Day 8 ~ Recipe for disaster

I checked the Kindness in Progress Servant Evangelism "Business Blast" board this morning when I got to the office, and wrote down some names of businesses that had not been selected (lots of them left...feel free to pick one up - you have the whole month to help us cover the community with simple acts of kindness). I had made up 10 plates of cookies, and distributed them at lunch with "you've been served" stickers adhered to them. It was fun to hand them the plate and tell them I made them some cookies. I let the sticker do the rest of the talking. As part of passing out the treats, one of the gas stations said they were wanting to partner with the community, and offered several suggestions how they could do so with the church, even to the extent of letting us use some of their facility to do fundraisers - I hurried back and told our Youth Minister, as he is preparing for a mission trip with his group in the spring. God is good! Now, my observations on today's passage.

• Are Mount Horeb and Mt. Sinai close to each other. Moses goes up to Sinai, then God says he will punish the idol makers at Mt. Horeb, then Moses is back up at Sinai the second time for the new set of stone tablets. Nobody really knows where this all occurred for sure.
• Moses, on Mt. Sinai the second time for the tablets, is instructed to cut the stone for the new tablets and present himself to God the next day. It is interesting to note that he is not given some detailed purification ritual.
• The passage about sins will be passed on to generations comes from 34:7.
• Another name of the Lord: Jealous 34:14.
• Is the first month of the Jewish calendar still Abib? What year are we on in the Jewish calendar. Does God ever tell them to start the calendar over again after the Exodus, say when the return from captivity in Babylon?
• Apparently these instructions bear repeating. Numerous times. Remember, the Israelites have short term memory loss issues. Perhaps I'm actually a Hebrew.
• After an additional 40 day period with God, Moses seems to have absorbed some of his glory, causing his face to glow. I always thought his beard turned white, too. That must have been from a movie, because it isn't in this passage. Was the glow the intensity of the Holy Spirit in him?
• The people gave out of free will, willingly, with hearts stirred with wisdom, not out of fear, for the tabernacle (35:26, 29).
• In addition to equipping craftsmen with the Holy Spirit and the ability to produce what was needed, God put in their heart the ability to teach. What a gift.
• Moses had to instruct the people to stop giving - more than enough was received. That's never had to be discussed with any modern-day congregations that I'm aware of.
• Is there any tabernacle replica that has been built that can be seen? A search through www.goodsearch.com takes you a Mennonite reproduction in Florida, there is one at the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, and apparently one in Arkansas I found right off the bat, as well as a traveling tabernacle experience you can put on at your church. Arcadia Christian Church did some type of festival observance a couple of years ago - it's neat to bring the Bible to life (minus the sacrifices, please!)
• For once, the Hebrews were not grumbling. They were busy at work, and in 39:32, you'll see that they actually did what God said for once!
• Levites are also given a task of accounting (38:21).
• In the show that was on TV Monday about Moses in the desert with the Hebrews, one scholar was trying to downplay the number of people that left Egypt (600,000 men in the New King James version in 12:37). Is there another way to count the men in 38:26? Of course you have to know how many shekels there are per talent. That's probably in the OT somewhere.
• It's hard not to zone out when you're reading about the dimensions for the third or fourth time.
• It is time to move on when the cloud of God's glory leaves the dwelling place in the completed tabernacle.

Second book completed, sixty-four to go! I need to go get Grace - she's been over at the St. Peters for an hour and a half while I have gone through this reading at a leisurely, undistracted pace.

• This sacrifice stuff is confusing. Sin offering, Burnt offering, grain offering... offering of the herd, the flock, bird, grain. Who does the killing, which side of the altar. To place the hand on the head or not, male or female; atonement for priests, groups, rulers, commen men.
• Do all the sacrifices transfer the sin to the item being presented for sacrifice? Not all of the items are described with the hand placement on the head. Do all the sacrifices offer forgiveness? That isn't always said.
• Where and when are they told exactly what is unclean? As a Hebrew, even if I want to follow the rules, do I know what the rules are? I'm sure many more rules are to come. My guess is that I won't get by on pleading ignorance. We're specifically told even if we sin unintentionally, or don't even know about the sin, we still need atonement. This looks like a recipe for disaster. Did God really think that the Hebrews could carry this off?