Sword in the Fire

Of all the posts I have written for this blog, one of my most popular is the one on the Tabernacle . As a Christian, we read those OT accounts of liturgy and sacrifices and know that somehow they are fulfilled in Christ. That is what that post was designed to accomplish. Since that time, whenever I stumble over a Church Father that addresses many of the passages I grab it and digest it to use later. Recently in teaching through Genesis and the life of Moses, I finally read St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses. If you have not read this, I promise you that it is accessible to the general audience and you don’t need an advance degree in religious jargon to understand. Gregory like many of the Fathers of the Church read Scripture slightly different than we do today. Today we often read scientifically, meaning that we only look for the literal, historical meanings. We brush aside anything that seems to allegorically because we fear its lack of objectivity, and it seems too s...

The Tabernacle: Intro: The tabernacle was a mobile place of worship that God instructed Moses to build for the people of Israel. The word tabernacle means tent of meeting. This is the place where the people met with God. (Ex. 29:45-46) "They will know that I am the Lord their God who brought them out of Egypt." The important piece to remember is Moses was instructed to build something reflective of the heavenly worship of God. It was a physical earthly representation of the worship of God in heaven. Today we have the same concern for worship. Just because much of the contents of the tabernacle/temple were fulfilled in Christ, it does not negate the pattern mirroring heavenly images. We do not create our own structure or plan for worship but continue to join in eternal worship in heaven. Orthodox churches are still today modeled after the OT temple, and continue to reflect "heavenly worship". Rev 11:19 Jesus is the tent of meeting, and is where we mee...