Exodus 30-31
Dear RTB’ers,
A number of topics today. I’m struck at God’s naming of two people, Bezalel and Oholiab, as skilled craftsmen to be put in charge of all the detail work on the tabernacle and its contents. Occasionally we sing “He knows My Name” and we believe it, but it’s quite another for God to have named these two men from among the 600,000 at Sinai and charged them with a task for which He had supremely fitted them. But it’s no different for us – except that billions of people will not be reading about us thousands of years from now. But God has specifically gifted each and every one of us to tasks for which He has called us. Nine years retired and 76 years old and I still own the gift of teaching that God gave me years ago. Each of us should regularly name our gifts and thank God for them and for His using us as He will.
Carol and I attended the Diocesan Synod last November. Very near the end of the Synod a speaker made an announcement that vials of anointing oil were available to be picked up by clergy or their appointed laity. Reading today the specific requirements for the mixing of the Sinai anointing oil, I wonder back whether today’s anointing oil is the exact same mixture as those thousands of years ago. I’m betting that it is! And for the incense… An interesting story down the road.
Blessings!
See also: January 26 (2023) / Exodus 29-31
And I would bet that the anointing oil used by Christian clergy does not follow the formula given in Exodus 30:23-25, because Exodus 30:32-33 explicitly forbids that. The Church uses blessed pure olive oil for anointing the sick and at baptisms. We use olive oil with balsam for ordination of clergy.