If you're like me, you may have found some of our Old Testament reading over the past few weeks a bit tedious. Reading page after page of detailed instruction on how the Israelites were to build the tabernacle and all of its articles, followed by a comprehensive description of how these instructions were carried out, can become a bit dull after a while... particularly when the next section of reading dives headfirst into an exhaustive explanation of the sacrificial system the Israelites were to adopt!
But as I reflect on these readings, I have to ask myself why God chose to include them in the Bible. I feel that there must be something I can learn from these passages, even though they don't seem to be saying anything particularly enlightening to me or have any application to my life today. But as I prayed through this and processed it during my morning devotions one day, God began to open my eyes to see some of the things I can learn about Him, and even the applications for my life, through these long, detailed narratives.
For starters, the fact that God bothered to give the instructions for the tabernacle in the first place shows that He was interested in using fallible humans to bring glory to Himself. People are utterly imperfect, but God chose to use people to build a dwelling place for His glory to reside within. It's pretty cool to think that if God was willing to use the grumbling, rebellious Israelites to build this glorious temple, He must also be willing to meet me in my mess and use me to bring Him glory as well.
All of the intricate details we read about in Exodus 25-30 also point towards the fact that God is both concerned with details, and He is incredibly creative! He is the master architect, and He makes perfect plans... in fact, He defines perfection! In Exodus 25:9, God speaks to Moses and says, "Make this tabernacle and all its furnishing exactly like the pattern I will show you." God gave Moses a very precise pattern for the tabernacle and all its furnishings, and expected Moses and his team to stick to the pattern. In doing so, Moses glorified God by his obedience and by using God's design. Sometimes we try to take matters into our own hands in life and follow our own designs. But the reality is that God's plans are better than anything we can come up with on our own, and more glory will be brought to Him if we stick to His design!
Leviticus has also been proving a challenging read at times with its endless instructions about animal sacrifices and various offerings. But even in this, God is pointing us towards Jesus. The specifics of all of these sacrifices are so glaring and intense to read about, that to me they highlight the vastness of God's glory in contrast to the severity of sin. The hopelessness that I imagine being associated with living under this kind of a system—having to go back day after day, year after year, to make the same sacrifices to atone for your sin once again, but never truly being free of it—points all the more towards the world's desperate need for a Savior! The fact that the sacrificial animals had to be blemish-free looks towards the Savior who would come and live a sin-free life before dying for us on the cross to set us free from sin once and for all!
Like me, I hope you have been able to hear the voice of God speaking to you and revealing His truths to you, even in the midst of some of the harder-to-read texts in the Old Testament. God is good, and He is always willing to speak when we are willing to open up our ears, minds, and hearts to listen!
-Talasi Guerra
Director of Children and Family Ministries