It Takes a Village

some thoughts on the design and construction of the tabernacle

Every time I read through the Bible, I come across gems that I never noticed before or that stand out to me more than they did when I read them last. One of the most recent ones comes from Exodus 35-36 when Moses began to make the preparations for the tabernacle.

Sometimes we read through passages like this as quickly as possible because we are just trying to get through the daily reading, but slowing down, especially through the more tedious sections, can be rewarding.

In this chapter, Moses starts by asking the Israelites to bring a freewill offering to furnish, construct, and decorate the temple (Exodus 35:5-9). Moses begins this section by calling on “whoever is of a generous heart” to participate in the preparation of the building of God’s tent. Only then does Moses call on those who are skillful to come and construct the tabernacle.

After the people received their instructions, they left from Moses’s presence, and then, one by one, they brought their gifts (Exodus 35:21).

“Everyone who could” made an offering to the Lord, and “all the skillful women” spun with their hands and brought what they had spun to the Lord.

When the priests ministered in the tabernacle, they were working in something that all of Israel helped create. Anyone who had the heart and the means to give could contribute to the tabernacle’s construction.

There were skilled workers, but without these generous supporters, the tent would never have been built.

Consider, now, the local congregation (or any volunteer organization). We all have different gifts and abilities. Some of us might be skilled, like Bezalel who “[God] has filled…with a divine spirit, with ability, intelligence, and knowledge, and with every kind of skill” (Exodus 35:31). Others of us might have different skills or perhaps different schedules that restrict what we can do for God’s kingdom, but that doesn’t render us ineffective servants.

We can bring financial contributions, offer what time we have in volunteer work, or assist in other ways like the people of Israel did. We may not have much time or money, but God can still use us, and we can still make a worthy contribution to the work of God.

But, and this is hard for me to believe as someone who is terrible at basic home maintenance, we can learn skills. God inspired Bezalel to teach and instruct “everyone whose heart was stirred to come to do the work” (Exodus 36:2). As James says, we can pray for wisdom, and God will deliver. In fact, we might look at vacancies in volunteer positions in our church as potential calls to service.

Now, you might think that freewill offerings and volunteer work doesn’t work, and in some cases, it might not, but when people are motivated by a worthy cause, they’ll show up.

Here in the wilderness, a people freshly released from slavery “still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning.” It got to the point where the skilled workers said, “The people are bringing much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do” (Exodus 36:5).

Do you see what God can do? The only thing “stopping” God from doing this in our church or in our community or in our volunteer organization is ourselves. We can make worthy contributions to the cause of Christ, we can learn skills needed to volunteer in a local church, and God can inspire skillful men and women to spin their linen, do the work, and instruct others to do the same.