Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 39-40.

When work was completed on the tabernacle, Moses inspected the work to ensure that all of the pieces had been put together according to the correct specifications.  If you have ever bought something which came in multiple pieces that you had to put together at home you know the importance of knowing what the final product is supposed to look like before you begin putting it together.   Since at this point, Moses was the only person who knew what the tabernacle was supposed to look like, he was the only person who could determine if all of the parts were correct.  Once Moses had determined that the pieces were constructed correctly, God instructed him to set up the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, and place all of its furnishings within it. The passage tells us that Moses set up the tabernacle and its furnishings and as soon as he finished the glory of the Lord filled it.  The New Testament tells us that our bodies are now God’s Temple, so if we have finished preparing ourselves according to His instructions, the Lord’s Presence will fill us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 36-38.

In yesterday’s passage, Moses repeatedly told the people that offerings of materials for the construction of the tabernacle was to be completely voluntary.  No one was obligated to make such an offering.  Today’s passage begins with those who were actually constructing the tabernacle interrupting their work to ask Moses to get the people to stop bringing more material.  People had brought in so much that more being brought in was interfering with them getting the tabernacle built.  We should approach giving with the same enthusiasm, and with the understanding that not everyone will, or should be, inspired to give.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 33-35.

My first thought when I read this passage was to wonder if, perhaps, over the years the order of some of this got changed during copying over the years.  However, that brought me to my current thoughts on it: God is all-powerful, therefore the order which we find this in today is the order in which He desires us to read it (or, as likely, reading them in the order which would not make us think they were out of order would not reveal anything about God’s Truth which reading them in this order does not, whether or not they were originally written in that order).  There may be those who read something about our relationship with God from the order these passages are in, but changing the order to the way my brain wants to say was how it was originally written does not currently change anything in my understanding of this passage.

In any case, I will write about what this passage says to me as we have it.  So, when Moses returned to the mountain after restoring order in the camp, God told him to leave the area around Mt. Sinai and lead the people to the Promised Land.  But that He would not go with them, otherwise He might destroy them along the way.  When the Israelites heard these words and were distressed.  As a result, they began removing their ornamentation even before they heard Moses tell them that God had told them to remove their ornamentation.  Then, a little later, Moses asks God who He will send with them when they go.  God tells Moses that His Presence will go with them, and Moses replies that if God’s Presence does not go with them He should not send them out from Mt. Sinai.  Moses then asks God how people will know that He is pleased with Him, if He does not go with them? And, what will distinguish Moses and God’s people from everyone else if God is not with them?

And now I finally get to the meat of what I want to write about this passage.  For me today the heart of this passage comes when Moses says to God, “If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. ”  I seek, and I hope that you seek, to please God so that He will continue to teach me His ways, to teach me how I may please Him more.  However, I also seek to please God so that He will be with me wherever He may send me.  What distinguishes me from others is God’s presence with me.  If God is not with me, I am no different than anyone else.  We are only God’s people inasmuch as God is with us, and anyone can be part of God’s people by seeking to be in His Presence.  I am not better than anyone else because what makes me distinct is God’s Presence.  Therefore what distinguishes me from others is not to my credit.  Rather credit for however I am distinct from others goes to God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 30-32.

Moses was on Mt. Sinai for a long time talking with God and receiving God’s commands for the Israelite people.  This led the people to become discontent with sitting there at the base of Mt. Sinai and start to complain about why they weren’t travelling towards the “land of milk and honey” they had been promised.  Some of the people around Aaron told him that he needed to do something to maintain control, and probably suggested that he needed to make an idol to be the god of the Israelites.  So, that is what Aaron did.  It would also explain why Aaron did not lose his position as high priest for this affair.  After Aaron made the idol for the Israelites to follow as their god, they held a festival with sacrifices and other activities to celebrate their new god.  When Moses came down from the mountain the party was still going on, and the people, or, at least some of them, refused to stop partying.  So, Moses rallied the Levites to his side in order to restore order in the camp.  They had to kill 3,000 of the people in the camp before order was restored.

All of this happened because Aaron was not a strong leader.  He was in his position because he was a good public speaker (and Moses’ brother).  While there is much more to be learned from this passage, it illustrates the danger of selecting leadership because they are great orators.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 28-29.

My first thought when reading this was that the sacred, priestly garments would serve to make the priests stand out from everyone else.  As I thought about that, I struggle with the idea of a priesthood elevated above the “common man”.  I don’t think God desires us to elevate a small group of people as above everyone else, as between the ordinary person and God.  However, when I thought about it a little more I saw a connection with what I wrote on the 24th.  Those of us who follow Christ have been called forth into a holy priesthood.  Perhaps we should seek to dress in ways which make us stand out from those around us so that any who look will know that we strive to serve God.  Of course, if we do that we will also have to make sure that none of our casual utterances or actions bring dishonor to God, the way in which some drivers with a “fish” logo on their car bring dishonor to God by the way in which they drive.  I do not know what such clothing should or would look like, but I do believe the Church would be well served if its members could be visually distinguished from others by the casual observer.

Note: I come from a tradition which used to dress in a distinct manner (and some branches of this tradition still do). I think the reasons given for abandoning that dress were specious, but I also believe that many who wore such outfits thought that doing so made them better than others, without actually exhibiting the godly behavior to which I am referring.

I had not originally planned on writing that much about priestly garments.  Instead, I was going to make the focus of what I write today be on what God says at the end of this passage.  He said that after consecrating the tabernacle and Aaron and his sons, He would dwell among the Israelites and be their God.  They would thus know that He was their God and that He had brought them out of Egypt so that He could dwell among them.  Since creation, God has sought people who would know that He was God among whom He could dwell.  It was for this same reason that He came as Christ and died on the cross; so that we would know that He was God and He could live among us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 25-27.

I have said before that I find detailed descriptions of how things were built, such as today’s description of the tabernacle and some of its furnishings, to be tedious.  As I was reading the description of how the tabernacle was to be built it struck me that perhaps the reason, or part of the reason, for this detailed description was to provide instructions for rebuilding the tabernacle.  After all, the tabernacle was primarily made out of cloth, which would eventually wear out.  The same would be true of the altar of burnt offerings, it would eventually wear out.  It is less obvious that the other things mentioned here would wear out, but a little thought reveals that they too would eventually suffer the ravages of time and need to be replaced.  So, that provides us with an explanation as to why these details were needed for the Israelites, but why do we still need them?  I do believe there are reasons we should continue to read these descriptions.  One part of that is something mentioned several times during this description.  At different points during the description, Moses was told to make sure that when these were built they were made according to the pattern or plan which he had been shown.  Which suggests that there existed an eternal version after which these are patterned.  Another reason we should read these descriptions is to learn that we should record how we worship God in our congregations so that those who come after have a model they can look at to do so themselves.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 22-24.

I am not quite sure exactly what all I am going to write today, my thoughts on today’s passage are not a coherent whole.  But I will start with verse 28 in chapter 22, which the translators chose to render as “Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people.”  In the translator notes it says that another possible translation would be “Do not revile the judges or curse the ruler of your people.”  Considering the context, I prefer this alternate translation.  I believe the command not to blaspheme God exists in enough other places that reading this as saying something else does not diminish our understanding that blasphemy violates God’s commands.  Also, I find my reading of this verse challenges my actions and words more than that chosen by the translators.  I am not tempted to blaspheme God, but I am tempted to revile the judges of my nation from time to time.  Whether I agree with their decisions, or the logic which they use to reach it, I need to work to respect them for the office God has put them into even if I do not believe they are godly people.  I need to remember that those in positions of government authority are in those positions because they are the people whom God desires to hold those positions.  God may have chosen them because of their wickedness, because those over whom they have authority have behaved wickedly, but God has chosen them and we must honor the position which He has given them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 19-21.

Having provided the Israelites a learning test with the manna, where He taught them about following His instructions, God spoke to them at Mt Sinai.  First, He has Moses convey the “preamble” to the covenant He will make with Israel.  If the Israelites would obey God and fully keep His covenant with them, He would make them a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.  This reminds me of what Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2 when he said that those who follow Christ are “a royal priesthood, a holy nation.”  The Israelites failed to keep their covenant with God, so God created a new covenant in order to create a holy nation.  I want to note that in this case the word “nation” refers to a people group.  In the case here in Exodus, the people group out of which God wished to create a holy nation was the descendants of Jacob, something we today often refer to as an ethnic group.  The people group to whom Peter refers is composed of those who accepted God’s gift of grace through faith in Christ Jesus.  The former group one entered by birth, the latter group by faith in Christ.  God may have raised up a new holy nation to be his priesthood to the world but He did not forget His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob concerning their descendants.  Let us praise God and honor Him by bringing His Word to others so that they may join the people of God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 16-18.

There are two things which strike me as noteworthy about today’s passage.  One of them concerns the way in which God fed the Israelites in the wilderness with manna.  The second concerns the advice which Moses’ father-in-law gave him.  I will start with my thoughts today about the manna.  We will see if I get to writing about the advice which Moses received.

When God provided food for the Israelites in the form of manna, He also included  a test on who would follow His instructions.  As I read this passage I believe that this test was a teaching test.  I am not sure if you are familiar with this concept, but when I was in school I had one or two teachers who administered tests which were designed as much to help us learn and master the material as to demonstrate how much of it we already knew.  He was testing how well the Israelites would listen to His instructions, but He was also providing them a lesson to help them understand that His instructions were for the best, even when our understanding made us think otherwise.  So, when the people went out to gather, God had told them to gather a “cup” of manna for each person in their tent (I am using “cup” to indicate a unit of measure).  Some people gathered a lot and others just a bit, but when they actually measured what they had gathered they discovered that they all had just a “cup” for each person in their tent.  Then God had told them not to keep any until the next morning, but some of them did anyway.  Those that did discovered that it had gone completely bad.  However, on the sixth day when they gathered manna, they all discovered they had twice the amount they usually collected.  God told them to keep the extra for the following day, the Sabbath.  On this day, the manna which they saved was still good in the morning.

So, let’s go over this more closely.  God told them to collect a specific amount.  Some of the Israelites were lackadaisical in their collection efforts and just grabbed a little bit.  Others were industrious and gathered lots.  However, once they returned from gathering it turned out they had the amount God told them to collect.  This was the first test.  God corrected their mistake in not following His instructions. Then God told them they should eat all that they had collected that day, but some of them saved a bit for the next day.  In the morning they discovered that it had gone disgustingly bad.  This was the second test.  Here God made the correction more obvious.  Then God gave them extra on the sixth day and told them not to go out to collect any on the seventh day.  Nevertheless, some went out to collect and found none.  God gave them a simple, easy primer on following His instructions.  Some understood it right from the start.  Others needed the first test to understand following God’s instructions.  Some needed the second test, a few more the third test.  And some still didn’t get it even after seeing all three examples of what it means to follow God’s instructions.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 13-15.

As I have been reading Exodus this year, from time to time I look something up regarding the events described in it.  Almost every time, at least one of the results I get says that the events described in Exodus never really happened.  The account given here about the origin of Passover makes that hard for me to believe.  Passover contains such explicit references to the events surrounding the Israelites leaving Egypt that I have trouble understanding how it could ever come to be if the Exodus story was just made up.  Passover commemorates what God did for the Israelites.  In order for the story of Exodus to be made up, Passover would need to exist independently of it and then evolve as it began to be included.  You could not invent a ritual like Passover at the same time you made up the story because everyone would know that the events it “commemorates” did not happen.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.