Bible Reading Challenge Week 4

Week 4 had us finish out Exodus, the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew, 1 and 2 Peter, and a couple Psalms. It’s a good pairing to read the Sermon on the Mount right after the giving of the law in Exodus. The “you have heard that it was said” sections hit a home a bit more.

Week 4 Readings

Exodus 19-40

The second half of Exodus picks up after God has victoriously triumphed over the Egyptians, as the Israelites get to Mount Sinai. In this section, Moses receives the ten commandments from God, as well as a lot of other laws, both ceremonial and civil, and we get the episode with the golden calf and the outcome from it, and finally the construction of the tabernacle.

I know I’m not alone in this, but I definitely had one of those moments where I had forgotten certain aspects of Moses going up on the mountain and the golden calf account, even though I’ve read it plenty of times over the years. My memory, and I feel like this is often how the account is presented, was that Moses goes up onto the mountain, receives the ten commandments and the other laws, and comes back down with stone tablets in hand to find the people worshiping the golden calf. In this order of events, the Israelites making the golden calf could almost (but not really) be excusable, because they hadn’t received the command to “not make for yourself a carved image” yet.

However, in reading through again, chapter 24 (which comes before the golden calf) helps us get those details right. In it, Moses comes down and tells the people “all the words of the Lord and all the rules.” The people respond by saying “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” This seals and confirms the Mosaic covenant with the people of Israel. At this point, they have heard and agreed to keep the ten commandments.

To me, this makes the golden calf episode way worse. Even though they can easily remember what God did to save them from the Egyptians, even though they can see, hear, and likely smell the physical manifestation of God’s presence burning on Mount Sinai, less than 40 days goes by and they are begging Aaron to make them a carved image that they can worship as the gods who brought them out of Egypt. I’d like to think that takes a special kind of ignorance and disobedience to do that, but really, save by the grace of God, there go I.

One other observation I had in this section is that God really really cares about the details of worship. You can’t read the instructions for the tabernacle or the rules for sacrifices, or how God is to be approached without coming away with the sense that the details really matter. It reminded me of the end of Hebrews 12, where even in the post-resurrection church, we are called to “offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” This is not to say that there isn’t immense grace in and through it, but the details still matter.

1 Peter

Reading 1 Peter right after Exodus helped to bring out certain things for me. He begins the letter by talking about the salvation we have in Christ, but quickly moves to a call to be holy – “do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1:14-15). The holiness of God was certainly a recurring theme in Exodus.

Then, as he continues into the second chapter, the language of the promises to the people of God in Exodus are echoed clearly here. In Christ, we are being built together as a spiritual dwelling place for God (think tabernacle, and probably even more so the temple). It really hits home in verse 9 – in Christ we are “a chose race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” These are the promised results of obedience to the Mosaic covenant (“If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant…”). The Israelites did not keep covenant with God (the golden calf being just one of so many examples), and nor could we of ourselves, but Christ came and perfectly fulfilled the law, earning the blessings, that we might obtain these promises through His resurrection. Thanks be to God for His grace!