Exodus 37-39

Transcript

00:00:00:32 – 00:00:33:05
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Happy Monday. Thanks for joining us. As we kick off another week of Bible study and as we get going today, Michael and I have probably a confession to make and maybe a question to ask the next couple of chapters. We’re here at the tail end, kind of about halfway through chapter 36 from here until nearly the end of the book, about three chapters, three and a half chapters.

00:00:33:55 – 00:01:14:54
Clint Loveall
There’s no there’s effectively nothing that happens. What this section is, is a restatement. You’ll remember early in the book, we had multiple chapters where Moses was being instructed in how to make everything that was needed for the tabernacle and the priests and the table, the lamp stands, etc. What we now get is a restate amen of that. But rather than the instructions, we get told that they’re making them and the they are made essentially just restating, make it this many cubits and make it out of this and make it out of that.

00:01:15:16 – 00:01:44:07
Clint Loveall
And we don’t necessarily feel that we have much to add. To be honest, there’s not there’s not really anything new in this section. We can have a conversation about it today in sort of broad general terms, but if you’re interested in the individual articles, I would encourage you, you could easily just read this. I’m not. We just don’t have anything to add about they should have made it out of this.

00:01:44:07 – 00:02:07:39
Clint Loveall
Would instead of that would or that this person made it. We’ve already been introduced to the people. We’ve been introduced to the instructions. Now we get the fulfillment of that stuff. And our bias is that our time would be better served if we moved fairly quickly through that, wrapped up this book and perhaps got on to what is next.

00:02:07:39 – 00:02:41:31
Clint Loveall
And so by next week I mean we would be on to our next thing. In fact, we probably finished this tomorrow or Wednesday and then take Thursday off and and get started next week. If if you don’t like that idea, let us know if you don’t care will assume that silence means approval. But if you would, if you feel compelled to dig in to the table and the oil and the incense and the altar, by all means, let us know.

00:02:41:49 – 00:02:47:54
Clint Loveall
But but our bias is you can read that for yourself. Michael, did I did I describe that? Okay. Anything you had.

00:02:48:09 – 00:03:14:16
Michael Gewecke
I think that’s that’s very fair. I think that there’s a few things to note here. One would be there are many ways to study scripture, and they’re very deeply rooted to the goal, to what you’re trying to accomplish in your study. One way to study scripture is to look into some of the historical details and find the color, to find the shape, to find the aspects of it that really fire your imagination.

00:03:14:16 – 00:03:44:11
Michael Gewecke
And one great way to do that study is to grab a commentary of someone who is less interested in the application side and more interested in the historical side or the textual side, and then see how these things have been woven together to see how, you know, maybe that choice of gold as opposed to silver or emerald, as opposed to Onyx, how these choices have theological and symbolic significance.

00:03:44:29 – 00:04:08:09
Michael Gewecke
That’s a really interesting way to study the Bible, just to be honest with you. We as we do this together, try to find chunks of the text that are manageable in our in our time format, and then we try to look at them in a way that both sort of drives us a little deeper and adds a little bit to understanding, but also has some way of connecting an application.

00:04:08:09 – 00:04:33:19
Michael Gewecke
And I think if we were going to look at a section like this, we’re going to find ourselves saying over and over and over again, the people are doing as God commanded, and that’s a good thing. They’re fulfilling the task as it was laid out to them. That’s a good thing. And we would we would end most of those conversations, I think, with this note, and they were doing so with extravagant materials the best that they could.

00:04:33:34 – 00:04:56:47
Michael Gewecke
And they were at some level trying to have the height of their relationship with God. They’re trying respond to God with open hands, with generous hearts, with lives of true faith. And I think that that theme is going to happen over and over and over again, over chapters here. And the beautiful thing about that theme is its deep and it’s strong and it’s wonderful.

00:04:57:00 – 00:05:37:46
Michael Gewecke
I think the danger would be, as we talked about, I think that we might find ourselves on this repetitive track where we would at some point say, Yeah, but man, I really don’t care if the horns were one piece of gold or if the cloth was purple or blue. And so trying to be sensitive to that, trying to be mindful of our time, I think we can, for our purposes at least, as we explicitly lay them out, I think we can faithfully sort of summarize this in a larger brushstroke and say, you know, if you’re interested in a different aspect, that’s well, and that’s good, you should find the right resources and you will find

00:05:37:46 – 00:05:39:54
Michael Gewecke
those things in this area, in this section.

00:05:40:03 – 00:06:15:39
Clint Loveall
Yeah. You know, I mean, people are people are interested in their own things, right? So when we tell the story of, say, we build a house and we tell the story of, well, this table used to be a tree out behind Grandpa’s shed and we got this this countertop came from this quarry. We picked this. That is, generally speaking, more interesting inside this circle.

00:06:15:39 – 00:06:45:43
Clint Loveall
And so this part of a part of scripture like this is really not educational. I mean, if you’re interested in the history, but there’s not construction techniques here. This is informational to people who care deeply about the structures and the things that are being produced. And I suspect most of us don’t really bring that to the table. I mean, we we would maybe consider this historically interesting.

00:06:46:01 – 00:07:16:46
Clint Loveall
There’s no real theology here other than, as you noted, Michael, they are going above and beyond. There’s lots of gold, there’s lots of jewels, there’s lots of fine workers, blue and purple cloth. I mean, everything about this tabernacle and the stuff that’s in it speaks to, to or I mean, in some way, like the dining room we were looking at is designed to be impressive.

00:07:16:46 – 00:07:45:14
Clint Loveall
It’s designed to be special. It’s designed to honor God. And there’s something certainly something in that. The other I think interesting thing is we get a section like this. If you read through, you know, first and second kings first and second crown, well, be Samuel, probably for second Kings Chronicle calls when the Old Testament gets around to the temple.

00:07:45:36 – 00:08:09:00
Clint Loveall
Here we have the Tabernacle, which is portable. There we have once the people are a nation and have a king, we get the building of the temple. By Solomon, we get a similar kind of section. We get long sections of what was in it, who donated it, where they got it, how they how they made it. People. I mean, it’s no secret we love buildings.

00:08:09:00 – 00:08:31:51
Clint Loveall
The church has kind of always loved buildings. I’ve been in Tabernacles where they give you or cathedrals where they give you a handbook and point out this was new architecture and this famous person design that and this was, you know, the rarest wood known at the time and that kind of stuff. We we love buildings and the story they tell.

00:08:32:07 – 00:09:07:13
Clint Loveall
But I think part of that is that in some ways buildings are easier. It is much easier for the people to build a structure to specifications than it is to live as a faithful nation. I mean, that’s buildings are safe sometimes in a way that that faith isn’t. And I’m not I don’t want to knock buildings. I just said it is interesting that, you know, let’s call it 5000 years ago that people still dedicated.

00:09:07:13 – 00:09:30:34
Clint Loveall
We’ve already seen five or six chapters. Here’s another three or four, all dedicated to physical, actual stuff. And in the midst of that, there’s really no other story where the people got it all right and did what God told them, except when they’re building things. It’s just it’s kind of an interesting side trip.

00:09:31:08 – 00:09:54:50
Michael Gewecke
So we’re I’m looking here, I’m skipping ahead here. Just really briefly, looking at Exodus 38, I’m at verse 21, and I think that there’s a little bit of a turn here and it’s small, but at the beginning of the making of the Tabernacle section, all of this is really combined into one larger narrative about how all these things are being made.

00:09:54:50 – 00:10:16:58
Michael Gewecke
But here, once you start talking about the house for God, it is interesting because it’s after this point that you start moving into this new language, this language about Moses commanding what needs to be done, and then this very important phrase, this is here a very beginning of Chapter 39. They made word. Now we’re talking about the priesthood.

00:10:17:13 – 00:10:51:46
Michael Gewecke
They made the sacred vestments for Aaron, as the Lord had commanded, Moses. Now, when you keep going beyond chapter 39 here, you’re going to find, as the Lord commanded over and over and over again, that language as the Lord commanded. And I just want to point out in that that not only do you have this element that Clint’s talking about, this idea of the building of being an opportunity that the construction of these sacred items and even this place, even though it’s a movable place, when you see that, you can see there’s some beauty in the ornate ness.

00:10:51:46 – 00:11:24:35
Michael Gewecke
There’s value being put into the thing. But when you get to that language, as the Lord commanded, you see, it’s also a response of faithfulness. Yes. Which is a beautiful closing note after the very clear themes we’ve already had in this book of Faith. Less ness. You have the criticizing, the complaining course, the Idol making, which was this really, really kind of deep chasm in the in the flow of the text.

00:11:24:35 – 00:11:47:27
Michael Gewecke
There was the lowest of the low for the people. And here we see after the consequences of that action, the people are now doing, as the Lord commanded, they’re following not just the law, but they’re following God’s voice. They’re following what God has called them to do. And therefore, I think the insinuation is who God has called them to be.

00:11:47:45 – 00:12:19:46
Michael Gewecke
Clint. And I think to your point, there is a kind of simple narrative, a simple idea that faith would just be great if we could build brick and mortar. That was impressive. That was awe inspiring. But if you’ve ever been practicing faith, you know that at the end of the day, what is more impressive is not very high arches, but rather the life of a person that has been lived with gratitude, generosity, compassion, grace, forgiveness.

00:12:19:55 – 00:12:38:20
Michael Gewecke
If you’ve seen a saint in life, and by saint, I don’t mean a person who has been elected to sainthood. I mean a person who Jesus has worked on them over time. And that image has taken root in their heart and who they are that you know something about the splendor of what a life transformed by the gospel looks like.

00:12:38:20 – 00:13:06:24
Michael Gewecke
And I think that when we look at a text like this, what at its best is telling us is not that these people had lots of gold, but rather that now they are in the circle that God has made for them, that they are doing as God has commanded them, that they are following God’s voice. And in many ways, I think the invitation to the generations of Israelites who would receive this text, it’s also an invitation for them into that way of life.

00:13:06:41 – 00:13:19:04
Michael Gewecke
You’ll be part of this, be part of the family, but find value in these things. And if we can find that value, maybe from the New Testament side of the text, that may help us to connect with this.

00:13:19:35 – 00:13:55:35
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And and just I think, you know, an interesting note you mentioned there, Michael’s kind of come to the end of that stuff, 3839 tomorrow. We’ll probably look at 40 as they finish those things. My study Bible has what I think is a helpful note. These are round numbers, but if you follow the letter of the text here, you’re talking about somewhere in the neighborhood and there’s a little bit of wiggle room on this £2,000 of gold, £7,000 of silver and £5,000 of bronze.

00:13:55:49 – 00:14:30:36
Clint Loveall
And so when we talk about this as portable, it, it’s it’s not unsubstantial, but I mean, that is what you’ve got one, three and another call it two. So you’ve got somewhere between six and seven tons. This thing, this thing weighs that’s not counting the wood, that’s just the metal that’s used. And so you’re talking about a massive undertaking not only to build it, to make it, but the idea of moving it, of carting it around with the people.

00:14:30:36 – 00:14:59:25
Clint Loveall
This this is this is substantial. This is significant in their life. And again, yes, as you point out, the idea is clearly that it will be connected to their own faithfulness, that it will be for them a place that encapsulates their own expressions of faith and their own journeys of discipleship or of faithfulness. But as we know, that’s not always how it works out.

00:14:59:25 – 00:15:27:01
Clint Loveall
But at the end of this, the people have not only a building because in the church buildings are never supposed to be just buildings. The idea is they have a constant reminder of who it is that they serve, of who it is that they seek to honor, and they have a place to focus those ideas and that commitment here in their midst as a community.

00:15:27:01 – 00:15:48:54
Clint Loveall
And so that’s the takeaway here, I think, is that this not only creates a structure for the people and we do love buildings, there’s no way around that. But at our best, the buildings are a a pointer to us and a sign to us of something much more important than themselves. And that’s certainly the idea here.

00:15:49:28 – 00:16:34:40
Michael Gewecke
So I’m not going to go too far down this road because I don’t want to steal from a future conversation, but I want to tease it here. I think that a text like this becomes really, really interesting to the Christian when you read this through the lens of something like the New Testament book of Hebrews, when you read about Jesus being the fulfillment of all of these Old Testament promises, the fulfillment of all of these covenants and all of these God given signs, and you begin to realize that for all of the gold, for all of the splendor, for all of the just sheer extravagance of this scene from a Christian perspective, to whatever extent

00:16:34:40 – 00:17:07:15
Michael Gewecke
you can imagine that you can imagine it being greater in Jesus, you can imagine Jesus being more being a more spectacular, being more extravagant. And of course, that’s not Jesus’s physical appearance. It’s not his worldly riches. It’s the spiritual character of who he is and how he makes the invisible God visible. And I think once again, this is just a tease of maybe how a Christian might come to attacks like this.

00:17:07:15 – 00:17:47:00
Michael Gewecke
To whatever extent we can get our imagination around what’s happening in a text like this, you may find it hard to connect with. You know it it matters about here in chapter 3933, right? The the utensils, the hooks, frames, pillars based hand ram skins. Those things may be hard for us to get our mind around. But the idea that Jesus, as the Scripture tells us, is his spiritual beauty surpasses all that came before may help to inspire us a little bit to see our own Lord and Savior with that kind of color, that kind of dimension.

00:17:47:00 – 00:17:57:59
Michael Gewecke
Three dimensionality. I think if we can be awed by this, we should be awed more and more by that, and maybe that helps us to find a frame for a conversation like this.

00:17:58:24 – 00:18:24:14
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and I think there’s a challenge in that as well, Michael, because you could go into any church in the country and somebody would care about the window or. Right, you know, the pews or the chair or the silverware or whatever it might be. We, we have a tendency to vest things with meaning, and there’s not anything inherently wrong with that.

00:18:24:14 – 00:18:56:54
Clint Loveall
But there is a danger in it. And so, yes, the idea of a text like this, I think, is it’s well said it to point us toward something deeper, something better. And yes, £2,000 of gold is incredibly impressive and onyx doorways and whatever else, all wonderful, beautiful and stunning. But that those things, the idea is those things pale in comparison to the one that they point the people toward.

00:18:57:21 – 00:19:01:17
Clint Loveall
And as the people we’re supposed to remember that.

00:19:02:00 – 00:19:25:22
Michael Gewecke
It’s a great summary. I’m glad that you would have us spend some time together today. One Make note once again, in the spirit of teasing. I’m really excited about where we’re going to go next as we look to finish this week, our time in Exeter. So hope you’ll join us here as we have a few summary conversations and then we’re going to move on from this place in Exodus and we’re going to turn our attention to the New Testament.

00:19:25:22 – 00:19:40:13
Michael Gewecke
We’ll talk more about that later in the week. But I’m really excited about where we’re going to go next and hope that you’ll be part of that story as well. That’s enough for today. However, if you’ve found this helpful, give it like a share. Subscribe if you’re on YouTube so you can stay with us as we move into the next study.

00:19:40:31 – 00:19:42:14
Michael Gewecke
And we look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

00:19:42:18 – 00:19:49:03
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.