Morning Musing: 27:20-21

Leave a comment

“You are to command the Israelites to bring you pure oil from crushed olives for the light, in order to keep the lamp burning regularly. In the tent of meeting outside the curtain that is in front of the testimony, Aaron and his sons are to tend the lamp from evening until morning before the Lord. This is to be a permanent statute for the Israelites throughout their generations.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Candles have long played an important role in religious ceremonies and non-religious ones alike. The symbolism of light is easy and obvious to make. With nearly all of the main structures of the tabernacle now described and laid out for Moses to share with the Israelites, God turns His attention to some of the finer details. He starts with what will be the main source of light for the tabernacle. Let’s talk about oil, light, and seeing what’s really there.

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Exodus 27:9-19

1 Comment

“You are to make the courtyard fro the tabernacle. Make hangings for the south side of the courtyard out of finely spun linen, 150 long on that side including twenty posts and twenty pronze bases, with silver hooks and silver bands for the posts. And so make hangings 150 feet long for the north side, including twenty posts and their twenty bronze bases, with silver hooks and silver bands for the posts. For the width of the courtyard, make hangings 75 feet long for the west side, including their ten posts and their ten bases. And for the width of the courtyard on the east side toward the sunrise, 75 feet, make hangings 22.5 feet long for one side of the gate, including their three posts and their three bases. And make hangings 22.5 feet long for the other side, including their three posts and their three bases. The gate of the courtyard is to have a 30-feet screen embroidered with blue, purple, and scarlet yard, and finely spun linen. It is to have four posts and their four bases. All the posts around the courtyard are to be banded with silver and have silver hooks and bronze bases. The courtyard is to be 150 feet long, 75 feet wide at each end, and 7.5 feet high, all of it made of finely spun linen. The bases of the posts are to be bronze. All the utensils of the tabernacle for every use and all its tent pegs as well as all the tent pegs of the courtyard are to be made of bronze.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever driven down a street everyone had forgotten? All the houses were run down or boarded up. Some of the street lights didn’t work. There was trash everywhere. You probably locked your doors and rolled up your windows. You definitely didn’t feel welcome. How about a brand new neighborhood? That’s usually a totally different experience. Everything looks new and clean and very inviting. It makes you want to live there. That, of course, is the point. The developer has a lot of money to make back, and if the whole place looks unappealing, that’s not going to happen very quickly. How something looks on the outside affects your mindset when you go inside. God understood that, and so He took care to give the people instructions to make sure the front yard of the Tabernacle was inviting. Let’s talk about the courtyard.

Read the rest…

Giving An Answer

49 Comments

Imagine you’re in a conversation and somebody asks you why you are a follower of Jesus. What would you say? For most of us, the very prospect of that situation unfolding is enough to make us break out in a cold sweat. The last thing in the world we want to do is to be asked a question about our faith that we potentially can’t answer. And yet, we are called to be able to give a response. Let’s talk today about the apostle Peter’s counsel on giving an answer and some practical steps we can take to be able to do just that.

Giving An Answer

We are a people given to fear. We fear all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. Go look up a list of phobias sometime. You won’t be able to pronounce most of them, but the definitions will at least amuse you. Some of them seem like they have at least some sort of a rational justification for them like a fear of snakes (herpetophobia) or heights (acrophobia). Others seem just silly like a fear of the number 4 (tetraphobia) or the color yellow (xanthophobia). Then there are some that seem like someone just made them up entirely so they could create a long, impossible to pronounce word like hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia which, of course, is the fear of the number 666 (which, in case you were interested, my spell checker actually caught and flagged as being misspelled; not because it is a random jumble of letters, but because I swapped and “e” for an “a”). Most of those fears, though, are pretty niche. I don’t know of many people who suffer from arachibutyrophobia, the fear of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth. But there are some fears that are common and which have plagued humanity from time immemorial like death. 

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 2 Peter 1:16

231 Comments

“For we did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; instead, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Religion is an interesting thing. It’s a powerful thing. Some try to argue that it’s a bad thing. But the truth is that religion is just a thing. How it’s used, who’s doing the using, and for what purpose determines exactly what kind of a thing it is. It’s not all bad, and it’s ignorant to argue otherwise. Neither, however, is it all good. Only a fool would think that. It has to be taken on a case-by-case basis, and some religions are better than others. But try as we might, we can’t escape it. We’re drawn to it. That’s part of what gives it such power. What has me thinking about all of this is my recently finishing both watching and reading Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic, Dune, in which religion plays a profound role. Let’s talk about it.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Exodus 27:1-8

15 Comments

“You are to construct the altar of acacia wood. The altar must be square, 7.5 feet long, and 7.5 feet wide; it must be 4.5 feet high. Make horns for it on its four corners; the horns are to be of one piece. Overlay it with bronze. Make its pots for removing ashes, and its shovels, basins, meat forks, and firepans; make all its utensils of bronze. Construct a grate for it of bronze mesh, and make four bronze rings on the mesh at its four corners. Set it below, under the altar’s ledge, so that the mesh comes halfway up the altar. Then make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze. The poles are to be inserted into the rings so that the poles are on two sides of the altar when it is carried. Construct the altar with boards so that it is hollow. They are to make it just as it was shown to you on the mountain.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The sacrificial system formed the heart of Israel’s worship of Yahweh. As the apostle Paul would later explain, the just consequence for sin is death. When sin occurs, a life that belongs to God (because all life belongs to God as He is the creator of all life) is being taken from Him. If that life is not return to God, it will remain separated from Him. If it is to be reconciled to God, though, it must be returned to Him. If we don’t have our own lives any longer because they have been returned to God, then we are without life, or dead. Relationships aren’t possible with the dead, though, and God created us to be in relationship with Him. The sacrificial system took a means of worship the people already understood and graciously made it a way for their sins to be covered by the substitutionary death of an animal so they could approach God’s presence. Because of all this, the altar was really important. Let’s talk about the alter here and explore some of its details.

Read the rest…