Going into this project, I knew that there would be some pretty seriously mundane sections as I plodded through the doldrums of the Old Testament (I can practically hear the shudders that might've emerged from the shocked faces of some of my more fundamentalist friends back in the day - if it weren't for the fact that a goodly portion of modern fundamentalists are also somehow convinced that the Old Testament is largely ignorable, that is...) but I hadn't pondered the possibility that there would be pretty seriously mundane sections that were basically word-for-word repeats of previous seriously mundane sections.
With that in mind, this post is probably going to be A) somewhat shorter and B) somewhat more meta than previous entries, since Ex. 36-38 is just that: a repeat and sort of summary of the stuff in and around Ex. 25 where God's issuing his specifications for the tabernacle and other religious accoutrements.
Don't get me wrong, it's still staggering in its beauty, or would be if I was less a visual learner who really does need to see things like building specs and diagrams in, well, diagram form (chart, artists' rendering, illustration, photo... you get the idea) in order to really have it sink in.
If I was a visual learner with time on my hands, I may have just gone ahead and done said diagram.
As it is, here's Gir eating pizza...
There are, however, two interesting little side things that come up during this passage. Both of them have (something) to do with money, and both of them have interesting implications (I think) for the way people are called to give to their churches/worship communities.
The first, and this has come up before in earlier passages, is found pretty early on in chapter 36.
3 They received from Moses all the contributions which the sons of Israel had brought to perform the work in the construction of the sanctuary. And they still continued bringing to him freewill offerings every morning. 4 And all the skillful men who were performing all the work of the sanctuary came, each from the work which he was performing, 5 and they said to Moses, "The people are bringing much more than enough for the construction work which the LORD commanded us to perform." 6 So Moses issued a command, and a proclamation was circulated throughout the camp, saying, "Let no man or woman any longer perform work for the contributions of the sanctuary." Thus the people were restrained from bringing any more. 7 For the material they had was sufficient and more than enough for all the work, to perform it.
How about that? Despite the fabulous wealth involved in the construction of the tabernacle, the people gave so much that they actually had to be instructed to stop...
The thing is, while they were instructed to contribute, there are several points where it makes specific mention that the people giving were giving according to their own goodwill. The phrase that tends to be used in the NASB is along the lines of "those whose hearts were stirred" and it seems to take pains to point out that those giving were only those giving gladly.
Now, before you leap to the conclusion that this is stone-cold proof that the book of Exodus was written by 21st century parish priests working in cash-strapped churches in order to put the heat on their parishioners to give more and more, consider that this doesn't seem (at this point anyway) to be an ongoing, general collection thing. It's not like they had a giant stockpile of goodies into which they could dip to finance the construction of the tabernacle. They had a project, and raised money for it, exceeded all expectations and had to be told that they'd given enough and they could all stop now, please.
That's the other thing. They were told to stop. There doesn't seem to have been even a discussion about having the people continue to give so that a stockpile could even be started. Fascinating.
The other thing that goes against this being a strict edict to throw money at your congregation is that a timeless lesson about money would, you would think, have some sort of method of measurement that was a bit more universal. Money, being a contrivance, and a limited social one at that, is pretty meaningless on a wider scale without some sense of comparison and context.
If I told you that I earned a salary of 24,000,000 won per year while teaching in Korea, and that on a trip to Laos I ate a ham sandwich that cost 10,000 kip, it likely not even come close to having any meaning for you whatsoever.
The shekels and talents, etc of the OT are a little like that. Internally, they have a logic that fits together, but they all rely on knowing what a shekel is, or weighs, or is worth. We don't know that.
This makes applying this in a direct way very difficult.
For those looking for a hint that maybe it's not about exactly how much you give to the church, that's the good news.
The "bad" news is that if you look at the big picture presented by this passage (which, I feel, is almost always the most important way to look at Biblical passages) you get a pretty clear indication of the way things are supposed to go, wealth-given-to-the-church-wise...
There was a thing God wanted done. He told people, "give."
They gave - by the bucketload - until the thing was completely and utterly paid for, and then - after they were told they could stop - they stopped.
Imagine if every time the church needed something (a new roof, a water heater that worked properly, a youth minister, building-a-school-in-Guatemala money) this is how it went? That would be amazing.
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