Exodus and the Mission of God’s Holy People, Workbook Edition is your interactive companion to the book by Brian Russell. This write-in workbook invites you not just to read about the story of Exodus, but to step into it and experience it firsthand.

Designed for both personal reflection and group study, each of the entries includes thought-provoking questions, guided prompts, and plenty of space to write. Whether you’re journaling on your own or discussing with friends, the workbook helps you move from inspiration to transformation.

At Invite, we believe books are more than words on a page—they’re tools for spiritual formation. That’s why we’ve created this edition: to help you engage more deeply and live more fully in Christ.

In Exodus and the Mission of God’s Holy People, Brian D. Russell follows the book of Exodus past its famous escape to the climax most retellings skip: the moment God’s glory fills the Tabernacle and his presence settles in the midst of his people. Drawing on three decades of teaching Exodus at Asbury Theological Seminary, Russell shows that deliverance is only the doorway. God does not divide the water merely to get Israel out of Egypt; he opens it so that he may come and dwell with them, and send them out as a holy, missional people who carry his presence into the world. Written for pastors, teachers, and everyone who preaches and studies in the local church, here is Exodus read whole — not a story of escape from bondage, but a vision of the God who frees a people in order to be with them.

We think we know the story. Pharaoh and the plagues, the blood on the doorposts, the sea standing up like two walls and an army swallowed whole. It has filled Sunday school flannelgraphs and Hollywood epics alike. Somewhere around the far shore, though, many retellings stop. The people are free and the credits roll. But the book of Exodus runs forty chapters, and its true climax lies well past the water.

In Exodus and the Mission of God’s Holy People, biblical scholar Brian D. Russell reads the book all the way to its end and recovers what many popular versions leave behind. The point of the Exodus was never simply to get a people out of Egypt. It was to bring God’s people into God’s presence — and to carry that presence back out into the world through them. When the glory of the Lord fills the finished Tabernacle in the final paragraph, the question that opened the book is answered for good: God is here, in the midst of his people, ready to lead them the moment they move.

That changes how we read the whole story—and how we read our own. In the ancient world, only gods were welcomed up the holy mountain; the Lord brought a company of former slaves. People matter to him that much, never an afterthought, never objects to toy with, but the very point of his rescue. And it exposes our oldest temptation. Like Israel at the golden calf, we keep trying to manufacture with our own hands the nearness God is already longing to give.

Written for pastors, teachers, and serious readers in the local church, this is a trustworthy guide for teaching and preaching Exodus with its two great themes — mission and holiness — held together. Russell guides readers to:

• See Exodus whole, and grasp why its climax is the presence of God rather than the Red Sea — and why that matters for the church now
• Recover the missional heart of the book: God was not against Egypt for Israel’s sake, but for Israel for the sake of Egypt and every nation after it
• Understand holiness as the slow, costly work of getting “Egypt” out of God’s people — a life ordered by the love of God and the love of neighbor
• Name the modern idols and substitutes we build whenever we grasp for a presence God freely offers
• Read the Old Testament’s Exodus in deep continuity with Jesus, who makes God present and sends his people out into the world

The good news of Exodus is bigger than freedom. It is a God who frees a people in order to dwell with them, and then to walk with them into a world he is still bent on saving. Russell helps the church hear that good news again — and learn to live inside it.