PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

We find ourselves in the book of Leviticus.  It is pretty much composed entirely of the old Levitical law that were handed down to Moses from the Lord.  The Levites were considered the priestly class so when we talk about Leviticus we are talking primarily about the laws which were kept by that priestly class.  It is a book of the Bible that some struggle to find points of contact with in the 21st century.  So many of the laws that we see mentioned are not laws which we continue to follow.  It also allows for opportunities for people to be challenged and ask the question: well, if I don’t follow the Levitical laws, then why do I see other parts of Scripture as absolutely necessary to follow when I don’t offer sacrifices or eat kosher any longer?

That is a very fair question.  We need to see the consistency of Scripture and try to understand what is required of us when other Scriptures seem to say something else.  For example, we do have a whole assortment of kosher laws and what can be eaten and what should be avoided.  It is quite a strict list.  But then when Peter has his dream in Acts 10:28 we read  that what God has made should not be called or be considered unclean by anyone.  In this case then I see that what God has made is able to be eaten.  We no longer need to follow the dietary laws which were a big deal for so many over a long period of time.

We can and we should be able to glean some really important truths from these Scriptures.  The sacrifice of animals as seen in this first chapter is obviously not something that we do any longer.  But it is important to see that the Lord requires and expects the first fruits of what we have.

All the planning and the preparations are done so that the Lord is able to move into His new digs.  It is very interesting that all of these chapters before this one was dedicated to the preparations that were needed in order to put everything in place, and now that it is in place, the people need to get in place as well.  Aaron, who is the designated high priest and his family the priestly family, is to be prepared just as the individual construction details had to be followed.  Yes, it is important to get the details right in the objects, but equally important to get the details right in the people.  Moses did this, and now it is time to experience the full presence of the Lord.

Notice, that the Lord continue to reveal himself by both cloud and fire.  That did not change, but the whole tabernacle thing was unique and different, and really something that was done so that the people would have more clarity on who the Lord was. 

We are done with Exodus and the book which dedicates itself to the escape from Egypt and some of the history that is involved in what happens immediately post-Egypt.  Now we move on to Leviticus, which seems to be much of the same, but very different as well.  Let’s move to there now.

Did you notice that the high priest wore a turban?  Don’t we normally associate turbans with people who believe in the God of Islam?  Not here, be really careful in judging people by what they wear, or the tattoos that they have, or anything that we think we understand people by what we see on the outside.  Remember what the Lord tells Samuel in I Samuel 16:7 and what Paul reminds us of in I Corinthians 5:12.  

The work is complete for the temporary place of worship for the people of Israel.  The Tabernacle was brought to Moses, for inspection I would guess.  He looked it over and the Scripture tell us that he blessed the people as a result of what he saw.  I guess he was pleased that it was done as the Lord had commanded.  Quite a few times it mentions that it was done the way that the Lord had commanded.  It must have taken time.  We don’t know how long it took.  Do you know something else that I heard today that I hadn’t thought about before.  Jesus is never in a hurry.  No, literally, he is never in a hurry.  You never see him run, or jog, or hurry people up to get a job done.  

In fact, he tends to be painfully deliberate.  It would drive me crazy if I were a disciple.  I think this week I was convicted of one of my many faults.  I am someone who wants to be able to discern and lead the people in the way of the Lord, in a hurry.  It isn’t because I have somewhere else to go, but simply because I like to get things done.  I am so praxis oriented that waiting for the voice of the Lord doesn’t sound like work to me, it sounds like a waste of time.  Tell that to Elijah.  He had to wait, and he was rewarded with the presence of the Lord.

This week in Washington DC has been incredibly rewarding in so many different ways.  Exodus is coming to a close, which is fitting also for my time here in DC.  I have been convicted of a number of things and I still have a lot on which I need to work.  I have found myself in tears as some of the speakers encourage us as pastors to do the work of God and to do the work for the people without tiring.  That has never been my problem, but wanting it to be done quickly, well, that’s a different story.  Jesus was deliberate, very deliberate.  That is helpful for me to remember.  Building the tabernacle took time.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.  Neither is the kingdom of God.

So this master craftsman keeps showing up.  I didn’t realize what a crucial place Bezalel plays in Exodus.  I had not remembered this guy at all.  I knew Pharaoh, I knew Moses, I knew Aaron, I even knew Moses’ wife Zipporah (who doesn’t remember that name?), but Bezalel?  He didn’t make my list of the top 5 people in Exodus, and he probably should have.  So many chapters are given over to drawing out the details of all the work that he did.  I mean, this was work, real work.  

He is in that long list of people who have served the Lord their entire life and are never remembered.  We remember those who were front and center, but not Bezalel, he was behind the scenes making sure that all of the details were carried out.  He was the one behind the scenes making sure that the commandments of the Lord were carried out in relationship to how the temple of the Lord was supposed to look like.  He never speaks, he never objects, he never interjects, he just does what he is asked to do for the kingdom of God.  What a servant. 

Did you notice how many people were counted as being in the tribes of Israel?  603,500.  That is not an insignificant number especially since it doesn’t mention the women and children in this number.  We are talking about millions of  people migrating toward the promised land.  That is a bit difficult to control and it puts these things into perspective.  It makes you realize that even if only 10% of the population wanted the golden calf, that is 60,000 people plus. That’s hard to deny and that is not an insignificant voice.  I’m so glad that we are doing Exodus, it is really revealing things that in the past we probably just looked over.  So much is in the details.

Now that is a lot of gold that went into making the ark of the covenant.   Remember, we have already covered what went into the ark, but one of the primary contents of the tabernacle was the Word of God, the covenant that God had established with his people.  For the Israelites that was the embodiment of God, the actual stone tablets.  Even if their prophets came later and said that one day there will be a covenant that is made on your hearts and not on stone tablets.

The presence of the covenant was so important to the people of Israel.  But it was static.  It did not have life.  It was actually that which took life, and didn’t give it.  Paul speaks about this how the law was for the sake of basically telling us what we were doing wrong, not how to have a living relationship with the Creator God.  

That has always been my approach in preaching.  What is it that God does which gives us life?  Well…, everything!  It is about life, it is about being able to see Him in a way that is transformative, and not in a way that is limiting or which creates fear.  I heard something today that I know I will be sharing in the pulpit.  God despises fear.  He chews out his disciples every time that they are afraid.  But he can put up with people who don’t have faith, even those with little faith.  What an amazing God we serve who wants us to live our life in freedom, without fear, and if we have doubts along the way, that’s okay, He can deal with that.

Did you read what is happening in these first 7 verses?  It reminds me so much of First Presbyterian.  Moses had to command the people to stop bringing in offerings to the Lord for the work of these master craftsmen because they were bringing in too much.  They were being too generous!  What a great verse and what a great problem to have!  “So the people were restrained from bringing; for what they had already brought was more than enough to do all the work.”  Can you imagine if in the middle of the service I said something like…”I know that we are only halfway down the aisles for the offering, but ushers, you can stop right there, you don’t need to go to the back, we have enough.”  That would be different.

You don’t want to get lost in the details in this chapter, but you do need to notice the amount of material that was needed to make this tabernacle work.  The amount that was needed is mind-boggling.  And yet, the people were able to bring in more  than what was needed.  First Presbyterian is blessed with a generosity that is, well, what it should be.  It is normal to want to give to the work of the Lord.  In this Scripture it lays it out without any big proclamations.  It seems as if it is normal to be in overabundance of what the Lord requires.  It seems to be normal to go beyond what the Lord wants us to do.  

My desire is that all of us would see as normal our blessings to the work of the Lord, and not as a drudgery.  If we are giving of our time, our material gifts, our skills to the church and we are not pleased about it, or we see it as unrecognized, then maybe we are in it for the wrong reason.  

We find that after the Lord commands Moses to get things done in a certain way, that he actually finds the people to do it in that way.  The details that we have had in the past chapters of what the tabernacle and what the vestments and what the decorations and accouterments ought to be is only matched by the people being willing to produce them in this chapter.  There is an underlying theme in this chapter where we read repeatedly: “all who were of a willing heart”.  These things took place not because the Lord demanded it, but because the people were willing to bring them to him.  

If you look at vs.29 you will see the following quote: “All the Israelite men and women whose hearts made them willing to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done, brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord.”  This sense of a freewill offering is emphasized because it is supposed to show a willingness, maybe a change of heart, in the people as they carry out His wishes.  

We see Bezalel mentioned again as the superstar craftsman.  Nothing more than his name and the attributes which he had is mentioned.  Often we think that if we aren’t like the Bezalels of the world then we really don’t have much to offer.  But you see so many unnamed people in this chapter just bringing what they had freely and without compulsion.  We will have some Bezalels, but not all of us are called to be that.

This is the depiction of Moses in St. Peters which refers directly to this Scripture in Exodus in chapter 34.  In the Hebrew the word which describes this radiant light which is emanating from Moses’ face can also be translated as “grew horns”.  In fact, in the Vulgate it was translated as such, that would be the Latin.  So throughout art history you see Moses with the tablets and two prominent horns protruding from his head.  I’m pretty sure the author of Exodus meant “radiated light”.  Isn’t it interesting how interpretations of Scripture tend to shift and change as we learn more and more about the languages and settings in which they were written.

But we do see God giving the people of Israel a second chance.  We see God self-described as merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  That is the God that I know and love, that is the God to whom I have given my life.  It is interesting how God wants his people to be completely separate from the culture around them.  What a difference from today, where we want culture to be like us and where we are more than happy to be like culture as long as culture is willing somewhat to shift in our direction.  I’m wondering if God wouldn’t be more pleased if we were more separate and different than what we currently are.

This is an incredibly anthropomorphized passage.  Okay,  now that you have looked that up you will notice that God has taken on the form of a human, at least in the way that He is talking to Moses and as he is describing how he is going to walk beside Moses and cover Moses with his hand.  Who knew that God had a hand to cover or legs upon which to walk?  We find something similar in Genesis when we see that the Lord walked in the garden with Adam and Eve.  I like the image of God taking on the form of something that is familiar to me and something that I can envision.  But it is not about us being able to understand God, it is about God being able to offer His life in His son Jesus Christ.  It is an amazing Scripture.

Moses tries to understand what is going to happen next.  In vs.17 you get the sense that Moses has talked God into doing something that God wasn’t really planning on doing.  “I will do the very thing that you have asked.”  Moses requested to see God’s glory and requested that the people he was leading would be able to see that Moses had God’s glory upon him.  And he does.  This sets the stage for the people of Israel to get one final confirmation that God is on their side, but not even that is enough to keep them faithful.  We are so much like them…

This is not a great chapter in the history of the people of Israel.  Moses was up on the mountain getting the ten commandments which had been written by the finger of God when the people of Israel, led by Aaron, are up to no good.  Notice the personal touch, literally, of the commandments handed down to Moses.  Remember that Joshua is with Moses up on that mountain.  

While they are up on the mountain they become restless and Aaron leads them into making a golden calf that they could worship.  Below you will see a golden calf that was worshiped in Egypt, and so would have felt very familiar to the Israelites who had just left Egypt.

God tells Moses what the people are doing even while Moses is up on the mountain.  He tells Moses that he is going to destroy the people of Israel and just raise up a branch from him.  But Moses pleads to him to save the people,  and actually God “changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people”.  This is not the only time that we see God “change his mind”.  If you look at Jonah 3:10 you read: “God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.”  

Some feel threatened that God can actually change his mind.  You have Hebrews 13:8 that tells us: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  This makes us think that God cannot change his mind.  God can do anything that God wants.  The implication of a mind change is that a mistake has been made or that somehow the Providence of God is limited.  No, the change is always for our good.  You never see God changing his mind from saving the people to destroying the people.  Thank God for that!  It is always God changes His mind from destruction to redemption.  That is just a part of God’s nature, that He wants the best for us.