Day 52: God’s Visible Presence Fills and Guides

Today we read Exodus 39-40, Leviticus 27, and Psalm 84. We concluded the two part saga of Exodus where first Moses was delivered and commissioned and then the Hebrew people were delivered and commissioned. We zoomed in on God’s visible presence which fills and guides His people. All of the rescue, redemption, and restoration with socio-cultural guardrails are for the purpose of God coming physically close to us in a sacred space. This echoes back to creation! In summary, the story of Exodus, they are freed from slavery and then in Leviticus they understand more about what they are freed for - to become a kingdom of priests (e.g., Exodus 19:6, 1 Peter 2:9, Revelations 1:6) - to be blessed and to bless others. While history might note that people freed from oppression often become a new type of oppressor, here in these stories God is putting up guardrails for the people to keep them from becoming a new type of oppressor. Then Brent Billings and Marty Solomon from the BEMA project describe the story of Leviticus as also a two part story where the first half is about me/us approaching God.  The second half is about me/us helping others find their way to or find their way back to God for the purpose of dwelling with Him. And here we end the story of Exodus and Leviticus.

Resources:

Dr. Carmen Imes, Exodus Class - Exodus 1-40, (14 hours) Bible Project. https://bibleproject.com/classroom/overview/exodus-overview/ 

Marty Solomon and Brent Billings (March, 2017), A Kingdom of What? (40 minutes), Retrieved from https://www.bemadiscipleship.com/25 

Credits:

Podcast music by Stockaudios from Pixabay. Speaker, Dr. Rachel Bodell. Podcast Sound Engineer, Alan Darling. Podcast Artwork, Will Gerard.