Reflection Of The Book Of Exodus

963 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Salvation and sin

The Book of Exodus is not a narrative of slavery. The Book of Exodus is not a condemnation of slavery. The Book of Exodus is not an escapee's manual. The Book of Exodus does not even incorporate one journal entry, one trial transcript, or one eye-witness account of the slavery endured by the Israelites in Egypt. Despite its lack of address, the Book of Exodus solidifies man's need for God and God's need for worship.
Before returning to Egypt with his purpose at hand, Moses discovers God on Mt. Sinai during a solitary journey with his father-in-law's flock. By bringing Moses to a mountain, God shows Moses that holiness is not a quality known to man; holiness is known only to God. God may reveal holiness to man, as he does to Moses; without God, man cannot find holiness. Holiness is not found hidden under a rock or at the bottom of a well. Holiness cannot be explained by divination or science. The burning bush is a curiosity, a mystery that compels Moses to draw nearer. His drawing nearer is met by God's infinite divide, a discrete boundary between God and man, uniting and dividing, attracting and repelling, living and dying, a holiness emanating from God to the earth, to man, and back to God.
As much as holiness cannot exist without God, holiness also cannot exist without man. Land cannot exist without receptacles for the sea: elevations and depressions that together contain water. Similarly, holiness cannot exist without receptacles for sin: man and woman who together invite evil. Man and woman find holiness by welcoming God with the hospitality reserved for an honored guest. Moses' progenitors build altars to the Lord in the desert landscape, such as Jacob's El Elohe Israel. The altars often contain sacred objects, such as me...

... middle of paper ...

.... God's explanation is not long-winded, " 'They shall make a sanctuary for me, that I may dwell in their midst.' " (Exodus 25:8) The need for worship emanates from man's physical needs. Man needs God's presence and the sanctuary fulfills that need, yet God is not simply a box filled with the needs of man. God's need for worship also must emanate from God Himself, a mystery veiled from man in the Book of Exodus.
Piecing through the puzzle work of theologians' and philosophers' expressions of God yields few pieces that fit together. God is not a distant star whose light can be studied over time. God's nature cannot be revealed through any physical reality, for physical reality does not capture God. Unlike man's need for God, God's need for worship cannot be analyzed. And how uninspiring worship would be if it were reduced to some formula! Pieces of a puzzle it is not.

Show More
Related

  • A Comparison Of Indiana Jones And Raiders Of The Lost Ark?

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...mment is that Moses, as the group’s spiritual leader, had the right idea in mind. When our leadership help us focus upwards, to the heavens, to our best selves, we succeed in our mission, whether fighting a war or building a sanctuary. When our leaders forget that mission, and our focus turns down- towards pettiness and false pride, then we are liable to build buildings without the investment of the people who fill the seats. We are liable to create beautiful and ornate houses for broken tablets, which can never lead us in our worldly mission. Our task force and building team is inspired by their commitment to the little wooden box, the Ark that reminds us of who we are on the inside that cannot be written down in stone. In addition, of course, our new space will be beautiful, but it will also shine with a light that is brighter than gold and silver can provide. Amen

    Read More

  • How Douglass Dispelled the Illusions of Slavery

    1013 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...aveholders used the existence of slavery in the Bible as a defense for their actions, instead of adhering to Christian values and renouncing the warped morals of slavery.

    Read More

  • Exodus And Exodus Similarities

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    In relation, of the African American slaves’ and their identification with the experiences of the Hebrew slaves in the “Book of Exodus” have been evidently strong historically. Slavery in America began when Europeans brought the first African slaves to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. They African slaves were brought in to aid in the production of lucrative crops such as tobacco, cotton, and sugar. In addition, are the Hebrew/Israelites slaves in the “Book of Exodus,” it tells how the Israelites leaves their bondages with Egypt’s Pharaohs at the time. The Hebrew, escaped their grip through the strength of “Yahweh” is the name of God in Judaism.

    Read More

  • Comparing The Journey To The Book Of Exodus And Virgil's The Aeneas

    1212 Words  | 3 Pages

    When God first approaches Moses in the form of a burning bush, God says “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering. Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land,” (Exodus 3:7). Moses however, questioned God’s judgement, saying, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and lead the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). Moses continues to question God throughout the rest of the chapter, but eventually begins his journey to rescue his

    Read More

  • Christianity And Christianity In Jerry Bridges's 'The Pursuit Of Holiness'

    1135 Words  | 3 Pages

    While the Holy Spirit enables us to be holy, this is also our action as well (p.77). Bridges offers personal experience from a time when he thought that God viewed him striving to be holy as “of the flesh” (p. 79). He then learns that this is not that case and while holiness is not obtainable by a human alone, it does require us to work for it. Holiness is not reached when we receive the Holy Spirit. Bridges describes holiness as an attitude towards life. We must have self-discipline as Christians. The book urges readers to read and memorize scripture as a way to be a self-disciplined Christian. When we memorize the word of God, it is stored in our hearts and minds and the Spirit may use that in times of need so that we may apply that scripture to the matter at hand. The Holy Spirit has been given to all of us. It is working in and through us and in empowering believer to be more like Christ. However, we are still called to be obedient, and to answer this call. We can choose to suppress it. Or we can choose to listen to the calling of the Spirit and live for

    Read More

  • Essay On Slavery In The Bible

    1133 Words  | 3 Pages

    Slavery in the Bible is a difficult topic to discuss because our paradigm or idea of slavery is influenced for the most part by the enslavement of Africans in the 17th-19th centuries. This, however, is not the type of slavery that is mentioned in the Bible. Slaves in recent history were more than likely tricked/kidnapped and forced to work. They received no pay and they had no human rights—they were the property of another person, no different than an animal or tool.

    Read More

  • Shabbat Shalom Informative Speech

    1357 Words  | 3 Pages

    These words from Moses have inspired me throughout my rabbinate, and they continue to shape the way in which I strive to work. I cannot ascend to the heavens to bring back God’s word and teach it to you. Nevertheless, I can help us along the path, to remind us to light a candle rather than curse the darkness.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Exodus 21-24

    514 Words  | 2 Pages

    Exodus 21-24 was definitely quite an instructive piece of literature. It was almost raw in its nature as a text or “book” but more of reading an excerpt from a piece of non-fiction most similar to an instruction manual of some sort that you get when you buy a dissembled bike or desk. Something like being enrolled in a police academy there was definite sense of a master-slave relationship in the air. It is like something never before seen in the Torah, these chapters showed a whole new YHWH. The YHWH who is feared like the school principal in an elementary school, not even mom and dad has come on so strong as to the dos and donts of living life. It seems as if YHWH was pushed to such a point where YHWH has no choice but intervene into the lives of his children, and set the rules for the pl...

    Read More

  • John Corvino And The Morality Of Homosexuality

    737 Words  | 2 Pages

    The bible, also, condemns many aspects of our current day society and allows for slavery. Rather than taking the bible literally, one should consider the historical context and then adjust to today’s norms.

    Read More

  • Exegesis Paper Outline: Exodus 3: 14-17

    818 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...hat God was trying to disclose with Moses. God wanted Moses to know Him and who He was through His name. He is not an unloving god who watches over his children and does nothing when they suffer. He is not a god that ignores old promises. He is an omnipresent God that helps his children and doesn’t break a covenant. God allows himself to be known by his people because he is a devoted god. He is, has been, and always will be our god.

    Read More

  • Harriet Jacobs Incidents And A Slave Girl: An Analysis

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    Charles Ball’s Fifty Years in Chains and Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl were both published in the early 1860’s while Kate Drumgoold’s A Slave Girl’s Story came almost forty years later I believe there were things overshadowing Charles’ attention. While the man does give credit to a supreme being, his relation to the Christian culture comes from his encounters to which he documents in great detail with fellow slaves. As previously stated, I believe the significance of the slave’s ability to maintain reverence for the religion they practiced provided insight into what gave them hope. The story of Exodus is linked to many slave narratives and it was no different for these three Slave-owners looked upon the African Americans as lesser people who were in desperate need of support.

    Read More

  • Slavery and Christianity in Harriet A. Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself

    1695 Words  | 4 Pages

    The slave owners accepted and rationalized slavery through the Holy Bible. The Bible mentions slavery on numerous occasions, and yet none of these passages condemn it. Timothy 6:1-2 states, “Let slaves regard th...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Popol Vuh

    656 Words  | 2 Pages

    Notions of sacred space are defined in the classical image of the sky. The sky shows itself to be “infinite, transcendent…it is preeminently the wholly other” (Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane, Harcourt 1959, Pg. 118). Transcendence is revealed by this infinite height. In the beginning, only the still waters and the sky existed. “For the sky by its own mode of being “reveals transcendence, force, eternity…it exists absolutely because it is high, infinite and eternal” ” (Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane, Harcourt 1959, Pg. 119) .

    Read More

  • Book Of Exodus Analysis

    499 Words  | 1 Pages

    Thought the book of Exodus I noticed three characteristics that God displayed, God is good, He is merciful and forgiving, and He is love.The book of Exodus teaches us that God will never leave us or forsake us despite what we do or say. In the book of Exodus, God teaches the Israelites to rest in his holy faithfulness, by trusting his decision regarding their life.

    Read More

  • The Sacred And The Profane: The Nature Of Religion By Mircea Eliade

    844 Words  | 2 Pages

    The book “The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion”, written by Mircea Eliade, investigates four aspects of the sacred universe: space, time, nature, and self. Eliade splits each aspect into two forms of perception, the sacred and profane. Religious men, specifically the ancient, traditional men, view the universe as sacred. In other words, they acknowledge a distinct qualitative difference between a sacred and profane (non-sacred) universe; whereas, nonreligious, specifically modern men, are unable to understand such differences in the world. This claim rests on the on the concept of heirophanies or manifestations of the sacred. A hierophany is the religious man’s source of absolute reality and it illuminates the glory and power of God. This manifestation of divine glory charges a site with special significance, thereby losing a sense of homogeneity throughout the universe. Eliade’s underlying thesis is that due to the human experience of both the sacred and profane in day to day life, the transitional zones between the two are exceptionally illuminated and charged with the divine glory of the sacred.

    Read More

More about Reflection Of The Book Of Exodus

Open Document