Sunday, September 17, 2006

Church

Today Nick, Dana, and I met for the first time this year for church/Bible study. We read a passage from Ezekiel 40-41 that talked all about the new temple. It is amazing to me to read about all the detail and all the dimensions. Detail was given in cubits and handbreaths, if you look a cubit is about 1 1/2 feet and a handbreath 3 inches. Detail was given to the carvings on the walls of the temple...there were palm trees and cherubim--the cherubim had two heads, one like man and one like a lion--I'm curious as to the significance of these things; why were these objects chosen for the carvings? The pattern was palmtree, cerubim, palmtree,etc. Another thing that caught my attention was the use of directions; "the chamber facing south is for the priests who have charge of the temple and the chamber facing north is for priests in charge of the alters." It made me think of other religions who pray in certain directions. When reading my Bible previously the use of directions has never jumped out like that before.

After reading in Ezekiel we read from Psalms 128--which brought up a lot about fearing the Lord and being blessed. After Psalms we continued to Revelation 21. We read about all the splendor of the temple in Ezekial but Revelations talks about Heaven, and it is so mind boggling, so hard to try and even imagine. There was an angel measuring with a rod of gold and walls were approx. 200 ft. thick, the city as mentioned is nearly 1400 miles long, wide and high...can you imagine..that's huge. 12 is a number that comes up a lot..12 jewels, 12 gates that are like 12 pearls..and "the city was pure gold, transparent as glass" (Rev. 21:21)....hmmm...lots of interesting things to ponder :) thought i'd share some of my thoughts.

May you have a blessed week.

1 comment:

Lisa said...

I know what you mean. The images described by words are beyond my comprehension. Can you even imagine transparent gold? Your mention of the importance of direction was interesting too, I never really thought about that before. But I guess it makes sense that it would be significant to the Hebrews since so much of their religion came from their experience with other religions in the area, especially the Egyptians. I need to check back here more often now, once a week just isn't enough to stay caught up on all the goings on. Hope you stay healthy with all the sickness going on around you.