Exodus 37:1-38:31
Goodness me, what the heck am I meant to say about that? It sounds like someone trying to describe the inner-workings of a museum display cabinet. Why on earth didn’t they just take a few pictures and stick them into these pages?
The only enthusiasm I can muster is to point out that the weight of gold used was the same weight as this military jeep (minus the people):
At today’s prices this weight of gold would cost £34.6million. That is quite a lot (I didn’t believe my maths when I first worked it out). And, actually it causes me to be quite intrigued by the whole description. This passage, dense as it is, conveys the immense value that Israel placed upon the presence of the Lord. He is not some runt god to be carved out of a piece of wood. Rather, he is the Lord of the entire universe whose glory can only begin to be reflected by extremely intricate moulding of a 4x4-sized hunk of the most precious material known to man.
Mark 8:14-9:1
Peter’s confession of Jesus as Christ is often referred to as the turning point of the gospel. But is this correct? What was Peter confessing? Was he saying that he believed Jesus to be God? I don’t think so. I think he was more likely saying that he believed Jesus was the divinely-appointed-but-human king of Israel who was going to bring about the glorious end of exile and usher in the much-heralded Age of peace and prosperity. This is broadly true, but is not accurate enough to warrant a confident change of approach by Jesus. As we can see, Jesus did affirm his identity as the Christ - as the Messiah who was going to bring about the glorious new age for Israel - but he warned the disciples not to speak of it as he was bringing two fundamental twists to the prevailing understanding of the concept. Firstly, his Christ-ship was not to be like David’s rule (the closest Israel had previously got to such a Messianic figure) with military victories galore. Rather, Jesus’ Christ-ship was to be defined by suffering and rejection and death followed by resurrection. He would bring in the new age through his own destruction, not his own elevation. Secondly, Jesus was not going to do this as a man on the behalf of God but as God himself. He wouldn’t just bring in the new age but he would define it. He himself would choose to give life to those who follow him and to push away those who were ashamed of him. This must have blown the disciples’ minds and certainly Peter was completely clueless that this was what was going on when he made his confession about the Christ. So where does that leave us? I guess it leaves us concluding that confession of Jesus as the One who came to save us is great, but not enough. Jesus demands more than just reverence and allegiance - Barack Obama can have that. Even Wayne Rooney can have that. Jesus demands obedience, he demands worship, he demands loss of life and forfeit of soul. He demands that we make him the very God of our lives and, consequently, that all our actions, all our thoughts, all our systems for interacting with the world be submitted in entirety to him. That is not easy. That is not something that we achieve by our confessions or our decisions - it is entirely dependent on His Kingdom coming with power into our lives.
Proverbs 6:1-11
I’ve always found this interesting - following God is not about taking others problems onto yourself. In fact, the bible says that is a stupid and dangerous way to live.
