character rather than visible circumstances. When Joel instructed the people to prepare their testimonies, the locust devastation remained at its height. No signs of deliverance appeared on the horizon, no rescue efforts were in progress, and no evidence indicated that relief was near.
Yet Joel urged the people to trust in God’s promise of intervention. This reflects a deep form of spiritual risk-taking: celebrating victory before deliverance comes, proclaiming God’s faithfulness even while surrounded by signs of disaster. Such faith demands believers to base their confidence not on current circumstances but on the unchanging nature of God.
This anticipatory faith is rooted in Joel’s proclamation: “Do not fear, be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things” (Joel 2:21). The verb tense is important — God “has done” great things, indicating divine action as an accomplished fact even while the community still awaits visible signs of that deliverance.
Living with Prophetic Confidence
Jeff’s sermon urges contemporary believers to embrace what might be called “prophetic confidence”: the ability to speak and act based on God’s promises rather than immediate appearances. This requires developing a faith that can look beyond current circumstances to see divine purposes at work beneath the surface of visible events. Such confidence does not stem from naive optimism or denying real challenges. Instead, it develops from a deep familiarity with God’s character as shown in Scripture and personal experience. When believers understand that God specializes in impossible rescues and unexpected redemptions, they can keep hope alive even when human logic points to despair.
This prophetic confidence also empowers believers to start sharing their testimonies before their stories are fully finished. Like Joel’s audience, modern Christians can talk about God’s faithfulness while still waiting for complete deliverance, trusting that the same God who began a good work will definitely see it through.
The Ripple Effect of Faithful Testimony
Jeff’s application recognizes that individual testimonies create expanding circles of influence that reach well beyond immediate family ties. When believers bravely share their stories of divine faithfulness during difficult times, they add to a community-wide store of hope that bolsters everyone’s faith.
These testimonies serve several important functions within the faith community. They offer practical encouragement to others facing similar challenges, showing that survival and even thriving are possible in tough circumstances. They also build theological understanding by helping believers see divine patterns of intervention and redemption that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Furthermore, genuine testimonies serve as evangelistic tools by revealing God’s character to those who haven’t yet personally experienced His faithfulness. When believers share sincere stories of how God turned their darkest seasons into sources of strength and wisdom, they provide powerful evidence of divine reality that surpasses simple intellectual argument.
Conclusion: The Eternal Treasure
Joel’s message, as reflected in Jeff’s modern application, goes beyond its historical background to address basic human needs: the assurance that our stories matter, that our struggles have significance, and that divine faithfulness spans every generation. The “treasure of stories” is not just a collection of ancient texts but a living store of hope, constantly enriched by each generation’s testimony to God’s saving power.
When commanding his people to become storytellers, God revealed something profound about the nature of faith itself: it is inherently narrative, communal, and transgenerational. Faith exists not in isolated individual experience but in the shared testimony of communities that remember, retell, and trust in the God who transforms locusts of devastation into harvests of hope.
The call to “tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children” continues to resonate through the ages, inviting each generation to add their chapter to the everlasting story of divine faithfulness. Jeff’s challenge reminds us that Joel’s ancient words become our modern mission: to be faithful witnesses, careful rememberers, and generous storytellers of the God who consistently writes redemption into the narrative of human crises.
In this way, every believer becomes both a recipient and a contributor to the treasure of stories, gaining hope from previous generations while creating testimonies that will strengthen those who come after. The locust plagues of our time—whether personal, communal, or global—become opportunities to rediscover that God remains faithful to turn devastation into deliverance, and every ending into a new beginning.
You can read an introduction to the book here: Introduction to From Sinai to Sunday.
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Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
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If you are looking for other series of studies on the Old Testament, visit the Archive section and you will find many studies that deal with a variety of Old Testament topics.
Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 