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Week 7

Part Two. The Foundations · Week 6 of 13

Week 6 · The Tabernacle and the Law

This week God reaches by asking for a tent in the middle of the camp, so that he can dwell among a people who had just broken the covenant.

Exodus 1-14

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Israel has just done the worst thing it will ever do, and the very next thing God does is ask for a tent. They melted their earrings into a calf while Moses was still up the mountain getting the plans, and God's answer to that betrayal is not to leave. It is to move in. "Let them make me a sanctuary," he says, "that I may dwell among them."

This week is about the God who closes the distance. The tabernacle is a real tent in a real camp, cloth and gold and acacia wood, and the glory of a real God came down and filled it until Moses could not go in. It was never only a tent. Watch where it points: a temple, then a prophet's vision of the glory coming back, then a manger where the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, then a city where the tabernacle of God is with men.

And the law that comes with it is going somewhere too, a schoolmaster walking us to Christ, a real stage of the house with a beginning and an end, not the permanent structure. The day of atonement, the torn veil, the serpent lifted on a pole: each one reads forward to a cross.

By the end of the week you will have followed the glory from a tent in the wilderness to a torn veil to a serpent lifted on a pole, and you will have looked, and lived.

THE BOOKENDS

The two verses this whole story runs between.

Genesis 3:9 (KJV)

And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

AND

Revelation 22:17 (KJV)

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

The first thing God asks, and the last thing he offers. Everything between is him coming.

VERSES TO READ · Exodus 25:1 to 9

HOW DEEP TODAY

¹And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

²Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering.

³And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass,

⁴And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats hair,

⁵And rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins, and shittim wood,

⁶Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense,

⁷Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate.

⁸And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.

⁹According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.

Day 1 · COME · ~15 min

That I may dwell among them

Read: Exodus 25:1 to 9

Read Exodus 25:1-9 and 40:33-38 whole, about five minutes, no notes yet. The tabernacle command comes right after the golden calf. Israel has just broken the covenant it swore, and God's answer is not to pull away but to give instructions for a tent in the middle of the camp.

1. From last week's teaching (Chapter Five, Genesis 12 to 50): in Genesis 15, who passed between the pieces of the covenant while Abram slept, and what did God count to Abram for righteousness in 15:6?

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2. Read Exodus 25:1-9. In 25:8, what does God tell Israel to make, and what reason does he give? Copy the verse.

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3. Exodus 25:8, the reason for the whole tent is "that I may dwell among them." Name one part of your life you have been keeping God at arm's length from. Write the one thing you will open to him this week, and the day you will do it.

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What did you see?

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Go deeper: read this passage in the WSB Bible with commentary

THE CLOSE

The week opened with a question God asked in the garden, and it closes with the answer he has been building toward ever since.

Genesis 3:9 (KJV)
Where art thou?

That was the first word after the fall, God walking into the garden looking for the man who hid. Everything since has been God closing the distance that the hiding opened. A tent in a camp. A glory that fills it. A veil torn from the top so the way stands open. A Word made flesh who dwelt among us. And at the end of the book, the answer to the garden question, the place where no one hides anymore and God is with his people for good.

Revelation 22:17 (KJV)
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.

From "where art thou" to "come." That is the whole story in two verses, and the tabernacle this week is the hinge in the middle: God asking for a tent so that he could begin, stage by stage, to dwell among the very people he once came looking for.

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Part Two. The Foundations · Week 6 of 13

Week 6 · The Tabernacle and the Law

This week God reaches by asking for a tent in the middle of the camp, so that he can dwell among a people who had just broken the covenant.

Exodus 1-14

Day 1 · COME · ~15 min

That I may dwell among them

Read: Exodus 25:1 to 9 in your Bible.

2. Read Exodus 25:1-9. In 25:8, what does God tell Israel to make, and what reason does he give? Copy the verse.

What did you see?

Day 2 · LOOK · ~15 min

A kingdom of priests

Read: Exodus 19:1 to 8 in your Bible.

Read Exodus 19:1-8, then Exodus 12:1-14, the Passover. Mark "dwell" where the tent's purpose is named, 25:8 and 29:45-46; the word carries a card you open below.

1. Read Exodus 19:1-8. In 19:5-6, what three things does God say Israel will be to him if they obey his voice? Copy them.

2. Read Exodus 12:1-14, the Passover. In 12:13, what does the LORD say the blood on the houses will be to Israel, and what will he do when he sees it? Copy the clause from "and when I see."

What did you see?

Day 3 · DIVIDE · ~15 min

A schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ

Read: Leviticus 16:1 to 22 in your Bible.

Read Leviticus 16:1-22, the day of atonement, then Galatians 3:19-25. The standing question again: who is speaking, to whom, under what covenant. Memory: add the second piece of Exodus 25:8, "that I may dwell among them." Both pieces aloud, cover and say.

1. Read Leviticus 16:1-22, the day of atonement. In 16:21-22, what does Aaron do with his hands on the live goat, and where does the goat go? Copy what he confesses over it.

2. The standing question. In Exodus 19:3-6, who is speaking, to whom, and under what covenant? Which words in verses 5-6 settle it?

What did you see?

Day 4 · SEARCH · ~15 min

And the Word was made flesh

Read: Exodus 40:34-38 in your Bible.

Read Exodus 25:8 and 40:34 again, then Numbers 9:15-23, the cloud over the tent. Open the word card on glory at 40:34 and follow the trajectory it names, from the tent to the city.

1. Read Exodus 25:8 and copy it. Then read John 1:14: what does the Word do "among us," and what did they behold? Copy from "And the Word was made flesh."

2. Which of the seven threads did you see in this week's passages (the tabernacle, the law, the day of atonement, the brass serpent), and at what weight (Primary, Secondary, or Trace)? Name up to three, and give one line from the text for each. Save it before Day 5; the reveal waits for your Story Map row.

What did you see?

Day 5 · CHOOSE · ~15 min

When he looketh upon it, shall live

Read: Numbers 21:4-9 in your Bible.

Read Numbers 21:4-9, the brass serpent, with John 3:14-16, then Matthew 27:50-51, the veil torn. Memory: Exodus 25:8 whole, cover the page and say it aloud twice.

1. Open your Story Map. Three books close this week. For Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, write for each a theme in six words or fewer, your own; a key verse (a KJV reference); and the threads you saw. Save them; saving fires the reveal.

2. Where your tags differ from the grid, reread the verse you tagged and keep or change your weight. One line why. Both weights are kept; the tracker marks neither wrong.

3. Exodus 25:8, the whole verse: "And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them." Cover the page and say it aloud twice. Then say it once to someone today.

4. Numbers 21:8: the serpent was lifted up, and "every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." The look was the whole cure, not climbing, not fighting the snakes, just looking. Name one thing you have been trying to do to get well that God is asking you only to look away from, to him. Write it, and write the name of one person you will tell this week to look and live.

What did you see?

THE CLOSE

The week opened with a question God asked in the garden, and it closes with the answer he has been building toward ever since.

Genesis 3:9 (KJV) “Where art thou?”

Revelation 22:17 (KJV) “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.”