In this study

Enter by the narrow gateHow to become good ambassadors of HeavenDid Paul say we’re not under the Law?Are we followers of Paul or of Messiah?Torah: ‘House rules’ for Heaven on Earth

“Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it.”Exodus 25:8-9 NASB

God first called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans to establish a family who would be His emissaries. From that small family, they became a commonwealth of people who God called to build Him a sanctuary so His presence could be more evident, until the coming of the Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), Who is God dwelling with man.

The “commonwealth of Israel” (Eph. 2:11–13) today is made up of “ambassadors of Messiah” (2Cor. 5:20) who help bring the world closer to Heaven.

An ambassador is expected to faithfully represent the one who sent him or her out and a good ambassador does faithfully represent his or her leader. A bad ambassador represents themselves while pretending to represent their leader and the people end up with an inaccurate understanding of the leader’s message.

When people who claim to represent the Messiah don’t represent Him accurately in their teachings and actions, they blaspheme (make nothing special — or worse) Messiah’s name (reputation) and dismantle His name among the people.

The people had debased themselves with the golden calf. What Moses and HaShem did after that was to drag them back up toward righteousness. The experience caused Moses to want to be a better ambassador of HaShem than he had been before, and he pleaded with HaShem to see His glory so he would even better understand and represent HaShem to the people (Ex. 33:18–34:9).

In the earlier Torah readings (Terumah, Tetzaveh and Ki Tisa) the instructions on how to build the Tabernacle had been presented to Moses alone. Now in Torah reading ויקהל Vayaq’hel (“and he assembled,” Exodus 35:1–38:20), Moses is presenting God’s detailed instructions directly to the children of Israel, then they respond with an abundance of gifts to build the Tabernacle.

Recall that immediately after the 10 Commandments were given, Moses immediately went up to the mountain and the people were impatient to figure out how to respond to and communicate with Him, but instead of exercising patience and waiting for further instruction, they decided to take it upon themselves to build a place for God to dwell with them. They used what they had learned in Egypt to built a golden calf to represent HaShem and tried to commune with Him that way, which was very wrong. God does not want us to worship Him the way the nations worship their false gods, which the children of Israel learned the hard way.

The purpose of the Tabernacle was to enter the presence of HaShem. The orientation of the children of Israel were en...