Scripture Passage for Today
“Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the LORD!” (Exodus 32:5 NLT)
Observation
Sandwiched between God’s instructions on worship and the implementation of those instructions is one of the best known and least comprehensible stories in Scripture. What a study in contrasts!
Moses is on the mountaintop communing with God, hearing his voice for the people, and the people are in the valley, growing restless and discontent. Before the covenant is even implemented—“before the ink is dry on the page” (in today’s vernacular)—Israel is violating her agreement with God by leaps and bounds.
And there’s just no explaining Aaron’s role. The people complain: “Come on—make us some gods who can lead us. We don’t know what happened to this ‘Moses’ fellow!” And so Aaron does! Please—what was he thinking?
And the people were pleased. And verse 5 says…
“Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the LORD!” (Exodus 32:5 NLT)
What?!? I mean, honestly… It’s absolutely perplexing how quickly all of this goes downhill—with Aaron’s help! What was it about Aaron that made him so interested in pleasing the people? What was it about Aaron that caused the people’s excitement to so quickly take precedent over the Lord’s commandments?
As a leader, I confess—I like it when people are pleased. I’d much rather get hugs and handshakes than glares and growls any day. But God’s ways don’t get decided by popular vote, and God’s priorities don’t always align with what’s convenient to the crowd. Living to please God is far more important than leading to please people.
And that’s not, by the way, just a word for “leaders”—it’s a word for everyone.
5 comments:
I wonder if thats why God didnt really want aaron to be the speaker for Moses because of what He done here. I dont know but isnt it something how the people turn from God so fast to worship a calf I want to always to place my trust in God no matter what I am going through I want Him as my leader and guide not a person I know God places people in the role as leaders but let me always put my eyes on the Lord and Him always praise God!
In the early part of chapter 33 it talks about Moses and Joshua meeting with God "face to face" in the tent of meeting. Then in later verses, when Moses asks to seen God's glory, God told Moses that he could only see His back because no one could seew His face and live. Any explanation of this apparent contridiction???
Rich R.
alphabet:
Moses spent 40 days on mount Sinai with God and when he came down he had a tablet with words on it. Prior to this, mankind used cuneiform, script and symbols for recording events. God gave Moses an alphabet of 22 letters. There is more to the first alphabet, it is based on the most sophisticated and ultimate knowledge......that of the genetic code. The number ought to be familiar in this day and age. It is the number of human chromosomes when Adam was created, before the second manipulation the sex chromosomes "Y" and "X". (Eve)
Isaiah 45:11 "It is I who created the Letters...It is I who made the Earth and created the Adam upon it, thus sayeth Yahweh the Holy One of Israel.
Present-day computers use a binary code of "1"and "0" on and off flow of electrons. A genetic language of DNA, chains of DNA expressed as nucleotides CHTAGAATTCTGCGAACCTT and so on in chain of DNA letters (three letter words) bound as base-pairs in which the A binds with T,C with G. (long story short) "the information storage capacity of DNA is huge" A research paper published in Science (October 1997) stated. In nature, the genetic information encoded in the DNA is decoded, at lightning speed, by a messenger called RNA that transcribes and recombines the DNA "letters" into "words" consisting of three letters. These three-letter grouping, it has been established lie at the core of all life forms on earth because they spell out chemically and biologically the twenty amino acids whose chains form the proteins of which all life on Earth consists.
Just a quick response to the question regarding Moses speaking with God "face to face", but in another place being told by God "...you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."
Both statements are anthropomorphic, i.e., they ascribe human attributes to God that He doesn't literally possess. "God is spirit," Jesus says in John, chapter 4, and so--though we (and the Scriptures) often speak of the face of God or the hand of God or the eyes of the Lord, we don't do so literally. (Indeed, the repeated Old Covenant restrictions against idols affirm this very same understanding of a God who exists beyond the boundaries of representation by created things.) And in that sense, neither are we wise to understand this passage speaking of the "face of God" literally.
Does the Scriptural description of the fellowship between God and Moses in the tent of meeting literally mean they communed "face to face", i.e., physically “nose to nose”? Or does it speak expressively (rather than literally) of the depth of fellowship shared?
In like manner, was there literally a “face” of God that was not to be seen in Exodus 33, or are the Scriptures expressively declaring that Moses—certainly in his present standing as a flesh-and-blood-only human—simply would not be able to bear up to the full exposure of the whole of who God is?
In both passages, I think that the latter is the case, that (again) the language is anthropomorphic, and that understanding the descriptive, poetic language of the Scriptures as just that—with nothing more literal intended by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—eliminates any concern over supposed discrepancies and facilitates a better understanding of the passage.
Hope that helps. :)
I look at this scripture and see that it is easy to get caught up with what other people believe. Aaron got caught up in that. it is easy to do and i was part of that mess for awhile. with todays media it is very easy to get swayed from what you believe is the truth and the way! thank you Jesus for being with me and staying with me!
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