Thoughts on Exodus 37 & Philippians 3

Today's reading: Exodus 37; Philippians 3

My thoughts on the passages today are unrelated, and my Exodus thoughts are short, but I think helpful, so I’m just going to get that out of the way first.

Thoughts on Exodus 37

Passages like this have a tendency to lose people. You’re reading through the Old Testament and it’s exciting enough, but then you hit sections like this where it maybe feels to you like it’s just dragging on and on, and in your head you start thinking, “I get it, he built a tent, then he built a box, then he put the box in the tent. Good job. Can we get back to the story now?”

A lot of people tend to complain about the genealogies, but in my mind, the worst offender of this type is Numbers 7. Numbers 7 lays out the offerings the leader of each of the 12 tribes gives at the dedication of the tabernacle, and it’s a long list of offerings, and they all give exactly the same offerings, but that long list is fully written out 12 times. And I remember reading through that in the past and thinking, “I so badly just want to skip ahead, but I feel like I can’t say I’ve read the whole bible if I skip half a chapter, so I just have to power through this. But why didn’t they just say, ‘These are the offerings that the tribal leaders gave once a day for 12 days,’ and be done with it??”

But there is one really important thing I learned a number of years ago that completely changed my perspective on these passages:

In Hebrew writing, the pacing is used to draw your attention to what is important. So if the pace of the story slows way down, pay attention, because this is an extra important part of the story!

Understanding this changes everything in this regard. Yes, the giving of the law and the construction of the tabernacle seem more drawn out than necessary, and yes, it is a dramatic slow down from the exciting pace of events during the plagues, the escape, the defeat of Egypt, etc., but there’s a reason for that. This is the foundation of the theocracy. The establishing of the covenant between God and Israel, and the creation of the tabernacle which will facilitate/represent God’s presence among His people is maybe the most important moment in Israel’s history. God had declared His intention to be their God, but now they have an established covenant relationship and God’s presence dwelling among them. This is when Israel, as a nation, truly becomes Yahweh’s people, and when Yahweh truly becomes Israel’s God.

So when you start to get annoyed by how long something is taking to get through in the Old Testament, stop and pay attention to what is going on because that slow down may very well be there specifically to draw your attention to something important, and when you realize that, you get a lot less annoyed by a section like that and a lot more fascinated by why the author is pouring so much focus into it.

Thoughts on Philippians 3

More than that, I consider all things to be loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord

This statement from Paul is worth spending a day or two reflecting on.

In context, Paul is talking about his life as a Jew and all that he had going for him and all the personal righteousness that he had established, and how none of that holds a candle to the value of knowing Christ and the righteousness that Paul now has in Christ. Then he makes the statement I quoted above, that it is not just that previous life and personal righteousness, but “all things” which don’t hold a candle to the value of knowing Jesus.

And as Paul goes on, this is the driving motivation for him to strive to live a life faithful to Christ. He specifically says he is not looking to establish a righteousness of his own based on the law, but the righteousness that comes through Christ, and because he so highly values his relationship with Jesus, he wants, as much as possible, for his life to reflect the life of Jesus. And while he has not yet attained that perfection, and he won’t attain perfection this side of heaven, he pushes on and fights for it because knowing Jesus more intimately and reflecting His character more fully is so deeply valuable to him.

This is something I see a lot of Christians get wrong.

On the one hand, I see Christians who feel a pressure to grow in personal righteousness out of fear that they will lose their salvation, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel. If you are in Christ by faith, then Jesus Himself is your righteousness and no work of righteousness you perform could ever add to that perfect righteousness, and you are not so great that any failure of yours could ever take away from Christ’s righteousness. If you are in Christ, you have His righteousness, and that is a secure footing.

On the other hand, I see Christians who fall more toward a licentious view of the faith where personal righteousness just doesn’t matter because our righteousness is in Christ. These Christians have a much firmer footing in the gospel, and a much stronger understanding of grace, but there is something missing in this approach, and that is what Paul gets at here in Philippians 3. Yes, you don’t need to be righteous because Christ is righteous for you, but if you really grasp how great and high and deep and wide His love is for you, and if you really understand that being like Him is objectively the best way to live, both for your own experience of life and for others to be drawn to Christ through your life, then why would you settle for anything short of striving, like Paul, “toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus“?

The more we internalize the unfathomable value of knowing Jesus, the more that will reshape our motivations and our lives in general.

I want to know Him more deeply. I want to appreciate more each day what He has done for me. I want to understand more fully who I am in Him. And I want this reality to reshape me into the man, the husband the father, the friend, the neighbor, the coworker, the son, the everything that God most desires me to be.