Temple Objects – up close and in colour!

Posted by Christoph Lindner · Leave a Comment

As we come across a number of objects used in temple worship again and again in our readings, it would be great to know what they actually looked like. Well, we can – to a degree! Although the second temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD, many Jews believe that a third temple will be built in its place in the future.
The Temple Institute in Jerusalem is dedicated to that vision and in preparation for it, has produced a number of vessels and garments, strictly following biblical instructions and pre-approved for use in temple sacrifice once the third temple is established.
Here is a gallery of some of the items – this link lands you in the middle, press “next” to see some of the more interesting objects…

March 7, 2010 · Tagged with sacrifice, tabernacle, temple, worship

Resources

Jewish Feasts, Jewish Calendar

Posted by Christoph Lindner · Leave a Comment

For many of us, the description of the Jewish feast days may not mean a lot. Here are two charts which hopefully help us to get a bird’s eye’s view of how the Jewish calendar works and the place of the big Jewish feasts in it…

(From: Holman Charts, 1993)

February 28, 2010 · Tagged with calendar, feasts

Weekly Messages

On spots, mildew and bodily discharges

Posted by James · 1 Comment

To a 21st Century reader, many of the regulations in Leviticus seem strange. Why does God seem obsessed with skin conditions, diet and mildew? I’ve blogged before that the root idea here is holiness. In some way these regulations are meant to preserve the holiness of the people and the ritual purity of the tabernacle. But what decides whether something makes you ‘clean’ or ‘unclean’? What principles are operating here?

You probably won’t be surprised to know that there is much debate about this. Here are some of the suggestions:

1. Some regulations seem designed to prevent the Israelites from indulging in the religious practices of the pagan Canaanite nations. E.g. the regulations about sex and contact with corpses prevent cult prostitution and ancestor worship.

2. Many of the ‘unclean’ things are related to weakness, illness or death (e.g. decay, loss of blood, animals that feed off carrion, etc.). Holiness is about life and wholeness. There is something symbolic going on here.

3. There could be a health-related element, too. The ritual washing keeps up levels of personal (including sexual) hygiene. The ‘clean’ animals in many cases are the ones least likely to cause food poisoning or other illnesses.

These are just three possibilities, and it’s quite possible that the true answer is a combination of these and more. What we do know is that this idea of holiness and purity was woven into the everyday life of every Israelite. Every day carried many opportunities to live out and develop loyalty and obedience towards God.

Jump ahead to Mark’s gospel and we can see something of the radical nature of Jesus’ ministry (something the Pharisees hated). He effectively declares all foods clean (7:19). He touches a dead girl and is touched by a woman whose bleeding makes her ‘unclean’. But instead of becoming unclean himself, he gives them life and wholeness (5:21-43). In the same way, he touches someone with leprosy and makes them well / whole / clean (1:40-45). The laws of Leviticus were not wrong. They were right for their time and place. But Jesus is bringing in a new era (‘the kingdom of God is near’). He has come to make the unclean clean, the impure pure, the unholy holy. And he does that for us, too.

February 26, 2010 · Tagged with healing, holiness, law, Leviticus, Mark, purity

Blog Posts

The Tabernacle – Brought to Life

Posted by Martin · 1 Comment

I too have been more and more fascinated by the descriptions of the tabernacle. This slightly naff but detailed video gives another insight into how it may have looked and worked for the people of God under Moses.The Tabernacle scale model

February 26, 2010 · Tagged with

Interlude

Time for a word cloud quiz!

Posted by Christoph Lindner · Leave a Comment

We have already read through three major books of the Bible (plus many Psalms and Proverbs) and it’s always exciting to see how incredibly diverse the books of the Bible are, yet together they show us the big story of God with us. One way of visualizing the unique character of a book of the Bible is a “word cloud”: feed all the words from the book into a computer and then let it show the most common words in a graphic way.

So, here is a little quiz: Below are the word clouds for Genesis, Exodus, Matthew and Mark. Click on one to enlarge it and then try to guess which is which (no prizes for guessing which is Old or New Testament), then click on the link below to find the answer (and lots more of these word clouds). Got them all right? Check the answers out here…

[Hints: key words to distinguish Genesis and Exodus (apart from the many biblical characters) are the relative weights of the words used for God - LORD is God's "proper name" YHWH (Yahweh, Jehovah) revealed to...? Matthew or Mark? Only one of them uses the distinctive phrase "kingdom of heaven"...]

By the way, if you want to create your own word cloud from a document or a talk you have given, go to Wordle – endless fun!

February 17, 2010 · Tagged with bible books, books, Exodus, Genesis, kingdom of heaven, Mark, Matthew, Yahweh

Weekly Messages

A holy God and a holy people

Posted by James · Leave a Comment

We begin two new books this week: Leviticus and Mark. Leviticus functions in many ways as a worship manual for the people of God under the old covenant. The key concept in the book is holiness. Holiness can be a difficult idea to grasp, but at its heart it is about being, separate, distinct, set apart, different, ‘other’. God’s holiness is what sets him apart from all he has created. It also has overtones of moral purity.

Leviticus answers the question of how the people of Israel are to worship a holy God, and a major part of that is maintaining their own holiness, or purity. 11:44 encapsulates this well: ‘I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.’

In Leviticus, holiness is maintained by a combination of rituals (sacrifices and festivals) and regulations (e.g. about which foods are ‘clean’ and which are ‘unclean’). The detailed practice of these has been superceded by Jesus (see Mark 7:14-23 and most of Hebrews) but the call to be holy remains and is echoed in the New Testament – see 1 Peter 1:15-16 (where Leviticus is quoted and applied to Christians) and Matthew 5:48 (‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’) For the Christian, purified by the blood of Jesus, living a holy life is encapsulated by the command to love others as God has loved us (see 1 Peter 1:13-25).

Mark is the shortest of the gospels and regarded by many (but not all) scholars as the earliest. In comparison with Matthew it is short on the teachings of Jesus and long on action. It also proceeds at a cracking pace, as you’ll notice straight away in chapter 1. One theme to look out for is discipleship. As you read through, can you imagine what life with Jesus was like for those first disciples? Watch out for their responses to him. How does their experience of Jesus compare to yours?

February 15, 2010 · Tagged with discipleship, holiness, Leviticus, Mark

Weekly Messages

How to get access to God

Posted by James · 2 Comments

This week we continue to read the detailed instructions for the worship of God under the Sinai covenant. And, yes, it does read like DIY manual at times! To help you imagine what all this looked like, here is a picture of one reconconstruction of the tabernacle and its associated holy objects (the altar is in the foreground):

And here’s what Aaron’s garments may have looked like:

For an extended New Testament commentary on all of this, the best place to look is chapters 7-11 of Hebrews. Christ is both the perfect High Priest and the perfect sacrifice, the fulfilment of the whole sacrifical system under the old covenant. We’ll be reading a lot more about that system in the weeks to come. It’s a system that graphically represents a number of theological truths: (1) God is holy, (2) sinful people cannot approach a holy God without their sins being dealt with first, (3) this is done through sacrifice.

Unlike the sacrifices made by priests under the old covenant, which had to be made repeatedly, Christ’s sacrifice of himself needed only to be made once. In the words of Hebrews: ‘… he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. … The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves.’ (Hebrews 9:26b and 10:1, NIV).

In the New Testament we come to the end of Matthew’s gospel, with Jesus’ death and resurrection. And just to drive home the point that Jesus’ death has dealt with the separation from God caused by sin, notice 27:51 – at the time of Jesus’ death the curtain in the temple is torn in two, from top to bottom. This curtain is the equivalent of the one that hung in the tabernacle, separating off the Most Holy Place, where the ark of the covenant was and where God’s symbolic presence dwelt. We read about it in Exodus 26:31-33 last week. If you tear down that curtain it means that you have access to God. And that’s what Jesus’ death has done for us.

February 8, 2010 · Tagged with Exodus, Matthew, priest, sacrifice, tabernacle, temple

Interlude

World’s End!

Posted by Christoph Lindner · Leave a Comment

In the light of our reading on the end times in Matthew, this clock (seen in a part of London called “Worlds End” a couple of days ago) took on a whole new significance!

Today I am one day closer to eternity than yesterday. How do I live my life today in the light of Christ’s return?

February 6, 2010 · Tagged with Christ, endtimes, Matthew, return, second coming

Weekly Messages

Encounters with God

Posted by James · Leave a Comment

Israel’s encounter with God at Mt. Sinai is one of the most significant events of the Old Testament. God has already shown his presence with them in the pillars of cloud and fire, and he has provided food and water for them. But now God comes to make a covenant with them, a binding agreement with them for him to be their God and they to be his people. This is the special relationship that God had earlier promised to Abraham.

The Law that follows, with the Ten Commandments at its heart, defines for Israel how they are to live in this special relationship with God. Some of it will sound strange to us, because it is shaped to suit the conditions of its time. But if we look at the big picture, we see a holy God, full of love and justice, showing his people how to be a holy people who reflect his character in the world. This is how they can be a people ‘in his image’.

Chapters 25-31 will contain instuctions for the people’s worship, and the various materials required. It would be easy to get bogged down in the detail. But perhaps we can focus on two things: (1) it is a remarkable privilege for this people to have God dwelling in their midst, and (2) he deserves the very best that they can bring him in worship. Of course, the same things are true of us.

Matthew 24 has caused much scratching of heads over the years, as you can imagine. The language is highly poetic and uses a lot of imagery taken from the Old Testament. At least some of what Jesus is predicting was fulfilled in AD 70 when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans after a Jewish revolt. But how much, if any, is about Jesus’ Second Coming and the final judgement? In verse 3, Jesus seems to imply that he is going to talk about two things: (1) the destruction of the temple, and (2) ‘the end of the age’. Dick France, author of the IVP Tyndale commentary on Matthew, thinks that Jesus is talking about (1) up to verse 35 and (2) from verse 36 onwards. If he’s right, then the disciples can expect warning signs leading up to the destruction of the temple, but about ‘that day’ (the Day of Judgment and of Christ’s return), no-one knows, not even Jesus himself. That’s why his followers should be ready for it to come at any time.

February 3, 2010 · Tagged with covenant, Day of Judgement, Exodus, Matthew, temple, worship

Blog Posts