What does this story show us about how God intends to form a people?

Formation begins before the plagues, before the sea, with two Hebrew midwives. Pharaoh commands Shiphrah and Puah to put the Hebrew boys to death, and they refuse. Right at the start of the story we are struck by the role of these clever midwives, who use their faith, trust, power, and presence to intervene and disrupt Pharaoh, helping to birth God's presence and unfolding plan. Their act of civil disobedience does more than just resist an evil command; it is also a declaration about life and the living. They are a symbol of God's presence in the midst of oppression: that the Holy Spirit is always present to birth something new.

And formation doesn't start with instructions. It starts with rescue. God begins by declaring who God is (I am the God who rescued you) and then tells the people who they are: you are redeemed and freed. God rescued them when they were slaves, when they were completely and utterly unable to give God anything. The instructions are offered without punishment attached. They were never intended as a prerequisite for finding and receiving God's favor and love, some kind of enchantment to unlock the blessing of God. They are given so that this people might have the best life possible.

From there, formation becomes daily rhythm. In the wilderness Moses takes significant interpretative leaps on God's provision of daily bread, stretching the promise to include the glory of God and meat as well, and God agrees, because God wanted to shape these former slaves into a new people. At the mountain, the fourth instruction lands in the middle of the ten: set aside a regular day each week for rest and worship. It's the hinge on which the other six rest. And then God does what Pharaoh would never do. Since the people are afraid to go themselves into the presence of God, God decides to pitch a tent with the people. God is so committed to be with the people that God imagines a tent with God's abiding presence in their midst.

“God never had to be convinced that slavery was wrong, so God rejects Pharaoh's vision of the world, a world of scarcity, a world of fear, a world of anxiety. God responds to Pharaoh by partnering with those under foot, with those who are marginalized, with those who are enslaved.”

The disciples want power. They want power to fulfill their nationalist dream: will you finally defeat the Empire, crush its rule and reign in our lives, and allow us to have self-determination again? With Empire looming, the disciples ask for power to do this. They get language instead. Luke is doing something significant here. In the old way, we used violence: we amassed an army, and we crushed anyone and anything in our way. But when you learn a language, you learn a people, you submit to a people, a place, and a time.

The same pattern keeps forming the church. As people fled the death and scarcity of Empire, they found a community that was being formed by the resurrection and its witnesses, changing the way people belonged, behaved, and believed: a community that sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need, because in God's economy there is always enough. It is a community that prays under threat and finds the place where they are meeting shaken. And it is a community where Peter, sent to a Roman centurion's house, learns something special about God: that in God's family everyone is welcomed, not just welcomed but wanted.

“They wanted power over people, but they got power to become witnesses to people.”