If you don't
have a One Year Bible or prefer something online, this link will take you to
the day's reading, http://oneyearbibleonline.com/daily-oyb/. This
site allows you to select from several languages and several English
translations.
FEBRUARY 7
Exodus 26-27
It is probably a good idea to have a diagram of the tabernacle. In the Bible
Knowledge Commentary-OT, p. 147, you can find one.
By the way, have you figured out how long a cubit was?
Exodus 26
Vs. 1-29 The tabernacle was actually the inner tent. The area around
the tabernacle was the courtyard of the tabernacle. God has already described
the ark and mercy seat that go in the Most Holy Place (see the BKC diagram) and
the table for the bread of the Presence and the lampstand which were in the
Holy Place. In chapter 26 God gives Moses the plan for the inner tent, the
tabernacle, where they stood.
Notice the directions on the diagram. The entrance faced east, so if
you were looking at the entrance to the courtyard or the tabernacle, you were
facing west.
V. 30 This gives you the idea that God also showed Moses visually what
it would look like.
Vs. 31-34 This is the veil that separated the Most Holy Place from the
Holy Place. This is the veil that was torn when Jesus died, showing that
mankind could now have full and unhindered access to the throne of grace, or in
this case, the seat of mercy.
Vs. 35-37 Looking in the Holy Place you would be looking west. On the
left (south) was the lampstand and on the right (north) was the table for the
bread of the Presence. Looking straight ahead you would have seen the veil to
the Most Holy Place. Missing at this point would be the altar of incense that
stood in the middle just in front of the veil. That incense would represent the
prayers of God's people rising up the veil and coming into His presence.
Notice how much detail and “art” God is putting into the tabernacle.
This would be a major project for the people. They would give all of the jewels
and precious metals and their best craftsmen. The skins had to be cured, cut,
dyed and sewn. Interestingly, God had prepared the people to build this center
of worship. These are the people who built the cities for the Egyptians, so
I’ll bet they had skills. Finding good drawings of the tabernacle, the ark, and
the lampstand will help in your appreciation of the art.
My bent is not to go overboard when building buildings for churches,
but the people who criticize churches for doing a good job and making the
inside and outside look nice have never spent time reading how God designed His
“tent of meeting.”
The tabernacle would prepare Israel for its national identity. In
addition to worshipping only Yahweh, they would worship Him in only one place,
not all over, under every tree and on every high place, as Israel will do later
in idolatry.
By the way, you’re in for a surprise in your “Tabernacle Construction”
reading in a couple of days.
Exodus 27
Now that the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place have been described,
God describes the altar and the courtyard. God's presence was in the Most Holy
Place. The courtyard protected the people from approaching God to their own
destruction. God was to be approached through the entrance to the courtyard and
then through sacrifice expressing thanks, repentance and worship. All of this
would be symbolic of what God would provide for mankind in the death and
resurrection of His Son.
Vs. 1-8 This is the making of the altar for sacrifices.
Vs. 9-19 This is the court of the tabernacle.
Vs. 20-21 You can see the conditional nature of this covenant with
Israel. God promised to be with them if they obeyed. The lampstand was to burn
perpetually. You can see the symbolism in that, yet the people had to bring the
oil. I'm sure they didn't always bring it, and at different times in their
history I'll bet the light went out.
Yet, God's promise to save mankind and fulfill the promise to Abraham
was without condition. What the old covenant couldn't do because of the power
of sin, the new covenant has made possible because of Jesus. He has provided
forgiveness and has broken the power of sin for all who are reborn in Him.
Matthew 25:1-30
Yesterday I mentioned that I thought the “unfaithful” servant could be
a believer. I do, but to be fair to the text and to a normal interpretation,
“the weeping and gnashing of teeth” club would put him into the unbelieving
category. Jesus often told His parables in different situations and to
different groups. When they are applied directly to the Twelve and to those who
believed, the impact was more of a warning for reward and punishment. If you
want to see what I mean, look at Luke 12:35-48. This teaching was for the
Twelve, and although treating a disciple like the unfaithful and dispensing
severe punishment was warned, I don't see that as damnation.
I think believers in the western world play too much with grace. We
fall asleep in the light. Yes, we are loved and totally accepted and don’t have
to do anything to be absolutely accepted and welcomed into the arms of God, yet
God wants us to work in the harvest with the passion of our Savior.
Both of these parables are directed to the religiously half-hearted,
not to the Twelve. In Luke 13:23-30 someone, probably one of the many who
followed Jesus, asked Him a similar question. This would have been a couple
months earlier. You can see by Jesus' answer that He was challenging the
unsaved followers to become fully serious as quickly as possible.
Vs. 1-13 This is the parable of the 10 virgins and has to do with a
person's readiness for the return of Christ. Isn’t it interesting that, like
the lampstand above, oil and perpetual light and readiness is mentioned here?
This is another of those “One Year Bible” moments.
What I’ve appreciated about the Plymouth Brethren is the healthy
biblical emphasis they put on looking for the return of our Savior “for His
own.” Hardly anyone today mentions our expectant waiting, but Jesus taught it
and it is all through Paul’s writing. The first Awana verse I memorized as a
new Awana leader was Titus 2:11-13, For
the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us
to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled,
upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the
appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
The five unprepared virgins don’t get in and their condemnation is
similar to those religious persons we found in Matthew 7 who did mighty
miracles in His name, but to whom Jesus said, I never knew you.
Vs. 14-30 The parable of the talents is interesting because it is told
in two different places. In Luke, Jesus tells it at Zacchaeus’ house, before He
enters Jerusalem. The point is the same; God expects us to invest the truth He
has given us to gain interest, or we would say, to bear fruit. Fruitlessness,
by not expecting the master's return and therefore hiding the truth, signifies
a lack of love and faith in the master.
Applied to that generation of Israel, they had the truth of God, but
did not bring Him the fruit of a believing nation nor of many nations coming to
worship in Jerusalem.
If an unbeliever is in view, he goes to eternal punishment.
I would still make some application to us as disciples who are
commissioned to follow Jesus in the harvest. The life of Christ in us is meant
to bear fruit. John 15:8 is important. One sows, another reaps, all work
together; but to slide through without trying is not living in accordance to
the love and grace we have been shown. Making disciples, who make disciples, is
not our hobby; it is our business here on earth.
Our punishment as believers, if we live in disobedience and do not
prepare for His return, is that we will stand before His judgment seat and see
our life’s work burned away. We will stand in shame before the One who endured
the scourging and spitting of men and the wrath of His Father to bear our sin
and give us His righteousness and life. (Heb. 12:1-13)
Psalm 31:1-8
What a powerful psalm this is. You feel David's desperation and great
faith struggling side by side.
Vs. 1-2 In all of the years David was a shepherd, living on the hills
with the sheep, he had no refuge. Now after the couple of years of fame after
he killed Goliath, David is living on the move, in the mountains and in the
wilderness, again, without shelter or refuge. What a brilliant way for the Lord
to engineer the need for refuge into David's heart. This seeking of refuge in
the Lord became one of David's passions and favorite expressions.
Vs. 3-5 While the first two verses were David's cry for help, these
verses express what David knows to be true about God. David experienced
salvation and knew he could entrust himself to God's care.
V. 5 Notice that Jesus says the first part of this verse as He dies.
Not all of the words of this psalm can be attributed to what Jesus thought or
felt on the cross, but many of these thoughts would have been what Jesus
experienced. Read this psalm from Jesus' perspective as He is nailed to, hanging
from, and taking His final breath, on the cross.
Vs. 6-8 Verse 6 could be looked at as saying that trusting in anything
but God involves some sort of inappropriate trust in something else. David knew
that God's steadfast love was
directed toward him. God not only knew of his suffering, but God kept David 10
minutes ahead of the hounds.
Proverbs 8:1-11
When I read this every year, I wonder if my striving to follow,
understand, gain wisdom and hear the Spirit is increasing. I know it is, but if
I would have known how much grief it would have saved me, and how much more
enjoyable it is to follow after God like this now, I would have made a bigger
point of it back when I was twenty. Passion is great, but it can get you into a
lot of trouble without the wisdom the Spirit gives. The trouble is, even with
the Word sitting in your lap and the Spirit living in your heart, you have to
want to dig, hear and submit.
Please Read
the Following Disclaimer
I'm writing the Reading Notes to and
for those who are following a One Year Bible and are interested in growing
deeper as a disciple, following Jesus in the harvest. My hope is to see the
growth of a discipleship culture in the church, that is, groups of 3-4
disciples, meeting weekly, encouraging each other to follow Christ and work to
reach out and make disciples, who make disciples. The Bible itself is the most
universal and important discipleship manual we have and it is the key to our
growth and service in Christ. Nothing keeps us more focused on why we are here,
or what we are to be doing, or whom we are to be following. My comments are
only meant to provide some explanation of the events or to show the flow of
God's plan of redemption. My comments are in no way exhaustive, but are
designed to keep us, as disciples, focused on Christ and our role in His
harvest. My hope is that the people in these groups will grow in Christ and be
willing, after a year, to find 3 others to meet with and encourage in their
growth as disciples, making disciples in the harvest.
If you would like a more descriptive
commentary that is still readable and concise, I'd recommend the Bible Knowledge Commentary (BKC).
I read the BKC in doing background for the Reading Notes and refer to it quite
often. I also make reference to maps or charts in the BKC, though I will only
note where those resources can be found. Often you can do a search for these
and find them in Google books. Buying both volumes of the Bible Knowledge
Commentary would be a good idea.
I am not endorsing any particular
One Year Bible translation; in fact, I read something you probably don't, Die
Revidierte Lutherbibel, 1984. Unless noted, all Scripture quotes are from the
ESV Bible.
Anyone reading along with us is
welcome to do so and is encouraged to take their own notes and make their own
observations. If the comments made do not agree with your particular tradition
or understanding, that's OK. Nothing I've written is meant to criticize any
point of view, but only to express the truth of what God has written to us, as
I understand it. Often there is a breadth of opinion on certain events, both
historical and prophetic. Many of my views come from my church background,
theological training and my personal study.
I'm
doing this with discipleship in mind, meaning, I'm writing out thoughts that
will keep discipleship and our growth as disciples applied to what we are
reading. Remember, the real focus of the Reading Notes is to be a
supplement, a disciple’s commentary, giving motivation and insight so that we
will keep following our Lord in the harvest, reaching the lost and making
disciples, who make disciples. Being in
the Word every day, sitting at Jesus’ feet, learning directly from Him, is the
essential essence of being and making disciples.
May the Lord bless you as you follow Him in the
harvest, reaching the lost and making disciples, who make disciples. Dan
If you would like documents
containing an entire month of the Reading Notes, go to https://sites.google.com/site/dlkachikis/reading-notes.
If you would like a full
presentation of discipleship read Simply
Disciples*Making Disciples.
Or if you are struggling with
insomnia and would like a long boring dissertation on disciple making, these
can both be found on https://sites.google.com/site/dlkachikis/reading-notes.
Reading Notes ©, Dan Kachikis
2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018
The One Year Bible © by
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton Illinois 60189
The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version® (ESV®) Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.
All charts/graphics/outlines
from the Bible Knowledge Commentary are used with the permission of David C.
Cook.
© 1983, 2001 John F Walvoord and Roy B Zuck.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary is published by David C Cook.
All rights reserved. Publisher permission
required to reproduce.
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