"You are to receive the offering for me from each man whose heart prompts him to give."
What a great pattern for us in our giving to the Lord. He wants us to let our hearts lead us in our giving.

God tells Moses that the people are to build a tabernacle and that is where His presence will dwell. What a great foreshadowing for us. Our bodies are to be a tabernacle for the Holy Spirit to dwell!

Did God give Moses the plans for the building of the tabernacle while he was on the mountain? Did Moses write all those many, many details down on something or did he just supernaturally remember? Or did God refresh his memory from time to time?

The breastpiece for the priest was to be used for making decisions. How does that relate to us as Christians with the breastplate of righteousness?
Eph 6:14
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,
Check out this video, The Bells Are Ringing. It relates the high priest to Jesus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAMLAIqUoYo

Isn’t it remarkable that these men who were skilled in brick making now have been given skills as seamstresses for making the garments for the priests? Just an example of how God gives us spiritual gifts and uses us for tasks that we could have never dreamed of doing.

Are all of us using our God-given spiritual gifts? If you have never identified your spiritual gift(s), or if you would like a refresher, email us for a Spiritual Gifts Inventory. Once your gift(s) have been identified, we can send you more information on your gift(s).

Exodus 19:3
Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain...

Ever wonder why the word God and the LORD are used, seemingly interchangeably? Well, we must go back to the Hebrew words to understand. The word God is Eloheim (meaning Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). The word LORD is Yehovah (meaning Jesus). Moses went up the mountain to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but is was the Son who spoke to him. Using the meanings of the Hebrew words gives us a better vision. This same thing is especially true with the following verse:
Exodus 19:16
On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast.
Now if we look only at the English words, we envision a storm on the mountain, black heavy clouds, booming thunder, and flashes of lightning. But using the Hebrew word meanings, we get a completely different picture. Here's how it would read in the Hebrew.
There were loud voices in proclamation blowing a great trumpet accompanied by bright, glittering gleams enveloped in bright clouds. Does that sound a bit like the company of angels that announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds??? It should. Just read these verses: Dan 7:9-10, Matt 17:2-5, Acts 7:53, Gal 3:19, Heb 2:2, Rev 4:1, Rev 8:13, Rev 9:14.

God spoke the words of the Ten Commandments the first time. The people did not want to listen to the voice of God. A similar thing happened with Jesus.
John 12:28-29
Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again."The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.

Who is this "angel" God sent to go with them who has the power to forgive sin?
1 Cor 10:1-4
For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea.They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

John 5:22
Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son

Pretty clear...the "angel", God's Presence, was God, the Son.

Another example of how God, the Son interacted with people in the Old Testament is found in this passage.
Exod 24:9-11
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

And then we have this verse.
John 6:46
No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.

If no one can see the Father then how can Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, along with the seventy elders see God? Again, it's perfectly clear... the leaders saw God, the Son.

Don't forget the Discussion Session at our house Monday, January 30 at 7:00 pm.

As we begin reading of the journey of the Israelites there is an interesting pattern that will emerge, one that is often overlooked. God tells the people that He will protect them from diseases if they will just listen to Him and follow His commands. At this time the only new commands they had were the ones given to them as they traveled, commands such as gathering manna daily six days a week. How hard was that??? It is only later when the people have consistently disobeyed and grumbled and complained that God sent Moses from the mountain with a set of laws carved in stone.

We often equate “carved in stone” as something that is unmoving, unwavering, unchanging, consistent, completely fixed. Yet some people today want to bend and change the Ten Commandments when they literally were carved in stone. Shouldn’t that tell us something?

There is a great lesson to be learned concerning the manna. The Israelites had to trust God daily to supply their needs. Shouldn’t we do that too? Just wake up each morning trusting God to meet our every need. Meet Him with this request, "Lord, here I am, what would you have me do today?"

The Lord went ahead of the Hebrews as they made their exodus from Egypt. He guided them in a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. They were following the Lord and He guided and protected them. The people were told to “Stand firm.” And “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to stand still.”

It is so hard for us to be obedient in standing still, isn't it? We tend to want to DO something.

Then the Lord tells the Israelites to “move on”. If only we would listen to the Lord and stand still when He tells us to and to move on when He tells us to.

Seems as if God displays a sense of humor when He causes the wheels of the Egyptian chariots to fall off.

The word "salvation" appears often in Scripture. Interestingly the English word salvation is translated from several Hebrew words. Sometimes salvation means “save or rescue”. However in the case of the word salvation used in Exodus 15:2, the Hebrew word is "yeshuw` ah." Sound familiar??? It should. It means “He who saves” – Jesus!

Exodus 15:13 is an excellent verse to ponder for today (or any day for that matter).
“In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling.

God's love for us is never-ending. It is everlasting and unfailing. We are the redeemed. He leads us in His perfect love. He leads. We follow. That's His perfect plan. If we rely on His strength, He will guide us in everything we do in this life and ultimately into our heavenly reward, His holy dwelling. We need only to allow Him!

HI EVERYONE
Here are some "conversations" we had with one of the participants in the e-bible study. Thought you might be interested. We love hearing from all of you.

QUESTIONS
January 17th: I've run across this before, but the story of Er and Onan makes my ... eyebrows raise a bit. Paraprashing: Er was wicked so God put him to death. Then Onan didn't want to give Er's wife offspring in lieu of Er. God saw Onan as wicked and put him to death as well.

Without more details from our (ignorant human) perspective, death seems a pretty harsh punishment, especially for Onan. Don't you think?
These passages always seemed odd to me. What are we supposed to gather from these?
PHIL AND PATTI RESPONSE- It is a broad and much detailed answer - bottom line - Yes it does seem pretty harsh. Both deaths are the result of disobedience of what God commanded. Even for us now, the result of our sin is death - but Jesus...
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus' genealogy is to be traced from Jesus to Judah through Tamar. God does accomplish His purposes, one way or another. Since the sons refused to do as God instructed, God completed the genealogy line from Judah through Tamar the hard way. The two sons could have done it God's way, the easy way. God gave them the harsh punishment because it was a severe crime against God. While we may not understand all of God's plan, we must remember that we do not have the mind of God. We just have to trust in Him and know that because of Jesus we do not have to worry about that kind of punishment.

I don't think I asked this one very well. I understand everything you replied here, but doesn't really answer the question I "should" have asked. 1) "Er was wicked in God's eyes. So He had him put to death." Wicked? What had he done that was so bad that he deserved death? Details. Details. 2) What was so wrong with what Onan did? Which of 10 Commandments did he break here? (Tongue in cheek since I know we haven't gotten to the 10 Commandments, yet.) Again, what Law/rule did Onan break here to deserve death? The writer's (of the Bible) could certainly have mentioned these details. Us humans are linear. It hard to understand how we get to C without knowing what A and B are. I assume that there some "unmentioned" rules or Laws that we're dealing with here. Yes?

PHIL AND PATTI RESPONSE-These are great questions, wish we had all the answers. 1)The Bible doesn't tell us what Er's sin was. All it says is that Er was wicked in God's eyes. The Hebrew word for wicked means "morally evil". So, obviously we don't have all the details here and probably never will have. We don't think it was just one sin that Er committed that caused God to slay him. Rather, it was his morally corrupt character, along with his actions. 2) Apparently there was an unwritten law concerning such matters. God conveyed to them differences between right and wrong in some way. Just as Cain knew it was wrong to kill his brother Abel. And both Cain and Abel knew to bring sacrifices and offerings to the Lord. How God chose to convey this to them we don't really know. Onan's duty was the law, according to God. Culturally and socially, it was the right thing to do as far as the widow was concerned. Tamar had no one to take care of her, especially important as she aged. Sons took care of their mothers. Without a son or husband, Tamar was in danger of being destitute in her old age. It could be that Onan didn't want his offspring to be considered as his brother's. Maybe there was a bit of pride and jealousy surfacing here. Onan would have to give up part of his inheritance if he shared it with his elder brother's son. So, yes there are some "unmentioned" rules and laws. It's very difficult to get to C without knowing A and B - just think what's going to happen before we get to Z! That's why we're reading the entire Bible.

January 22nd:
Exodus 3: 1-6 ...There "the angel of the Lord" appeared to him in flames of fire...

I don't follow the reference here. I always thought it was God speaking directly to Moses. What is "the angel of the Lord"?
PHIL AND PATTI RESPONSE-Oh, so glad you asked about this one! The angel of the Lord is the Son of God. Remember, God the Son was with God in the very beginning (or really before what we consider the beginning). See John 1.There are many other details, such as Hagar's response to the angel of the Lord. She said he was the "God who sees me". So even she identified the angel as God (the Son). There will be lots of other references as we continue reading the Old Testament. Stay tuned!

Ah! Excellent. I figured it had to be something like that.

Exodus 4:24-26 ...the Lord met Moses (his son that is) and was about to kill him. But Zippy(sp) circumcised him. So, the Lord let him alone.

Again, it seems like there are some details left out here. How did the Lord "meet him"? How do we know what God was thinking? Why the harsh punishment for not being circumcised? Shouldn't someone have let Moses' son know about the "requirements" before going on the trip?
PHIL AND PATTI RESPONSE-Really love the nickname Zippy. It sounds so appropriate to what she did. If we read carefully verses 24-26 it reads that God was about to kill Moses, not his son. Again, it seems pretty harsh punishment for what we would consider a minor crime. However, circumcision was man's part of the covenant with God. There are probably many details left out. It makes us have to dig a little deeper. As a matter of fact, there are other writings that are not in the Bible that give some more of the details. The Book of Jasher says that the reason Moses didn't circumcise his son is at the command of his father-in-law, defying God's command to do so. As far as the Lord meeting him - it is the Son of God who met Moses and that's how we know what God was thinking.

Again, nice details to know. It was hard for me to understand how "We're" enlisting Moses' help, and then all of a sudden We want him dead. I was getting worried that God was manic-depressive or something. Just didn't make sense. Thanks for the insight!! Sorry for the Zippy thing... I just couldn't resist.

Between Creation and Moses, it seemed we were in the soap opera portion of the Bible. Lot of relationships between people of questionable character. Now it seems we're starting to get into some of the meat, so to speak.

PHIL AND PATTI RESPONSE-It gets better and then worse, then better and then worse, then better and then worse, etc....!

God’s instructions to the Hebrews concerning the Passover are very specifically detailed. The great significance of the Passover is in the prophetic symbolism. Some 1500 years later Jesus became the fulfillment of the Passover by becoming the Passover lamb. The days, hours, minutes, the directions and orders concerning the regulations of the Passover are exact. They are specific so that we can recognize the connections between the first Passover and the fulfillment in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The prophecies were fulfilled exactly. From the penning up of the lamb on the tenth of the month to the slaughter of the lamb at twilight on the 14th of the month, Jesus fulfilled these prophecies precisely. As we go through this study we will discover many prophecies that point to Jesus and the cross. Details are on the website www.philandpatti.com concerning the prophetic messianic symbolism of the Passover. Look under A Biblical View of Holy Week.

The Israelite men (by most records men were those over age 20 and under age 60, those who were of fighting age) who left Egypt in the exodus numbered 600,000, not counting women and children. Whew!

When the Lord instituted the Feast of Unleavened Bread, He said to do this as a remembrance of how He had brought them out of Egypt. “This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that the law of the Lord is to be on your lips”

A sign on our hand is what we do. A reminder on our forehead is what we think and remember. The law of the Lord should be in what we communicate to others.

How do we as Believers observe and honor our remembrance of what God has done for us?