Exodus 31

Transcript

00:00:01:26 – 00:00:24:03
Clint Loveall
Friends. Welcome back. Thanks for being with us as we start a new week. Continuing through Exodus in the 31st chapter today, having a kind of mostly finished a long section about various things that have to do with the religious life of Israel. We have just a little bit of a tail end on that today, and then we really move into more of a narrative, probably starting tomorrow.

00:00:24:03 – 00:00:42:34
Clint Loveall
And it will be narrative that I think will be familiar to most of you. But let’s jump in at 31 here. As as we have covered the last several chapters, there have been, as you know, instructions given about how things were going to be made, about what was going to be made, about how things would look and what they would be made of.

00:00:43:17 – 00:01:04:37
Clint Loveall
And now we get instruction about who is going to oversee that. So I’ll just read this really quickly. I don’t know that there’s a whole lot in it to talk about, Michael, but we can we can see what jumps out. The Lord spoke to Moses. I have called by name Bezalel Sun of Uri, son of her, of the tribe of Judah.

00:01:04:58 – 00:01:30:50
Clint Loveall
And I filled him with divine spirit and ability, intelligence and knowledge and every kind of craft to devise artistic designs to work in gold, silver, bronze, cutting stones for setting, carving wood, every kind of craft. Moreover, I have appointed William, a holy of the son of Assam, Mark of the tribe of Dan, and I have given him skill to all the skillful so that he may make all that I have commanded you.

00:01:31:10 – 00:01:56:05
Clint Loveall
The tent of meeting the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat that is on it, and all the furnishings of the tent, the table, its utensils, the lamp stand utensils, the altar and the altar, the burnt offering, the utensils, the basin stand. You get the idea here. So verse 11 and the anointing oil the fragrant and says They shall do just as I have commanded you.

00:01:56:06 – 00:02:33:55
Clint Loveall
So not a whole lot. I think maybe devotional here, but Moses is again we saw some of this earlier in the book of Exodus, a kind of Moses delegating some of the responsibilities here. He does that at that God’s instruction. These two men that we’ve I think, not heard of and I suspect don’t hear much of again, but these will be the craftsman in charge, the sort of supervisors making sure all of these commandments get followed, making sure all of these things get made properly.

00:02:35:06 – 00:02:41:11
Clint Loveall
I don’t I don’t know much to say about it. Other than it really kind of closes this section, at least for now.

00:02:41:56 – 00:03:05:09
Michael Gewecke
Just a couple really quick things to note, because I think you’re right, Clint. There’s there’s not a whole lot to add here. Just want to let you know that Basil Bezalel, the name means in the shadow of God’s protection, which is interesting. And then that al-Halabi is his assistant, which means his name means tent of the Father or the Divine Father is my tent.

00:03:05:09 – 00:03:33:37
Michael Gewecke
So it’s interesting that even these names, on some level they reflect being in the the shadow of God’s will, being in the tabernacle, the place of God’s protection or the tent of meeting with God. So even that it speaks to the divine calling, the purpose with which God made these men this skill that they brought to the task that was set in front of them, whether that was directly with their hands making all these things, or whether it was supervising the production of these things.

00:03:33:37 – 00:03:57:55
Michael Gewecke
What we see in this is that God not only has a plan, but God has equipped the people to do what is necessary for that plan to go forward. And you made the point. So I’m going to try not to go too far afield. If we were going to look for a point in this for me, you know, of course, there’s the historical of interest in this, the idea that, you know, there were the master craftsman available to do this work.

00:03:58:13 – 00:04:18:59
Michael Gewecke
But I think there’s also an interesting aspect of the story in that we encounter that when God gives the people a command, God has already equipped the people for that command. And that’s a theme that comes throughout Scripture. So maybe that would be something that you could we’re, we’re far away from the original intent and purpose at that point.

00:04:18:59 – 00:04:27:59
Michael Gewecke
But there may be some encouragement to say if God has given a plan for you, which we believe that God has, then God has also equipped you to live out that plan, whatever that will look like.

00:04:28:08 – 00:04:57:30
Clint Loveall
Yeah, there is a little clue here, Michael, that this is about more than just the stuff. You know, It says that I have filled Bezalel with divine spirit and that’s the first thing listed. And then ability, intelligence, knowledge, craft, all that stuff. But the idea that they’re not just making things, they’re making sacred things. And then it is incumbent upon the craftsmen to do so with the right spirit, too.

00:04:57:57 – 00:05:23:33
Clint Loveall
This isn’t simply about them being able to do it. It’s about them being faithful in or being obedient and discharging these duties that God has given them. So yeah, now, I don’t know. This would be a tough passage to preach. Probably, but there’s a little bit in it at least. Then we get to the the end of the chapter, really more of the middle.

00:05:23:33 – 00:05:46:12
Clint Loveall
But the back half of the chapter and this is an interesting restatement. Verse 12 The Lord said to Moses, You yourself speak to the Israelites, you shall keep my Sabbath, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations given in order that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you, You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you.

00:05:46:39 – 00:06:09:32
Clint Loveall
Everyone who profaned it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it shall be cut off from among the people. Six days shall work be done. The seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on that day shall be put to death. Therefore, the Israelites will keep the Sabbath, observing it throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.

00:06:09:59 – 00:06:38:09
Clint Loveall
It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth. And on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed. So a very strong restatement of this idea of Sabbath law, this idea of the seasons and cycles of life, the idea of holy rest, the idea of the people’s practices reflecting the the story of God’s own work.

00:06:38:09 – 00:07:03:37
Clint Loveall
And as as of yet in the story, the presumption is that the people will soon be in the promised land. Now, now we may know that that’s not how it’s going to work out, but at this point in the story that’s the assumption. And it is very interesting that of all the laws that are sort of spoken already, this is the one that is restated and restated in very strong language.

00:07:03:37 – 00:07:28:39
Clint Loveall
I mean, two different times in this passage, people being put to death for being disobedient or being cut off from the people, for being disobedient. And, you know, this is a very specific, very particular law to highlight in this way as the people begin to imagine their responsibility for living in the new land as the people of God.

00:07:29:06 – 00:08:01:24
Michael Gewecke
So for a moment, just remember where we been the last week, really talking about all of the laws, the do’s, the don’ts, and then most recently, the stuff of worship, the place, the fixtures, the elements, even in some ways the priesthood itself. All of this is work language. All of this is do language. This is stuff that needs made or it’s practices that need attended to, or it is commandments that need lived out or things that need to be actively refrained from doing.

00:08:01:24 – 00:08:27:25
Michael Gewecke
You know, all of this is the human vocation, the living life, the midst of the middle. We even talked about how there’s a sense in which this is the nitty gritty of living a human life. It’s a day to day kind of stuff that it means to be human. But what’s interesting here is at the tail end of this, all of this work that’s laid out, all this stuff, that’s good that God says, you know, prescribes and says to the people, this is what you should do to worship me.

00:08:27:43 – 00:08:55:35
Michael Gewecke
It’s at the end of this that we discover that now God wants to reiterate the commandment. We’ve already been given the importance of stepping back of rest of ceasing. And that’s not in the modern sense of vacation. That’s not I’m going to go someplace. So I do no work. No, actually, Sabbath is a kind of spiritual practice in which one is reminded that you were never the one providing life that God has been giving you life this whole time.

00:08:55:46 – 00:09:18:23
Michael Gewecke
And on that seventh day, when you mirror to use your language, when when you practice God’s pattern of six days work, seventh day of Sabbath, you are practicing that reminder that God is God and you are not. That God creates and you do not. That God is the ultimate storehouse of all wisdom and treasure. You are merely a steward of that.

00:09:18:23 – 00:09:42:28
Michael Gewecke
And so there’s a grounding that happens at the end of the story that I think is unbelievably, of course, interesting. But I would even say I’m spiritually wise and discerning. There’s something very, very wise about returning our perspective to say it wasn’t me who accumulated, it wasn’t me who earned it wasn’t me who lives at the center of the story.

00:09:42:43 – 00:09:53:11
Michael Gewecke
All of this stuff that we’ve done in the last six days, the last chapters of this book, all of that is in service to the God who is the God of Israel and our God, the one who we serve.

00:09:53:43 – 00:10:18:07
Clint Loveall
I think, too, I think in some ways, at least for me, Michael, the most helpful word to think about Sabbath is refrain, because it’s the idea that the people will intentionally step back from the normal concerns of life. They will withdraw themselves from work. It’s not that things don’t need done. It’s not a promise that things are going to be easy.

00:10:18:25 – 00:10:55:13
Clint Loveall
It’s a deliberate discipline to say that on a weekly basis there will be a day where they refrain from work, they refrain from the common, ordinary worries of life, excuse me. And they focus on their faith. They intentionally focus on worship, on rest. And I think you’re wise to point out, you know, yes, the word here is rest, but it’s not rest in the sense of recover and nap and and sort of, you know, recharge.

00:10:55:57 – 00:11:21:23
Clint Loveall
That’s that’s in there to some extent. But it’s more deliberate than that. It is more intentional than that. And you may remember, this book ends the Manna story where for six days they collected, but on the sixth day they collected enough. And it is that act of faith that says when I refrain, God will be enough, God will provide.

00:11:21:39 – 00:11:47:40
Clint Loveall
My life is not ultimately about my own work and my own accomplishment and my own drive. My life is ultimately about the work of God, and God can be trusted to do that work in and through me. And it’s I think we really struggle with Sabbath. We’re not in a society that that does much with it or values it much.

00:11:47:40 – 00:12:15:14
Clint Loveall
And so it’s easy to misunderstand. You know, Christians don’t really practice Sabbath in not certainly not in the strict sense of the Old Testament. We don’t even do it on the same day. But there is something for us here. There’s something to learn from. There’s something to to see. And I think there’s something commendable in the cycle of it understood properly.

00:12:15:36 – 00:12:48:12
Michael Gewecke
I think that this is actually a very challenging client. This is a challenging word not just for us today, but for the people of Israel. I want to point out verse 16 and 17 here, the idea is explicit that the Israelites will observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, and it is called a perpetual covenant. And if you were with us in the Genesis study, you’ll remember that one of the ways that God made visual, that covenant with Noah was the rainbow.

00:12:48:13 – 00:13:11:34
Michael Gewecke
This has happened numerous time in the Old Testament texts up to this point where God has made a covenant. God has made a promise with the people. The people have always been unfaithful to the other, they’ve always had doubt or they’ve always struggled in that last and final moment. But God has always been faithful. God’s always been working through these broken and disjointed relationships that God is able providentially to make it happen.

00:13:11:34 – 00:13:49:48
Michael Gewecke
Right. But here once again, this language is that the Sabbath keeping that this will be a sign of the covenant. It will be the thing that binds the people to this relationship with it that they have with God. And certainly, to your point, Clint, Christians don’t have the same kind of force behind Sabbath that we see lived out here and one might say that maybe if you read this section and you read this through Hebrews and you could think about, you know, the idea of Jesus’s resurrection representing Sabbath and their being theological connection, there’s some really interesting conversation I think, that we could have if we had more time.

00:13:50:02 – 00:14:13:53
Michael Gewecke
But I do think practically, practically, we might learn something deeply wise, maybe even soul transforming. If we can internalize this idea that God is enough, that God is so much enough that we can have left over in our life. And that left over wasn’t something that we created. If that’s the minimum of what we can get from a text like this.

00:14:13:53 – 00:14:19:17
Michael Gewecke
As a Christian, I think that it would push us, it would stretch us and it would be stretching us in a good direction.

00:14:19:31 – 00:14:44:47
Clint Loveall
And there’s a major clue. Michael Right on the front end. This is a sign given between me and you throughout all generations. And then God says, given in order that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. And so that if you read that somewhat literally and I know that you know there’s risk in that because it’s very hard to pin down God to one thing.

00:14:45:05 – 00:15:28:40
Clint Loveall
But part of what God is saying here is that the practice of Sabbath keeps the people mindful that they do not sanctify themselves, that they’re not sanctified by their work, that they’re not sanctified by their success, that they’re not sanctified by their wealth, that the intentional stepping back every seven days to step back and to put the work down and leave it down, to refer came from the normal practices of everyday life in an intentional way and to step back and and sort of put everything of all of this stuff at a distance is a reminder of who sanctifies us.

00:15:28:40 – 00:15:55:01
Clint Loveall
And I think, you know, that’s one of the clearest statements that I think we’ve seen of the intention behind the law. Yes, you should keep the Sabbath because God rested on the seventh day. But the experience of keeping it is a reminder of who sanctifies you. And I don’t think we’ve seen that language previous. And it’s I think is very compelling and I think very helpful.

00:15:55:39 – 00:16:15:14
Michael Gewecke
There’s a beautiful thing that the Old Testament does just innately. It doesn’t need to think about it. All of these things are directly connected to the very beginning. I don’t know if you know this, that this idea here at the end, it’s a sign forever between me and the people of Israel, the Lord made heaven and earth. Speaking of creation, the Lord made.

00:16:15:37 – 00:16:40:12
Michael Gewecke
And on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed. So the People’s Daily, weekly life, the cycle of I’ve got to do stuff so I can earn a wage for my family, or I need to do stuff so that we have the food, so that we have the water, the things that we need In the midst of that process, in the midst of that living, the people are actually theologically practicing with their hands and feet.

00:16:40:12 – 00:16:59:25
Michael Gewecke
The very cycle that God shows in the making of all things. It’s a beautiful kind of thing, almost the image of a child imitating their parent, you know, watching their parent do something and then living their own life in such a way as to mimic it and then ultimately to make it a part of their own identity, that that is the kind of thing that’s happening here.

00:16:59:25 – 00:17:24:41
Michael Gewecke
And I think that Christians may miss the force of that in our own spiritual lives. Clint, Because of the ways that we’ve interpreted Sabbath and the way that we live that out in our own faith, we might miss that when we live in this pattern. It’s a constant daily reminder, a weekly practice that really unites us to the center of the faith, to the very God who made everything from the very beginning.

00:17:24:57 – 00:17:46:57
Michael Gewecke
It connects our current slice of history, which is just this tiny, tiny thread of history to the entire story of God’s creation and all of time itself. And I think, you know, we might miss that when we just look at 17 verses of Sabbath. But I think it’s all it’s underneath the surface there, and I think we might have something to learn from it.

00:17:47:40 – 00:18:28:57
Clint Loveall
It would be interesting. It’s not something we have time for, maybe doesn’t fit necessarily our purpose, but it would be interesting to put Sabbath law in conversation with the rest of the law of the Old Testament, specifically the communal law, because I think you could make a case, Michael, that Sabbath is not simply to be practiced individually. Sabbath is the reflection of a community that cares of of farmers who leave gleaning for the poor and the hungry in their fields that the Sabbath isn’t just nobody work and the people who can’t afford it too bad for them.

00:18:28:57 – 00:18:56:25
Clint Loveall
There is a communal care for one another woven into this that that I think undergirds. Now we don’t see that here, but I think if you put the Sabbath laws in context with the other laws, it really paints a picture of not just a word to the individual, but a word to the people. You notice all the language here is plural, the you as plural and the you people, you all the people of Israel.

00:18:56:25 – 00:19:18:57
Clint Loveall
There’s there’s not a lot of individual language here. And I think most often the laws are spoken like that. And then just a last word here as we finish up verse 18, and I love this verse. When God finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant, tablets of Stone written with the finger of God.

00:19:18:57 – 00:19:48:48
Clint Loveall
So the idea here is that there were engraved tablets with these various laws. We’ve been hearing with all of these instructions, and that they come literally from the hand of God, from the finger of God. There’s not an explicit tie. But you might remember a story in the book of John where Jesus is dealing with a prostitute and he and there are people asking him questions and it’s a very strange detail in the story, says he he gets down and he writes in the dirt.

00:19:48:48 – 00:20:17:15
Clint Loveall
And, you know, there are those who have connected this story and that story, the idea that they’re trying to tell Jesus about the law and Jesus is essentially writing with the finger who wrote on Mount Sinai, you know, that idea that don’t tell me about the law, I wrote it, I know it. And I just think it’s a very interesting kind of a personification text here written with the finger of God.

00:20:18:03 – 00:20:49:44
Michael Gewecke
That’s a beautiful summary, and I think that’s a great place to leave it remembering that this language of law, this language of sanctuary of worship has always been personal, it’s always been relational. And whenever we miss that facet of the story, we tend to make it into a kind of cold, legalistic structure. And when we do that, we do a disservice to God’s intention and also God’s extreme decision to enter into human life in Jesus Christ, that He might unite us with Him in spite of our sin.

00:20:50:00 – 00:20:51:19
Michael Gewecke
So thanks for being with us, everyone.

00:20:51:45 – 00:20:58:39
Clint Loveall
Yeah, See you tomorrow.