Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 36:8-13

8 And every wise hearted man among them that wrought the work of the tabernacle made ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work made he them.

9 The length of one curtain was twenty and eight cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: the curtains were all of one size.

10 And he coupled the five curtains one unto another: and the other five curtains he coupled one unto another.

11 And he made loops of blue on the edge of one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling: likewise he made in the uttermost side of another curtain, in the coupling of the second.

12 Fifty loops made he in one curtain, and fifty loops made he in the edge of the curtain which was in the coupling of the second: the loops held one curtain to another.

13 And he made fifty taches of gold, and coupled the curtains one unto another with the taches: so it became one tabernacle.

I won’t step through every single detail, but notice that the dimensions and design being described in these verses are exactly what God originally dictated to Moses up in the mountain. The author of this record wanted to make sure that we knew that the Lord’s plan was executed exactly as He had given.

With my little experience in creativity, I understand that one of the most difficult challenges is being able to effectively translate the conceptual to the material. It’s easy to have an image in your head, but to actually draw it is something else. You can imagine the characters and their actions perfectly, but the scene still falls flat on the page. It is the work of a true master simply to be able to express exactly what he meant to express, and here we saw that God’s vision was so crystal clear that it could be adhered to perfectly.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 35:10-15

10 And every wise hearted among you shall come, and make all that the Lord hath commanded;

11 The tabernacle, his tent, and his covering, his taches, and his boards, his bars, his pillars, and his sockets,

12 The ark, and the staves thereof, with the mercy seat, and the veil of the covering,

13 The table, and his staves, and all his vessels, and the shewbread,

14 The candlestick also for the light, and his furniture, and his lamps, with the oil for the light,

15 And the incense altar, and his staves, and the anointing oil, and the sweet incense, and the hanging for the door at the entering in of the tabernacle,

Moses speeds through each of the elements required for the tabernacle. Seeing how long this takes to summarize highlights how involved of a project this is going to be. Today we are only looking at the first half of the list, which includes the body of the tabernacle itself and all of its interior.

What stands out to me is just how much grander the vision of God is than that of man. When Israel longed for objects of worship, they were willing to content themselves with a single golden calf. Now look at how much more structure, and effort, and riches, and beauty there is in God’s vision for where they would worship! A mercy seat, a house for it to rest in, two altars, a golden lampstand, a table, an outer courtyard, priestly robes, incense and perfume!

Today I believe this pattern continues when consider the objects of our devotion. When we choose our own, we settle for relatively cheap and easy things. Money, fame, social acceptance, and hedonistic pleasure. These are paltry when compared to the deep and abiding ambitions of the godly life: family, dignity, eternal purpose, and contentment of the soul. What the Lord has in store for us doesn’t come cheap. It asks so much more of us, but also it gives us so much more.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 46:1-3

1 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac.

2 And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I.

3 And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:

Jacob has determined to go down to Egypt, but this is a big decision, and before actually following through he goes to Beer-sheba to commune with the Lord. Beer-sheba has shown up a few times in the biblical record before. It was where Abraham made a solemn oath of peace with the king of the Philistines, and the same place where Isaac made a similar pledge. More relevant to Jacob, though, Beer-sheba was the land that he left when escaping the wrath of Esau, suggesting that this was where he was raised.

While in this historical and spiritual place, Jacob has yet another special connection with God, instruction given through a “vision of the night.” God reassures Jacob that he should go down to Egypt, and dwell among the people there. God even promises that in Egypt He will finally fulfill his promise of growing a great nation out of the Israelites. This has been promised since back with Abraham, and now the family is finally coming to the place and situation in which it will occur.

And now we see that there was a special wisdom in how long it has taken for God to deliver this promise. It might have seemed strange that after such a grand commitment Abraham had only one covenant child, and that child also only had one covenant child. In essence, Abraham’s same situation was extended down two generations to Jacob, with no growth whatsoever.

But what if the family had seen explosive growth during those two generations? If that had happened, it seems less likely to me that Pharaoh would have been so willing to receive such a large party into his domain. By keeping the family small, they could be easily integrated into Egypt’s bounty, and once there they could grow unhindered.

When God made his promise to Abraham, He was always going to follow through on it, but He needed to orchestrate things so that the nation would come forth in the exact way that it needed to. With great care and control He led this fledgling household, preserving them as they were until this moment of great fulfillment.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 28:12-15

12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

13 And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;

14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

In this moment of lonely isolation Jacob lays down to sleep and has a heavenly vision. We have not been told what sort of spiritual encounters he had before this moment, but surely this was his first time experiencing anything quite like this.

Let us examine a few of the details from this vision.

First, the image of a ladder between heaven and earth and angels climbing up and down it is a wonderful testimony of God’s active interest in the world. This is showing a direct conduit between God and man, and God’s servants being constantly busy with carrying out God’s work among the mortals.

Second, God introduces Himself as the one who blessed and prospered Jacob’s father Isaac, and his grandfather Abraham. Surely Jacob was aware of how those men had flourished under the hand of their God, and now he knows that he is being welcomed into the same covenant that they enjoyed.

Third, God now gives to Jacob the same covenant that He instituted with Abraham and continued with Isaac. I have always loved this scene because it shows that God does not give a blessing to our ancestors and then leave us to assume that we have just inherited it also. There are no implicit or assumed blessings when it comes to God, all of them are made directly to each of his children when they are ready to receive it. Rather than being left to assume “God loved my father so he must love me,” Jacob has his own manifestation of that love directly.

Fourth, God speaks directly to Jacob’s worries in that particular moment. He concludes the vision by assuring Jacob that He is with him, that Jacob is not alone, that he will be preserved in this strange land, and that he will be brought back safely, all because he is safely held in the hand of God. What a sweet sign of God’s intimate knowledge of Jacob’s heart and His immense desire to comfort it.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Our Own Reality- Matthew 7:4-5

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

COMMENTARY

Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye
Are there beams and motes in peoples’ eyes? Yes. Do these foreign elements obscure peoples’ vision, give them faulty beliefs, and make them perceive a reality that is separate from truth? Yes. And when people believe these false paradigms are they going to be prone to behavior that harms both themselves and others? Yes.
Given all this, of course we want to help our brothers and sisters see more clearly.

First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye
But here we come to the great irony. Each of us might very well hold just as delusional a perspective as the person we are trying to help. In fact, those of us who have beams in our eyes very often believe that beams are what you are supposed to see when your vision is clear.
It’s not wrong to want to make the world a better place, but if that means just making it better “according to us,” then we might not be improving it at all. As we’ll see tomorrow, there is a better way.