Rose Publishing - The Tabernacle Bible Study

How can a holy God dwell among a sinful people? Thats the question the Israelites asked in the wilderness centuries ago. And its a question we still ask today.

Sin separates us from God. It damages relationships. It makes us impure, and it corrupts the life that God intends for his creation. As the Old Testament prophet Isaiah says, Its your sins that have cut you off from God (59:2 nlt ).

Yet we know from the Bible that God did live among his peopleand that he is near to us today. How can this be?

In this study of the tabernacle, youll see how everything about the tabernaclefrom the outer courtyard to the innermost sacred placepoints to this truth: Our holy Creator has chosen to dwell with his fallen creation and restore us from the brokenness that sin has caused. He has made a way for this to be possible.

Yet the tabernacle is many centuries gone. The book of Hebrews explains that the ancient things we read about in the Old Testament are only a shadow of the good things that are comingnot the realities themselves (10:1). The tabernacle pointed people toward something elseor someone else. As a shadow indicates the existence of a real object, so the tabernacle indicates that there is a real, eternal pathway to God. But unlike the ancient tabernacle activities, this way is not a set of religious practices and rituals; those can never truly save us from sin. This way is a person. Its the person who came to earth 2,000 years ago and declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).

They were Gods peoplejourneying through the wilderness, far from the only home they had known in Egypt. They had left their lives of slavery in Egypt to follow Gods promise to give them a new land, a promised land they could call home. God had shown them that he was with them and on their side when he delivered them out of Pharaohs grip. But would God still be with them as they traveled for years through the desert?

On this journey, the people doubted, they grumbled, and at times they sinned gravely. Yet God provided for their needs, both physical and spiritual. He was always with them.

As a visible, tangible reminder that he dwelt among his people wherever they went, God commanded them to build a sanctuary called a tabernacle. But this was no ordinary worship center; it was Gods holy sanctuary. Situated in the middle of their camp, the tabernacle would be a constant reminder to everyone that God dwelt among them. The people of earth could commune with the God of heaven!

Read It

Exodus 25:19

John 1:114

Exodus 26:137

Hebrews 8:113

The Key Bible Passage is the main reading for each session. The Optional Reading will take you further, through Old Testament passages about the tabernacle as well as New Testament passages about how Jesus fulfilled what the tabernacle foreshadowed.

Know It

1. From your reading in the book of Exodus, what stood out to you as significant about the tabernacle?
2. What does it mean that Jesus (the Word) made his dwelling among us (John 1:14)?
3. Imagine you were one of the ancient Israelites in the wilderness. How might you have responded when Moses said that God told him to build a special tenta sanctuary for Godin the desert?
   • Eager to get started
   • Skeptical
   • Want no part of building it
   • Ready to donate personal belongings to it
   • Willing but reluctant to participate
   • Feel grateful to God
   • Think Moses is crazy!
   • Other: ________________________

Explore It

No one knows for sure where Mt. Sinai described in Exodus is located, but the traditional site is at the southernmost end of the Sinai Peninsula where St. Catherines Monastery (shown here) was built in the sixth century ad .

The Tent of Meeting

Before the tabernacle was completed, Moses had built a similarbut much simplerstructure. It was called the tent of meeting (Exodus 33:7) because it was the place where Moses met with God to receive divine guidance as he led the people. This tent was a makeshift structure that was incorporated into the tabernacle when it was constructed. Many years later, the tabernacle itself would be incorporated into the temple built by King Solomon