Exodus 36
The Crowdfunded Tabernacle
Construction Begins
Exodus 37
Making the Ark
Exodus 38
Making the Altar of Burnt Offering & Bronze Basin
Exodus 37
Making the Ark
Making the Table
Making the Lampstand
Making the Altar of Incense
Exodus 38
Making the Altar of Burnt Offering & Bronze Basin
Making the Courtyard
Tabernacle Materials & Value
Bezalel and Oholiab, there's a lesson that's easy to miss.
ReplyDeleteThese guys - and all the others who worked with them - built the Tabernacle exactly according to the instructions that the LORD gave Moses. (Didn't even give it to them! Followed someone else's plans!) And they all did it ***out in the wild***...no fab shop, no clean production line. It's actually silly to think they had a building of any kind to work in. So they did all of this forging and smithing, carpentry and textile work, fabricating and construction, weaving and sewing and gemstone/jewelry work, all of it, basically in a backyard or campground setting. And it wasn't junk, either. Most of it lasted decades at least, centuries more likely - Solomon himself used the altar they built. This is...incredible...
This group worked (probably) between six months and a year, and had the thing up and running. And that was the great work of their lives. They were most likely slaves, then nomads, with this short time to shine in the spotlight and make an impact, and then another few decades in the wilderness, and gone. There's no reason to think that any of them made it into the Promised Land. But was their life wasted? Not everyone "called by God" in the wilderness was a prophet or priest or military commander or tribal leader. It's easy to pass over the people on Bezalel and Oholiab's Tabernacle Team, but they had a historic part to play, and that's hopeful for a guy like me.
Delete...most of us aren't like Moses; we might not even be like Bezalel and Oholiab - I'm far more likely to fade into history as one of the unrecorded members of the team rather than a headliner. But we all have a part to play in the journey. It brings to mind a passage from Colossians:
"Everything you say or do should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him...
"Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly as though you were working for your real master and not merely for humans. "You know that your real master will give you an inheritance as your reward. It is Christ, your real master, whom you are serving."
Col 3:17,23-24
- jeffrey