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Have you ever noticed that every great act of redemption starts with a childless woman? The obvious one is that Jesus’ story starts—in Matthew and Luke’s tellings, at least—with Mary, before Jesus walks onto the page. We start with a young woman with no children, in her case an unmarried virgin. While Mary is the… Continue reading The Shape of Stories
The Tabernacle, and the Temple, are a picture of the cosmos. Or, perhaps, the cosmos is a tabernacle. We know this because Moses tells us so in his structure. We see this first in the structure of Genesis 1. We have a two panelled story in 3 sections. What I mean is that day 4… Continue reading The Tabernacle and the Cosmos
The Bible is full of little details and comments that don’t seem to mean very much. You can feel all at sea and wonder what’s going on. Perhaps it’s tempting to think ‘this is a cultural reference I don’t understand.’ That could be true. However, I’d like to suggest a different approach to Bible reading.… Continue reading Let the Bible interpret the Bible
In a previous post, one of my most read, I explored what happened between Noah and Ham in Genesis 9. There are two particular possibilities, both plausible, though I come down on one side in that post. However, I’d like to nuance what I said previously, by exploring Noah’s relationship with wine. Noah sometimes gets… Continue reading Noah’s Vineyard
In Acts 1 we read of the ascension of Jesus, up there among the five most earth-shattering events in human history, along with the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and gift of the Spirit. Immediately after the disciples trudge back down the mount of Olives, reversing the journey they took exactly six weeks before, arriving at the… Continue reading Structure Before Power
Jesus in the Tabernacle VIII The last thing described in the tabernacle instructions in Exodus, is the bronze basin that sits in the courtyard. It’s a large basin made of bronze, on a stand, that is placed between the tent of meeting and the altar. Essentially that means that as you enter the courtyard you… Continue reading The Sea
Jesus in the Tabernacle VII We turn to the altar for incense in Exodus 30. This slightly complicates the flow I’d described from inside to outside, as we step back from the courtyard—perhaps with the high priest we’ve just met—into the holy place to a new, third, item. They are instructed to make a small… Continue reading Let Incense Arise
Jesus in the Tabernacle VI Next the narrative moves through two sections I included earlier in this series, the boundaries of the courtyard and then the oil to burn in the lampstand. The instructions for the construction of the tabernacle then seem to be interrupted in Exodus 28 for a digression on the clothing of… Continue reading High Priest’s Clothes
Jesus in the Tabernacle V The Altar is another box, though not a perfect cube this time. The acacia wood—tabernacle wood—is made into a box slightly shorter than the square on its top is wide. It has horns on its corners, but made of one piece with it. That’s skilled carpentry. The whole thing is… Continue reading The Altar
Jesus in the Tabernacle IV After the lampstand, the instructions given to Moses turn to the tabernacle itself, the tent in which ark and table and lampstand are placed. It’s made of ten curtains, with entwined blue and purple and scarlet yarns, woven with fine white linen. It’s made a very specific size. The intricacy… Continue reading The Tent
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