Krissi

The bible verse that has to do with putting our hands on the head of the sacrificed animal is found in Leviticus 1.3, ““If the offering is a Whole-Burnt-Offering from the herd, present a male without a defect at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting that it may be accepted by God. Lay your hand on the head of the Whole-Burnt-Offering so that it may be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you.” Putting our hand on the animal about to be killed somehow connects the sinful human to the animal, specifically to the animal’s blood. It’s a practice that’s also practiced in New Testament times by the laying on of hands to bless, heal, anoint with oil and, most interestingly, to impart or acknowledge a gift of the spirit or special assignment by God. Such a ritual is tangible; a physical re-enactment of some sort of divine transference that cannot be seen. What happens in the animal sacrifice of the Old Testament is that the sinful person’s curse is transferred to the animal via the physical connection of the person’s hands on that animal. Frankly, i"m surprised that we don't have to plunge our hands in blood rather than put our hands on the head of the animal; so much of this is beyond what I can understand. I suppose the person making the sacrifice has to kill the animal because it symbolizes the killing of his own sin. The entire animal is burnt after the priest tosses the blood on the altar which may suggest that the entire sin has been burnt and therefore released or eliminated. I don’t understand why God chose this rather brutal way of eliminating sin. It’s not for me to know. I’m certain that the repulse I feel toward murdering an innocent, flawless, male animal was NOT felt in Old Testament times. They were used to killing animals for food, not going to Safeway to pick up a piece of bloodless meat neatly tucked under cellophane. Food in ancient eras had to be hung, I’ve been told, to drain the blood out of the animal before it could be cooked and eaten. Today, we spent effort to rid the meat of blood – in the Bible, our effort is spent collecting the blood. Blood to represents the life force in the animal, it’s “spirit” so to speak. For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. Actually, the person sacrificing doesn’t collect the blood, but rather the priests. I’m not certain why it’s important for the person to kill the animal but not collect it’s blood, though perhaps the “holiness” of the blood renders it untouchable by mere non-priests. When Jesus was sacrificed on the cross, he was the last blood offering to God. Jesus’ blood “took away” the sins of the world. Jesus as a man was sacrificed so that His blood could be metaphorically “shed” on the cross as an altar to eliminate the sins of those who desired and understood, though through a glass darkly, what getting rid of one’s past sins really means. His life gave us life; the life of Jesus was in His blood (as was that of an animal) and the blood makes “atonement” for our sinful lives. This satisfies God. “The blood makes atonement for one’s life.” It’s interesting that the atonement isn’t for the sin, or described as such, but for our lives, as if everything we do has to be purified and atoned for.

The tabernacle was built according to a blueprint given to Moses by God Himself. This includes the Holy of Holies and the Ark. I have to admit that I’m bothered by the hierarchy which permitted only one person into the Holy of Holies, only priests into the antechamber and ordinary people peering from outside but not allowed inside. Christ got rid of such castes and elevated the most common of the common people to an equal "rank" with others. The importance of the ark and it's trapping is in it's ability to hold the awe and attention of the people who were not well-schooled in God's nature or desires. It made tangible that which is difficult to comprehend and gave God an aura of mystery and power. To say that God was limited to the ark, or was somehow "more" within the tabernacle than in other places gave the people an identity of being special, chosen, set-apart and possessing the place where God lived. Obviously, God is everywhere. He's never been limited to a tent, or little area within the tent. The meaning of the tabernacle, ark and tent must be symbolic. It symbolizes God's utter holiness by being inaccessible and mysterious ... and, conversely, symbolized the sinfulness of the people who were so "soiled" by sin that they could not approach God. -- Thankfully, we are in the new covenant, not this old one. From the Message version, 2 cor 3: Unlike Moses, we have nothing to hide. Everything is out in the open with us. He wore a veil so the children of Israel wouldn’t notice that the glory was fading away—and they didn’t notice. They didn’t notice it then and they don’t notice it now, don’t notice that there’s nothing left behind that veil. Even today when the proclamations of that old, bankrupt government are read out, they can’t see through it. Only Christ can get rid of the veil so they can see for themselves that there’s nothing there. Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.

1. This layout reminds me of American settlers who would circle their wagons in the evening to let the children and animals safely play in the centre. It's a defensive strategy that protects, in this case, the tabernacle. Any enemy would have to fight through a tribe or two as well as the priestly groups to get to the tabernacle. 2. This layout puts the tabernacle and priests in the centre of the activity. To get from one side to the other, an Israelite would have to walk through the tabernacle, or around it. The layout also fosters solidarity between similar tribes by grouping them together. 3. It is my understanding that hundreds of thousands of non-Israelites followed the Israelites out of Egypt. What happened to them? They're not located in this drawing, but maybe had already been absorbed in the tribes via marriage and understanding. 4. This layout is also remarkably egalitarian. No tribe is above another except the priests who are separated by function. The 12 tribes around the periphery have equal access and distance to the centre.

This is an amazing story. Moses would go outside the city, away from the other residences, to what seems to be an isolated place where he had erected a tent. He took with him one person, a young man. There, he would UNCOVER his face to talk to God. Moses' uncovered face is unlike that of Elijah who immediately covered his face with his shirt at the mouth of the cave where God spoke with him. Other biblical stories are similar. So, until the tabernacle was built, Moses was to cover his face before people and uncover it before God. An uncovered face is intimate. It’s almost like undressing before your spouse … something no one else sees but one’s beloved. I don’t know why it is called the tent of meeting other than the obvious, that God met Moses there. It was a temporary structure, a tent, which makes sense since this was a temporary time of intimacy before the institutionalization of the tabernacle. I spend a long time with God daily. My mind often wanders, however, so it’s not as focused as it should be. Much time is sadly wasted. For now, I have a little spot in my home for meeting Him which I do early in the morning. My father just died so I’ll be leaving this residence in a couple weeks – I pray to have a similar place of study and worship. Please pray that the Lord clearly leads me to where He wants me to go. As an aside, I’ve been designing floor plans for a small cottage and am going to include a special place of prayer and study, a little room set-aside just for Him, if He permits me to build.

This has been, so far, the most important lesson I have had in all of Pastor Ralph's teaching ... I pray to understand it far, far more deeply. -- There seems to be no limit to what we can ask God in intercession. Furthermore, God Himself doesn't act according to our notions of love and forgiveness but has His own exacting ideas to which we are not privy. When God wanted to slaughter all the Israelites, Moses did not appeal to God's character -- he did not remind God that one of His essential characteristics is love therefore He should overlook and forgive the wayward Israelites -- rather, Moses told God that in the past, He had declared the Israelites to be His people and that they were still His people, even though they had abandoned Him at a crucial point in history. God had promised the Israelites would inherit the land which means there had to be a few Israelites left to get that land. This was the basis of His appeal. Moses, then, interceded for a people whom God had rejected. HE interceded as an individual who knew God well and could speak to God in the first person, as a man to God, not as a nation to God. God did not relent in vengeance -- He killed most of the Israelites with slaughter and plague. He did, however, keep a remnant to enter the land ... as He had promised. But note that the ones who survived did so because they had turned "against their own sons and brothers." Turning away from and rejecting horrible people (idolators) is what permitted the remaining Israelites to be set apart for His service. Slaughtering the horrible Israelites, "killing brother, friend and neighbor," preserved a remnant. Interceding for the remnant saved them. -- So many questions: Should we intercede like Moses? Can we intercede for people who have cruelly and wrongly persecuted us as well as denied Him, can we ask God to separate and slaughter our/His enemies? If we are strong in our beliefs and ethic, must we necessarily oppose our apostate "sons and brothers?" What about turning the other cheek? Is this somehting new for believers, or does God Himself look away when we are persecuted? The strong connection between OUR INTERCESSION and HIS VENGEANCE/PURITY cannot be ignored. We may intercede; He may answer in ways we don't expect or seems cruel. God kills the sinners. He slaughters them. He sends plagues. He does so because worshipping a hand-conceived idol is horrible to God. IN many ways, Moses' intercession didn't make much of a difference: God still slaughtered and judged. Intercession appears to have created a remnant, however, a smaller group of people that could carry on His will. God's character isn't as sweet, fuzzy and loving as we'd prefer -- He easily and willingly slaughters when angry and does demand vengeance. So, to intercede effectively means we have to take both the happy-making and fear-inducing aspects of His character into consideration. Regarding His promises, it's difficult to know what is historically conditioned (for a particular people and place) from what we can ask of Him legitimately here and now. A promise to Moses may not be a promise to me. Probably isn't, in fact. But God's character doesn't change.

I'm struck by the fact that Aaron wasn't punished for leading the Israelites into idol worship ... in fact, he is made a priest in the tabernacle. Yet we know that God was angry enough for Moses to feel the need to plead to God to spare the people, which presumably includes Aaron. So, what was the nature of his sin, and why was it turned into a blessing -- becoming priests? I would think that idolatry and syncretism would be HUGE sins in the eyes of God, which were then compounded by the libertine and uncontrolled behavior of the people. That's the sin of Aaron. It's a doozy. On top of this, Aaron effectively downplayed the nature of his sin, which was to lead people into idolatry, syncretism and social libertinism. I don't know why he didn't fall to his knees in shame, but perhaps Aaron didn't quite understand the gravity of what he had done, or, conversely, was afraid and tried to sidestep it. Again, I don't know why God accepted Moses' intercessory prayer for the people/Aaron. Moses DID seem to get off easily. God's anger abated. The rest of Pastor Ralph's questions have to do with the application of the principles learned in this story. I think leaders, as well as laity, must be responsible for their actions -- I do not think leaders are "more responsible" than the people. We all are responsible for whatever God has commanded us to do or has put in front of us. If we do not do it, or if we blatantly disobey, God may punish us. That punishment arrests and causes us to focus on the sin as well as our own motives and weaknesses that caused us to do it. Thus, we can, if we not only understand the sin but feel the gravity of it's horror to God, repent and change, that is learn from our mistakes.

An idol isn't "just" anything that pulls us away from the worship of God ... many distractions and detours are not idols, though they can be sin. An idol is a substitute god, a god of our own creation. I've noticed that pagans/unbelievers/seculars tend to create idols when they give up on the true God. For example, the "green" religion makes an idol of nature and has instituted religious-like rituals and sub-beliefs that sustain their fantasy. Environmentalism is a godless religion -- loving nature as God's creation can be part of worshipping God, however. Thus, I think that people need God, that there is something constitutive in us that needs to worship, and that once God is rejected, political values, power plays, money and the shallow aspects of communal life (entertainment) become gods. It is shocking that Aaron so quickly conspired with the weak Israelites to jettison God for a substitute. Perhaps he was afraid of being lynched by the mob? Perhaps his own faith in God had been teetering? It's difficult to know why he was so disloyal to the God who had done so many miracles in front of him. God hates sin so he would have hated the golden icon. Individuals within churches have to be primed, because of their immaturity in faith or faithlessness, to abandon faith when the pressure toward unbelief is overwhelming to them. It's not that "churches" leave God, but that individuals within the church choose to worship another god. The church is not greater than the sum of it's people.

Old covenant law (ten commandments, mosaic laws) written on tablets of stone carried around in tabernacle only applies to Israelites ratified with blood of animals has to be done repeatedly -- not lasting has to be done via priests or mediators New covenant grace written in the hearts of believers carried within us applies to all who accept Him -- universal ratified by the blood sacrifice of Jesus one time sacrifice is sufficient -- everlasting no priests or mediators needed

In what sense is Israel a “holy” nation? What does it mean to be holy? Why do you think that personal holiness is de-emphasized in our time? I was praying for understanding about this this morning, the idea that there are two realms, the holy/heavenly and profane/earthly, and that somehow I live in one/profane but have access to the other/holy. There seems to be another reality superimposed -- at a distance -- on this one, that is, a heavenly realm as well as an earthly one with "little connectors" between the two. Prayer taps into those connectors. So when we say Israel is a holy nation, we're saying that Israel's existence or fate goes beyond the earthly realm and connects to the heavenly realm where Israel's holiness has been predetermined. Since all creation is determined by God, I'm not sure why Israel is different -- God created everything and had a plan and purpose for the wee feathers that fall off a sparrow, so in that context, why is Israel any different than the rest of creation? It is simply the case that Israelis are not different than the rest of us -- they're quite sinful, not moral paragons. So we have to admit that the people of Israel are not holy, or even more holy, than the non-Jewish nations that surround them. The bible clearly describes the repeated rise and fall, faith then apostasy, of the Jewish people. So there's nothing objectively "better" about the Jewish people that sets them apart from non-Jews, including Christians. It must be the case, then, that the only reason Israel is holy is that God declared it to be so, and it's holiness exists in the heavenly realm, not on earth. I'm not sure what it means TO ME that Israel is holy except that I have to suspend reason and judgment to believe this is the case. ---- Personal holiness is deemphasized only among some groups or divisions of Christianity, and emphasized in other groups. Personally, I find the idea of striving for holiness or sanctification by the Spirit incredibly important ... even though I'm failing at it.

What did priests do in the Old Testament? In what sense are you a priest? How do you function as a priest? In what sense are you a "royal" priest? In what areas can your personal priestly function improve? Pastor Ralph mentioned that the caste of priests hadn't yet been instituted at the time of Moses, so the verse can't refer to priests in the OT sense of the word, although it could futuristically or prophetically refer to this caste. In time, priests would mediate between the Jewish people and God. I believe this verse alludes to Luther's priesthood of all believers. Luther's radical idea of the priesthood of all believers was faith-upending at that time. In essence, Luther put all Christians on the same level, destroying the gap between lay and priests. Just by being a Christian, we all function as priests, he said. I believe this is true. We are royal only in the sense that we are grafted into His family thus, like little princelings or princesslings -- sons and daughters -- we are His. Christians function as priests in our everyday faith as expressed in both word and deed, belief and behavior. There is nothing special about Christian priests/pastors that sets them above the laity which means behavior and faith alone commends us to God. No mediator is needed. No in-between advisor or priest. The radical idea of Luther is that we approach God alone, unmediated and unmerited, and only by His grace can we be accepted.

I have no physical treasures. I do have things I like such as my huge collection of books and some paintings, but if the house burned down, I wouldn't grieve (much). I like the way books look on shelves, randomly sized and coloured -- it's a beautiful sight, really -- and the way my art looks on the walls when the light from the windows strikes them in a certain way. Perhaps it's possible to make something into a treasure by investing yourself in it, for example, spending hours scrubbing and rescrubbing the words of a poem. That poem becomes a treasure to give away to someone who may also treasure it. To me, people are not treasures though they can be precious. (I've met two people in the last year who both admitted they wished their homes would burn down so they could be free from the burden of the things they've collected. One of them was a relatively well-known artist who has hundreds of paintings that never sold and are gathering dust on her porch.)

Thank you for another wonderful study, Pastor Ralph.

Honestly, the most meaningful phrase in this verse to me, right now, is the promise that says that my suffering will eventually end. When I read this, I skipped over the promises of restoration, strengthening and security to focus on the words “a little while …”. It’s been 14 years.

Moses heard God speak directly so he may have doubted that God's command would be extended to others as well. I imagine, after hearing God speak to him alone on the mountain, that Moses felt that God had set him aside for this task and it was his duty to perform it. The qualifications in the verse were accountability, honesty, God-fearing and competent. These are character traits which would be good in all of us. I do find it interesting that Moses didn't look beyond these traits. If a church needs an accountant or preacher, these four traits would be a good start, but there are worldly skills necessary as well. In Ephesians, the five-fold ministerial gifts are listed: teacher, pastor, prophet, apostle and evangelist. The other gifts are not mentioned in this verse. Moses was a bit of all of these. God had greatly called him. I'm not exactly certain what the "anointing" means. Obviously, it's a special set-apart or calling on a person to do a particular task, but it seems that it also validates that person for that tasks. The anointing gives the power to do the task and is teh calling to that task as well. That's how I see it, anyway. Some charismatics anoint often. It's a way of going beyond the prayer request ... beyond the proclaiming and decreeing, to claim or assert the Spirit's power on a particular person.

God only provided for his people when they were unable to meet their own needs. Why he used manna and not some "real" food ... I don't know. Manna was clearly supernatural, unlike other food, suddenly appearing when they were hungry. A diet of meat and bread does sustain human life -- that's pretty much what my oldest son eats (he's supposedly grown up now and is making his own food choices!) He is very athletic and healthy. The fact that God's provision of manna began when they were hungry and ended when they were able to provide for themselves gives us a clue as to what God expects from us. God takes over when we can't do it ourselves, expecting us to do what we can; if that's enough, He doesn't step in. When people are given something unearned, they weaken. They lose the ability to figure out ways to achieve what they need -- they grow increasingly dependent on the gift-giver. This is the problem with government social services. I firmly believe that churchgoers should never depend on the government but instead turn to their own families and the church. If we were more generous toward others, no one would have to be reduced and weakened by the nanny state. Tragically, the West has created a culture of dependency and with it, weakness. Similarly, the Israelites grew dependent, lazy and weak because of God's unearned provision. They didn't have to work for manna other than picking it off the ground -- manna was like welfare checks from heaven. When the heavenly spigot was turned off, they had to re-learn a work ethic and the ingenuity that solves problems, in this case, hunger. What a huge cultural shift that must have been! I take far too many things for granted for which I should be thanking God. My life, though not easy, has had times of extreme wealth and poverty. I thank God for getting me through both!