Day 50
Exodus 25:1-26:37
(25 | 26)
God tells Moses to get the Israelites to commence a huge undertaking. He tells him to get the Israelites to make him a sanctuary so he could dwell among them. He gives Moses very specific and detailed instructions on how the sanctuary and its furnishings should be made, and which materials should be used to make it.
I'm not going to go into detail about the measurements or materials of the tabernacle or its various furnishings. Instead, I'll give you this diagram from Wikipedia (I know, I know...). Bear in mind, that one cubit is approximately 18 inches, or 45 cm. This is a huge project that God is telling the Israelites to get started on. This isn't going to be easy to build.
The thing that strikes me most is the sacrifices that would have to be made. At the very start of chapter 25, God tells Moses to ask for offerings towards the tabernacle. He doesn't ask for monetary offerings or even animal sacrifices. Rather he asks for the donation of materials with which to build the tabernacle and its furnishings. If you read through the instructions, a lot of material is used. I don't know the number of Israelites travelling at this time, but I can guess that most families would have had to have sacrificed a fair amount for this undertaking.
Reading about the tabernacle and its various and numerous furnishings is not my favourite part of reading the Bible. It can be repetitive and, honestly, dull. What does interest me, however, is how the Israelites responded to the command. Apparently there is also some debate among Biblical scholars about whether or not this is an actual description of the tabernacle the Israelites travelled through the desert with. This is a debate I currently find interesting, although that interest is likely to wane fairly quickly.
Mark 4:30-5:20
(4:30-41 | 5:1-20)
Jesus uses another parable, this time the Parable of the Mustard Seed. The parable likens the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed; it starts out tiny (the mustard seed is about 1mm in diameter), but grows into a massive plant (mustard plants can grow to be about 9 foot tall). Once planted, they're also notoriously difficult to get rid of. The parable is saying that although the kingdom starts from humble beginnings, it will grow into something huge, something far larger than could have been imagined at the beginning. Jesus continues to speak to the crowds in parables and riddles, explaining the teaching to his disciples in private.
We see the story of Jesus calming a storm again. Jesus and his disciples are on a boat crossing the (flipping enormous) Sea of Galilee when a massive suddenly appears. Jesus is asleep and his disciples panic. They wake him up, he tells the storm to calm down and chastises his disciples for their lack of faith - they too could have done that had they believed they could. The disciples are terrified by the fact that even the weather is subordinate to Jesus.
When they arrive on the other side of the lake (the Sea of Galilee) a demon possessed man charges towards them scared out of his wits by Jesus' appearance and demanding to know what Jesus wants with him. When Jesus demands to know its name, the demon possessing the man says "My name is Legion ... since we are many" (5:9). So there's more than one of them. Jesus commands the demons to leave. The demons beg Jesus not to make them leave the region, and asks that they be allowed to exit into a herd of pigs feeding nearby. Jesus gives them permission. When they exit the man and go into the herd of pigs, the herd charges off into the lake and drowns.
The story spreads like wildfire. The locals know the man as dangerous; no one was strong enough to subdue him, and he spent his time self-harming among the tombs. They see the previously-possessed man sitting around right as rain and are terrified. They don't really understand what has happened, and beg Jesus to leave. The man asks to go with Jesus, but Jesus tells him to stay and tell people what the LORD had done for him - a slight departure from protocol, but with the same result as the man went around telling people what Jesus had done for him.
Psalm 23:1-6
(23)
Psalm 23 is probably the most well-known of all the psalms. I wouldn't have been able to recite it (I still can't), but I would have recognised it had someone read it to me before I became a Christian. I won't lie, I mostly knew it as being in the opening credits for The Vicar of Dibley, but I still knew it. It's actually a lovely psalm. It acknowledges the fact that when we follow the LORD, things will work out. God is our shepherd, and we are his sheep.
Now, I don't know if you've ever watched sheep, but sheep are idiots. (More fool me for watching them, I suppose, but never mind...) Sheep are prone to wandering off and doing their own thing. Their favourite past time seems to be getting themselves caught on barbed wire fences. They're far from the blind followers people make them out to be. The shepherd's job is to protect the sheep from harm. So long as the sheep respond to the shepherd's voice and follow him, and don't wander off doing their own thing, they'll be kept safe. That's not to say it'll be an entirely safe and fun time, but the nearer they are to the shepherd, the more likely they are to be secure, and the quicker any problems can be fixed.
The same is true of us. Walking alongside God does not guarantee a happy life free of problems. But it does mean we can rely on God to sort us out eventually. It also means that when we wander off doing our own things and get lost, we can rely on him to find us and bring us back.
Exodus 25:1-26:37
(25 | 26)
God tells Moses to get the Israelites to commence a huge undertaking. He tells him to get the Israelites to make him a sanctuary so he could dwell among them. He gives Moses very specific and detailed instructions on how the sanctuary and its furnishings should be made, and which materials should be used to make it.
I'm not going to go into detail about the measurements or materials of the tabernacle or its various furnishings. Instead, I'll give you this diagram from Wikipedia (I know, I know...). Bear in mind, that one cubit is approximately 18 inches, or 45 cm. This is a huge project that God is telling the Israelites to get started on. This isn't going to be easy to build.
The thing that strikes me most is the sacrifices that would have to be made. At the very start of chapter 25, God tells Moses to ask for offerings towards the tabernacle. He doesn't ask for monetary offerings or even animal sacrifices. Rather he asks for the donation of materials with which to build the tabernacle and its furnishings. If you read through the instructions, a lot of material is used. I don't know the number of Israelites travelling at this time, but I can guess that most families would have had to have sacrificed a fair amount for this undertaking.
Reading about the tabernacle and its various and numerous furnishings is not my favourite part of reading the Bible. It can be repetitive and, honestly, dull. What does interest me, however, is how the Israelites responded to the command. Apparently there is also some debate among Biblical scholars about whether or not this is an actual description of the tabernacle the Israelites travelled through the desert with. This is a debate I currently find interesting, although that interest is likely to wane fairly quickly.
Mark 4:30-5:20
(4:30-41 | 5:1-20)
Jesus uses another parable, this time the Parable of the Mustard Seed. The parable likens the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed; it starts out tiny (the mustard seed is about 1mm in diameter), but grows into a massive plant (mustard plants can grow to be about 9 foot tall). Once planted, they're also notoriously difficult to get rid of. The parable is saying that although the kingdom starts from humble beginnings, it will grow into something huge, something far larger than could have been imagined at the beginning. Jesus continues to speak to the crowds in parables and riddles, explaining the teaching to his disciples in private.
We see the story of Jesus calming a storm again. Jesus and his disciples are on a boat crossing the (flipping enormous) Sea of Galilee when a massive suddenly appears. Jesus is asleep and his disciples panic. They wake him up, he tells the storm to calm down and chastises his disciples for their lack of faith - they too could have done that had they believed they could. The disciples are terrified by the fact that even the weather is subordinate to Jesus.
When they arrive on the other side of the lake (the Sea of Galilee) a demon possessed man charges towards them scared out of his wits by Jesus' appearance and demanding to know what Jesus wants with him. When Jesus demands to know its name, the demon possessing the man says "My name is Legion ... since we are many" (5:9). So there's more than one of them. Jesus commands the demons to leave. The demons beg Jesus not to make them leave the region, and asks that they be allowed to exit into a herd of pigs feeding nearby. Jesus gives them permission. When they exit the man and go into the herd of pigs, the herd charges off into the lake and drowns.
The story spreads like wildfire. The locals know the man as dangerous; no one was strong enough to subdue him, and he spent his time self-harming among the tombs. They see the previously-possessed man sitting around right as rain and are terrified. They don't really understand what has happened, and beg Jesus to leave. The man asks to go with Jesus, but Jesus tells him to stay and tell people what the LORD had done for him - a slight departure from protocol, but with the same result as the man went around telling people what Jesus had done for him.
Psalm 23:1-6
(23)
Psalm 23 is probably the most well-known of all the psalms. I wouldn't have been able to recite it (I still can't), but I would have recognised it had someone read it to me before I became a Christian. I won't lie, I mostly knew it as being in the opening credits for The Vicar of Dibley, but I still knew it. It's actually a lovely psalm. It acknowledges the fact that when we follow the LORD, things will work out. God is our shepherd, and we are his sheep.
Now, I don't know if you've ever watched sheep, but sheep are idiots. (More fool me for watching them, I suppose, but never mind...) Sheep are prone to wandering off and doing their own thing. Their favourite past time seems to be getting themselves caught on barbed wire fences. They're far from the blind followers people make them out to be. The shepherd's job is to protect the sheep from harm. So long as the sheep respond to the shepherd's voice and follow him, and don't wander off doing their own thing, they'll be kept safe. That's not to say it'll be an entirely safe and fun time, but the nearer they are to the shepherd, the more likely they are to be secure, and the quicker any problems can be fixed.
The same is true of us. Walking alongside God does not guarantee a happy life free of problems. But it does mean we can rely on God to sort us out eventually. It also means that when we wander off doing our own things and get lost, we can rely on him to find us and bring us back.
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