In Exodus 25, the people of Israel transition from a place of bondage and captivity to the wilderness, where God meets them and provides them with a tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, symbols of faith and religion that will accompany them on their journey. These items represent the constancy of God’s faithfulness to the people, even in the wilderness, and it also represents the ever present temptation that exists today to become fixated on the stuff of faith and not Jesus Christ.
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Transcript
00:00:00:39 – 00:00:31:28
Clint Loveall
All right, friends. Welcome back. It’s been a while. Glad to be back with you as we continue through Exodus in the 25th Chapter two headings today offering for the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant and you know, we can read some of these verses, Michael, but I think the overarching theme as we now there’s nothing as you read this, there’s nothing in the text that would tell you that we’ve shifted gears.
00:00:31:51 – 00:01:20:09
Clint Loveall
But as we move to chapter 25, we really do begin a kind of different tack on the book. And for a while the book is going to spend some time on things, and we didn’t really see much of this in the Book of Genesis, and we’ve not really seen much of this in the Book of Exodus. But as the people have now escaped, as they’re considering moving to the Promised Land after they’ve settled here at Mt. Sinai, at least temporarily, there is this sense in which the book now is turning its thoughts to things that have some permanence a tabernacle which is not a temple, because the tabernacle you can pick up and move.
00:01:20:31 – 00:01:53:00
Clint Loveall
But it it does sort of speak to the idea of a place, of a place of worship and the Ark of the Covenant, which you may know. Is this the singular central artifact of the religious faith for the people of Israel? It is their most holy relic long term, and now it’s a thing. Now there is a thing in a place associated with God in some sense.
00:01:53:00 – 00:02:13:44
Clint Loveall
And so I do think, Michael, that that’s a change of pace and really a kind of a change of theme for what we’ve seen. We’re still in the wilderness, but even in the wilderness, we’re beginning to turn an eye toward stuff. And I think that’s I think that’s new in the text.
00:02:13:53 – 00:02:40:48
Michael Gewecke
Well, so this story has an arc. And, you know, we’ve taken a little bit of a break. RC Yes, thank you. Yes. Now we’re talking about the ark, but this story has an RC and the story of Exodus leads us from a people who have been willingly left their land to go to Egypt, where they found a place of shelter.
00:02:40:48 – 00:03:16:13
Michael Gewecke
They found a place to grow. That place became poisonous, it became toxic, it became violent, it became destructive. And so God calls Moses and Moses this very unwilling, unlikely hero figure is then sent to the people, sent to Pharaoh, and ultimately he lives at this difficult juncture of the people’s unwillingness, Pharaoh’s unwillingness, the people’s complaining, Pharaoh’s anger. And then God uses Moses miraculously to bring the people out of this place.
00:03:16:13 – 00:03:38:52
Michael Gewecke
And in this RC, this ark, this story moves us away. So the people left their land. They were essentially in someone else’s land. They were blessed to be fruitful. Then they were carried out of that land, but it became destructive and poisonous to them. And now they find themselves in the wilderness and literally the definition of the in-between place.
00:03:38:53 – 00:04:02:22
Michael Gewecke
They are not in the place where they had come from to Egypt. They’re no longer in bondage or captivity in Egypt. And so we just had this whole section, God gives the law God lays out what it looks like to be covenant people. There’s been a setting of tone. And what we know is in the Book of Exodus, the people are not going to land, you know, not to spoil a story.
00:04:02:22 – 00:04:31:10
Michael Gewecke
They’re not going to land in the promised land. They’re not going to get to the place. So what we have here in these things, I think, Clint, to your point, the naming of the Ark of the Covenant, Ark and the Tabernacle, this is a place that moves the tabernacle and a thing that moves with the people, that represents a kind of constancy and the promise that God is literally with them, that it’s not the land that they’re in.
00:04:31:10 – 00:04:47:45
Michael Gewecke
That is the fundamental fulfillment of God’s faithfulness, but it’s the fact that God will be faithful to the people, even as they’re journeying, that it’s the wilderness place where God will meet them. And I think that that’s the kind of beautiful longer story that we’re seeing happen here.
00:04:48:16 – 00:05:10:42
Clint Loveall
You know, if you thumb through the next few chapters and we will look at a variety of these things, but you see things like Ark of the Covenant, the table for the bread, the lamp stand, the framework, the altar of the burnt offering, the breastplate, the if the priest’s garments, the priestly vestments, the altar of incense, the daily offering.
00:05:11:02 – 00:05:40:28
Clint Loveall
It is fascinating the interchange between and I’m I’m using words specifically you could you could push back against this linguistically but I’m using these words on purpose. Faith versus religion. And to some extent, we have seen the people struggling with faith. Now we begin to see the installation of a system for that faith, which we would tend to call religion there.
00:05:40:48 – 00:06:08:52
Clint Loveall
They now are going to have practices, they’re going to have rituals, they’re going to have symbols, they’re going to have articles, they’re going to be specific priests, they’re going to be specified offerings. Now, none of that is to to suggest that that’s negative, but it is a significant transition in the story. They are moving from following a god that they’re not entirely comfortable in.
00:06:08:53 – 00:06:36:37
Clint Loveall
Certain with to the idea that now as God’s people, they’re going to be given not only laws to follow, but a religion to practice. They’re going to have an entire structure given to them with places to go, with things to do with altars, to use, with with festivals to keep. And it is it is a I think, a fascinating development in the story.
00:06:36:37 – 00:07:11:33
Clint Loveall
One of the tensions in any church is always the relationship between our faith and our stuff. How important are our buildings? On the one hand, a place dedicated to the glory of God where we want to invest enough time, energy and money that that commitment shows and that God is honored by it. On the other hand, not to build for ourselves an idol which we’ll see the people struggle with down the road.
00:07:11:40 – 00:07:43:58
Clint Loveall
And I think this this whole section, Michael, especially to non-Jewish people, to Christians who don’t have a lot of invested in this part of this, I mean, we could read over this very easily, but I think at its heart there are some very interesting historical discussions, theological discussions, and I would encourage us to try and see past these specific things and see the bigger questions they might represent.
00:07:44:38 – 00:08:18:13
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. So, Clint, I think what I hear you speaking to, I think very helpfully, is the reminder that within very concrete biblical stories from these historic narratives, it’s easy to read that as if it’s a literal description of a thing that we don’t care about anymore. Right? Oh, that’s nice. That’s history behind us. I think there’s great pastoral and scriptural interpretation wisdom in slowing down and seeing that this actually has something to say about our lives, that this experience, which we’re going to see the people wrestle with, is going to be a thing that is worth us reflecting on.
00:08:18:13 – 00:08:46:33
Michael Gewecke
And I think that’s totally true. I think also once we get through this, there’s just a couple comments here in the commentary I want to point out, because ways that we tend to not think as modern people, but I think are very interesting, sometimes very fruitful places to go with the scripture is when you read a thing like this allegorically and you understand that the early church turned to text like this and they were looking in every place, every nook and cranny of their scriptures.
00:08:46:33 – 00:09:10:13
Michael Gewecke
Remember, the earliest church didn’t consider First Corinthians and Ephesians and Revelations to be Scripture. These were letters being sent. It, of course, you know, these came together as Scripture quickly. But to the earliest Christians, these were the texts that they looked for Jesus Christ. And I think we might see that even in a very, very kind of cold cut and dry kind of literal text.
00:09:10:13 – 00:09:14:42
Michael Gewecke
There’s actually been some interesting interpretation as well. So it’s another way to look at it as well.
00:09:14:54 – 00:10:00:14
Clint Loveall
I also think, Michael, it’s very interesting as we move into this and we probably won’t get to a lot of text today. We’ll probably do a lot of this background discussion, but it’s fascinating as we go through the next few chapters and we see many of the things that God instituted, that God required of the people. These are the very things that down the road in the story, they’re going to be criticized for that they’re going to be judged by God, accountable for caring about the temple more than they care about the living out of the faith, for caring about the accessories of the faith, the trappings of religion more than they care about the
00:10:00:14 – 00:10:28:51
Clint Loveall
things God has commanded them to take care of the poor and to nurture their own obedience. And, you know, again, it is just amazing how quickly those things, when we start talking about stuff, when we start talking about wood and gems and gold and a and a place and a temple and an altar, those things are vested with tremendous potential to be helpful as we seek to be faithful to God.
00:10:29:20 – 00:10:45:12
Clint Loveall
And yet, because of our own tendencies, they’re also vested with a great deal of danger in terms of leading us astray and allowing us or in in sometimes enabling us to put our faith in the wrong things.
00:10:45:21 – 00:11:07:13
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, absolutely. Because our faith is by definition, the thing that we can’t hold on to. It’s by definition of this spiritual reality that we see through the grace given to us by the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. But yet the truth is each and every one of us longs to hold onto the things of our faith.
00:11:07:13 – 00:11:31:13
Michael Gewecke
And the thing that we receive in the Tabernacle, I think, is what theologians would call an accommodation. It’s a way that God accommodates the fact that we’re human. God who is perfect, spiritual, beyond time, unsociable, unknowable, yet that God wants to have a relationship with these beloved humans that God has made with this whole creation that God has called good.
00:11:31:30 – 00:11:54:34
Michael Gewecke
And in the midst of that accommodates are reaches down to everyone who a parent knows. Those moments in life where you accommodate your children, they don’t understand what you’re instructing them or why you’re instructing it, but you do your best to explain it at their level. And there’s a way in which the people don’t know how to live without some physical touch point for this God who’s leading them.
00:11:54:34 – 00:12:21:34
Michael Gewecke
They can’t understand how they can be okay, how they can exist in a world without a space. And so God accommodates them and gives them this physical thing. And yet that accommodation, the thing that God does because God needs to for the people to be able to keep on going is the very thing that’s going to become a central location for their temptation to make something other than God the first thing in their lives.
00:12:21:34 – 00:12:39:27
Michael Gewecke
And by the way, we see that here in the Book of Exodus. If you are a reader of the Old Testament, you know that that comes up again. God accommodates the people with a king, much to the same effect. God. In fact, in that narrative, the prophet says explicitly, Hey, if you do this, this is what’s going to happen.
00:12:39:27 – 00:12:55:22
Michael Gewecke
And we don’t have the same movement in this text. But it’s very clear in the arc, again, in the movement of this story of Exodus, we’re going to see how quickly this thing that God does for the people sake becomes a stumbling block for them.
00:12:55:37 – 00:13:25:31
Clint Loveall
Yeah, not to jump too far ahead, Michael, but if maybe you could pull up verse eight here of chapter 25, this is a very interesting verse. You know, God is calling the people to take an offering. And then without specific instructions, there’s a general proclamation here. Have them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. And this is this is the opposite of how we normally think of a building.
00:13:26:07 – 00:13:38:16
Clint Loveall
We think of a building as a place to meet God, right? Like, well, if we make this building, God will show up. Right. But here.
00:13:38:22 – 00:13:38:40
Michael Gewecke
Right.
00:13:39:00 – 00:14:04:58
Clint Loveall
With this idea of the people were afraid of God and God’s holiness was dangerous, at some point that God’s otherness made the people nervous. God says as a way of providing they could make a sanctuary that I can come and dwell with them. I will meet them. They’re not not they have to go there and wait for me and it’s my spot.
00:14:05:22 – 00:14:46:57
Clint Loveall
But I can make this as near words. Michael Accommodation and I will be with them in that place, which is, you know, the hope of having a structure if properly understood, that there is a space dedicated to the meaning of God and people. But I don’t think through I think it’d be fair to say, Michael, maybe with the with the possible exception of money and, you know, we could have that conversation, it’d be hard to argue that there’s a thing that churches have idolized more in the history of the faith than our buildings.
00:14:46:58 – 00:15:23:11
Clint Loveall
I, I think you could make a significant case that our structures have been a place where we have most often developed an unhealthy attachment and misunderstood their real function and purpose. And again, you know, we could spin that off in a lot of ways, but certainly one of the dangers of a physical space is that you begin to think that the space is what’s important and not what happens there.
00:15:23:29 – 00:15:27:34
Clint Loveall
And it’s very interesting on the front end, God seems to be saying just the opposite.
00:15:27:48 – 00:15:53:45
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I’m aware that we’re not digging too deeply into the text itself here. This is more of a summary statement as we sort of reconvene the study here. But I do want to make know that one thing, and that is note how when we do dig into this and we move forward in these chapters, how this story is unashamedly talking to the people of Israel in this time, it is their context.
00:15:53:45 – 00:16:19:03
Michael Gewecke
And so the stuff that they’re instructed to put in it is the finest stuff of their day. It is the best that they can imagine. It’s the best that they could acquire in their time, in their place, with their resources. And I would argue that that story continues into our own day. You think about the sanctuaries that have been built as congregations have sought to worship.
00:16:19:03 – 00:17:01:35
Michael Gewecke
You think of some of those historic sanctuaries like Westminster or Notre Dame. You think about the soaring heights, you think about the beautiful stained glass. You think about the sort of awe inspiring, breathtaking away nature of those spaces, the ways in which they were built to make the humans small and to point them up. Then you think, Clint, to some of those popular church buildings of today are essentially warehouse is their warehouses filled with seats and very expensive technology and Notre Dame and and the the lights and the camera and the sound system sanctuary of today they’re in many ways versions of what we’re seeing here.
00:17:01:48 – 00:17:18:32
Michael Gewecke
They’re instantiation of the people taking the best of what they had. Their culture of their time and putting it all together in this space. And on one hand, they all live at that difficult cross-section on one hand. So to the glory of God, this is the best that we’ve got and this is the best that we can do.
00:17:18:32 – 00:17:36:25
Michael Gewecke
This is us trying to connect to the God that we love and that we want to know. And to whatever extent that’s the case, thanks be to God. On the other hand, the grander the story, the more real the tabernacle, the greater the temptation to point the fingers back at ourselves, to say, look at that gold that we found.
00:17:36:25 – 00:18:08:36
Michael Gewecke
Look at that onyx, look at that really nice stuff that we put inside the sound system for that church. You know, different times, but same temptation. It is to be human. I think it’s to recognize that when we seek to encounter the divine, our sin, broken hearts will always tempt us away from the lasting eternal towards, I think the permanent well, sorry, the fleeting, touchable physical reality where we are and that we see.
00:18:09:19 – 00:18:40:28
Clint Loveall
Yeah, just. This is rough. So rough count, Michael. But I just I think that is very interesting. You know, 40 chapters in Exodus. We’re going to get about five chapters of instructions on stuff. And then later on we get what looks to be about four chapters of the actual story of making the stuff, and that is here commanded.
00:18:40:49 – 00:19:32:36
Clint Loveall
And, you know, that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% of the book. Yeah. Is describing right the stuff that occupied the space between God and people and the practice of faith between God and the people in the same way that if you read the Solomon stories, if you read, you know, first and second Kings First and Second Chronicles, it chapter after chapter of description of what went into the temple and how it was made and who made it and where they got it, The people of God have always taken the stuff used in the worship and service of God very seriously and continue to do that.
00:19:32:36 – 00:20:04:21
Clint Loveall
And I think that’s helpful because as we read through this, some of this, we’re going to say, well, what the Bread of presence, we don’t do that. And this thing, we don’t have an altar. But if we understand that what’s at stake here is always bigger than just a religious ritual, It it is the idea of a meeting point of a tool to establish relationship and govern relations ship between God and people.
00:20:04:21 – 00:20:33:12
Clint Loveall
And and I do think that’s helpful. It doesn’t make it exciting. Some of this is just, you know, you’re going to read that this thing is too if God’s in that thing is fortifies, you know, I don’t care about any fun at all. But but underneath that, there is this idea of what does it look like to dedicate things for God’s service as a way of expressing that we dedicate ourselves for God’s service and that it will help soften it a little?
00:20:33:12 – 00:20:33:39
Clint Loveall
I think.
00:20:34:12 – 00:20:48:41
Michael Gewecke
I think that’s a great summary. I don’t want to belabor that any longer. Our friends, thanks for jumping in. Sorry for the technical difficulties I coming over from Facebook here to YouTube. We’re glad that you spent time with us. Hope that you might put thoughts comments down below and we will look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.
00:20:48:41 – 00:20:57:09
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.