Thoughts on February 19 Bible Reading

February 19, 2018
Reading: Numbers 1-4
(Guest Post: Barnabas Roland)

Today we begin the Book of Numbers so all four chapters are from this book. Israel has just been given the law as they have stopped at Mt. Sinai for one year. Here in the first 10 chapters, they are still camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai. These ten chapters are all about the camp.

Today’s reading describes how each of the tribes are numbered and arranged with the tabernacle in the center while chapters 5-10 are about the laws about ritual purity. After these 10 chapters we’ll see quite a lot of action with all kinds of exciting stories that happen during the wilderness years: spies, rebellion, water coming out of rocks, attacks of venomous snakes, talking donkeys, and a prophecy of a promised king. The journey here to the promised land should take about 2 weeks, but for Israel we’ll see it takes 40 years because of God’s judgment of their sin. But first we need to understand the importance of Israel’s organization.

As you read today try to imagine the actual size of the numbers of these people. Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa has a seating capacity of a little over 100,000 people. You’ll see each of the the tribe’s numbers are smaller than 100,000, but notice that the numbers listed are just the fighting men of each tribe. Can you imagine what the camp would look like with women and children added to each of these massive 12 tribes surrounding the tabernacle?

Understanding the organization of the camp further helps to make this concrete. I challenge you to get out a piece of paper and try to draw out the camp organization as you see it organized going out the four different directions of north, south, east, and west. If you do so, you’ll notice that at the center of this giant cross type of organization is the tabernacle. This is symbolic of God’s holiness at the center.

Later when Israel is told to move, you can see the similar order of God’s holy presence (in the form of a cloud in Numbers 10:11) as the leader and guide for where they should go. God is there dwelling in the camp of Israel. And one day Israel would later see God dwelling among them in flesh in the form of Jesus. Before Jesus’ ascension to heaven, he told us that his presence would continue. Today, we, the church, are the body of Christ with God dwelling among us as we are the temple of God.

This is not simply symbolism. We’re talking about God’s actual presence. We’ll see how this matters and helps us understand the purity laws of camp in the next few chapters. But today we can reflect on whether we are ordering our lives around God or not.

If we are actually ordering our lives around a holy God, then holiness and obedience makes perfect sense. If holiness gets to be bothersome and troublesome, then maybe we’re not really ordering our lives around God but have something else in the center instead. Or maybe we are forgetting the God who has delivered us from bondage. Maybe we’re forgetting the creator God of the world dwells not just around us invisibly, but in fact the presence of his Spirit is inside us: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor 6:19-20).