Fashion and Christian Identity: Tabernacle and Temple

It's "Fashion Week" here at Renewing Your Mind!  There will be a series of six posts this week on "Fashion & Christian Identity".  Introduction, Modesty & Our Bodies, The Purpose of Our Bodies, Tabernacle & Temple

And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them.  --Exodus 25:8

So much of the tabernacle is overlayed or completely made with pure gold.  It is to smell nice with incense (25:29).  There is a gold lampstand whose shaft and base is made of hammered work, there are cups shaped like almond blossoms.  The curtains are made of “fine twisted linen and blue, purple, and crimson yarns” (26:1), there is silver and acacia wood and gold.  There is a screen made with the same twisted linen and colored yarns, and it is “embroidered with needlework” (27:16).  The priests who are to serve here are are to have vestments made of “gold, blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and fine linen” and an ephod with a decorated band of the “same workmanship and materials” (28:8).

Much later, after Israel has been settled and has established a monarchy and centralized worship, King Solomon builds the Temple.  It was created of stone, cedar, and cypress (1 Kings 6:7,9,15,18).  It “had carvings of gourds and open flowers” (1 Kins 6:18), and the inner sanctuary was “overlaid with pure gold” while the altar was overlaid with cedar (1 Kings 6:20).  The inside of the house was also overlaid with pure gold, and chains of gold were draped across.  We then read that Solomon “overlaid the whole house with gold, in order that the whole house might be perfect” (1 Kings 6:22).  There were cherubim of olivewood that were also overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6:23, 28).  Even the floor was overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6:30).  The doors to the inner sanctuary were made of “olivewood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers” (1 Kings 6:32).  These also were overlaid with...you guessed it...gold.

This temple took seven years to build (1 Kings 6:38).

And some men think that women take too long getting ready.

The tabernacle and temple, these places where God was to dwell, were not “modest”; they were not to be hidden away or kept utilitarian, but they were to be celebrated and decorated.

The sacrifices that those priests offered in the temple were to be perfect.  The people were supposed to give the best.  So not only are Christian bodies to be a temple, and not only are Christians to be priests of the temple, the Christian is also to keep in mind that one’s body is to be presented to God as a living sacrifice.  So a Christian is to go through life keeping his or her body as presentable to God.

The dwelling place of God and those that serve it are to be beautifully decorated, as works of art.

To Be Continued...