Scripture Daily

Context No. 2124 of 4322 · Exodus

Context · Reflection

Exodus 36:20-30: in context

20He made the boards for the tabernacle of acacia wood, standing up. 21Ten cubits was the length of a board, and a cubit and a half the width of each board. 22Each board had two tenons, joined to one another. He made all the boards of the tabernacle this way. 23He made the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards for the south side southward. 24He made forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards: two sockets under one board for its two tenons, and two sockets under another board for its two tenons. 25For the second side of the tabernacle, on the north side, he made twenty boards 26and their forty sockets of silver: two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board. 27For the far part of the tabernacle westward he made six boards. 28He made two boards for the corners of the tabernacle in the far part. 29They were double beneath, and in the same way they were all the way to its top to one ring. He did this to both of them in the two corners. 30There were eight boards and their sockets of silver, sixteen sockets—under every board two sockets.

The account of the tabernacle's construction describes its walls: many upright boards of acacia wood, each with two tenons to join it to the next, set into silver sockets, fitted together side by side to form the walls of God's dwelling. At the corners, boards were joined and held together at the top by a ring. No single board was the dwelling; each was one plank among many. But joined and fitted together, board to board, they formed the one stable structure in which God would dwell among his people.

There is a quiet picture in these joined boards. A single board, on its own, is just a plank, upright but standing alone, of little use for a dwelling. But joined to the others, fitted together by tenons and rings, set in common sockets, the many boards become one structure, a wall, a dwelling, something none could be alone. The strength and the purpose are in the joining. Each board mattered, but each mattered as part of the whole, fitted together with the others into the one dwelling of God. Scripture takes up this very image for God's people. In Christ, Paul says, the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord; you also are built together into a dwelling place for God. We are like those boards: each of us, alone, is one plank; but joined and fitted together with other believers, we become part of something we could never be alone, a dwelling for God, a holy temple built of many. You also, Peter says, as living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house. The purpose is found not in standing alone but in being joined together. This searches how we understand our place among God's people. We can imagine the life of faith as a solitary thing, each believer a plank standing alone, self-sufficient. But the picture of the tabernacle, and its fulfillment in the church, says otherwise: we are meant to be joined together, fitted with others, built into one structure, one dwelling for God. A believer standing alone, refusing to be joined to others, is like a single board apart from the wall, of little use for the dwelling it was made to be part of. We are made to be joined together. This calls us to take our place among God's people, fitted together with others rather than standing alone. The many boards, joined, became God's dwelling; and we too, joined together in Christ with other believers, are built into a holy temple, a dwelling for God, becoming together what none of us could be alone. The strength and the purpose are in the joining; and we are called not to stand apart as solitary planks but to be fitted together into the one dwelling God is building of his people.

Do I imagine the life of faith as a solitary thing, standing alone as a single plank, self-sufficient and apart from others, or can the tabernacle's many boards, joined and fitted together into one dwelling for God, teach me that we are made to be joined together, built with other believers into a holy temple, so that I take my place among God's people, fitted together with others into what none of us could be alone?

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