Free Tabernacle Model from the Old Testament

3D printable model of the Old Testament Tabernacle that Moses received at Mt. Sinai. This Sunday school activity can be done in about an hour. The tabernacle model is a scale replica of Moses' tabernacle.

Click here for the Tabernacle Model. Requires Acrobat reader.

Also included in this link are lesson plans for the wilderness journeys including Moses' plans to build the Tabernacle in the wilderness. Materials required include heavy paper, scissors, color printer.

Students will gain an appreciation for the golden furniture, candlestick, altar of incense, brazen altar and the veils of covering that were part of the tabernacle's design. Instead of simply reading the instructions from the book of Exodus, the printable model gives a students a hands-on activity for building their own take-home project.

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I want to choose a career that pleases God. What should I do?

What guidelines can you give a young believer in selecting a career?

The Cretan’s poet described them as "lazy gluttons" (JND, "slow bellies," AV) in Titus 1:12." TARGET="_blank">Titus 1:12. Christian teaching directed them to "maintain good works for necessary uses" (3:14) Weymouth Translates this, "to set a good example in following honest occupations for the supply of their necessities." Paul wanted the Thessalonian believers "to work with your own hands.., that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing" (1 Thessalonians 4:11, 12)." TARGET="_blank">1 Thessalonians 4:11, 12). Money is not the first consideration. These passages suggest some leading questions in deciding on a career.

1. Will this help my testimony?
2. Is this consistent with Christian ethics?
3. Is it honorable work (not a means to hastily acquired wealth, Proverbs 23:5)" TARGET="_blank">Proverbs 23:5)?
4. Does this career serve a necessary purpose for others?
5. Will it enable me to be financially responsible?

These questions filter through the many options and point to a broad field of choices.

The possibilities further narrow with more personal concerns.

1. Is this career a suitable use of my God-given abilities?
2. Will this allow me time for the most important priorities in my life (spiritual priorities, first)?
3. Will it limit my consistent participation in assembly life?
4. Will this enable me to win souls?
5. Do I know enough about this career to choose wisely?
6. Is this a reasonable fit with my personality?

The paramount concern is to know and do the will of God. All of these considerations are helpful only in the degree to which the believer undergirds his entire life with the sincere desire, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" (Acts 9:6)." TARGET="_blank">Acts 9:6).

D. Oliver
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In what sense is the world reconciled to God through Christ?

In what sense is the world reconciled to God (5:19)?

Reconciliation involves a change of disposition, from enmity to a right relationship. The change is based on the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Romans 5:10)." TARGET="_blank">Romans 5:10). Believers "now have received the reconciliation" (v 11, JND). God is righteous and therefore angry because of the offense resulting from man’s enmity against Him. God is gracious and therefore desirous to bring man into a right relationship with Himself. Through the cross, God in Christ has a righteous way to extend this grace to the world. Apart from the prospect of the cross, righteousness demanded that God hold mankind immediately accountable for each sin. If God immediately imputed every person’s trespasses to him, judgment would have fallen when each one committed his first sin. On the basis of Christ’s death, God holds back the wrath, while righteously offering to the world a right relationship with Himself.

God has not changed because of the cross. He remains both righteous and gracious. He has a righteous basis for extending His gracious offer to the world. Potentially, every person in the world can be brought into a right relationship with God; all can be reconciled to God. Effectively, only those who receive the word of reconciliation receive the reconciliation.

No wonder Paul was urgent with the message (v 20), and so should we be urgent! Those who reject the message and remain enemies of God will eternally endure His righteous wrath. We must "pray" them "in Christ’s stead, ‘Be ye reconciled to God.’"

D. Oliver
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Was Jesus body "broken" or "given"?

“BROKEN” OR “GIVEN”?

Is it right or wrong to say, as we find in some hymns, “Thy body broken”?

With us, some substitute the word “given,” on the ground that “broken” contravenes the prohibition, “A bone of Him shall not be broken.”

The expression in the said hymns is based on the A.V. of 1 Corinthians 11:24" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 11:24: “This is My body, which is broken for you.” Whether or not this is correct, it is difficult dogmatically to decide, but I think we are safe in refusing “given” as a substitute for “broken” in the Corinthian passage, for there is no serious manuscript authority for it, and it is only supported by three versions—the Latin Vulgate, the Egyptian and the Ethiopic, and the editor of the 4th or 5th century—_Euthalius. This reading, however, has the bulk of authority in Luke 22:19." TARGET="_blank">Luke 22:19. The choice then lies between “broken” and simply, “This is My body for you” (lit, the one on behalf of you), though one cannot help feeling that this sentence seems to need completing with some verb.

However, although some good authorities like Drs. Tregelles and Christopher Wordsworth, refuse to give up “broken,” which has a considerable body of weighty authority behind it, there seems still more authority for omitting. Then again there is the prohibition: “A bone of Him shall not be broken.” which some quote as conclusive against our reading, “broken,” as the verb in 1 Corinthians 11:24. It is perfectly true that the bread is broken, but surely this is not as a symbol of anything that occurred at the cross, but simply for purposes of distribution. It is the breaking of bread which stands for the communion or sharing of it by those participating. Whether again the breaking of the body, i.e. of the skin and flesh, as was undoubtedly the case at Calvary, might take place, without the unity of the body being compromised, is a question. It is the bones which matter, for they are the foundation of the bodily frame, and alone preserve its unity. I have sometimes wondered whether the prohibition as to breaking a bone of the Paschal lamb (Exododus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12)" TARGET="_blank">Numbers 9:12) did not mean that the carcase should preserve its entirety, the bones being not only unbroken, but unsevered. The flesh would be carved off, the bony frame remain intact. It seems as though nothing short of this would represent the unity of the Body of Christ symbolised by the Lamb. Our Lord’s prophetic words in Psalm 22:17," TARGET="_blank">Psalm 22:17, “I may tell all my bones,” no doubt refer primarily to His physical bones, but they go further to those whom He in His omniscience even then knew as His members, and as being crucified with Him. In Psalm 34:20," TARGET="_blank">Psalm 34:20, we have the assurance, “He keepeth all His bones, not one of them is broken”— where “broken” might well bear the sense of “severed.” In the next Psalm we have the testimony of each and all of these “bones”—”All My bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto Thee, which deliverest the poor from Him that is too strong for him” (v. 10).

Our conclusion must be on the whole that while “given” is doctrinally correct (Luke 22. 19)," TARGET="_blank">Luke 22. 19), it cannot be upheld by the textual authorities of the Corinthian passage as what Paul wrote by the Spirit. As for “broken,” though well supported, it certainly has the general understanding of the prohibition of John 19:36" TARGET="_blank">John 19:36 against it, as well as the larger bulk of manuscript authority. I think we are safer then in accepting with the R.V. the version of the words in question as, “This is My body, which is for you,” though we may not be able to do so with absolute conviction.

W.H.

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Is Christ a mixture of man and God?

Had the Lord Jesus Christ, a spirit, a soul, and a body, as a perfect Man, together with, yet different from, His being God?

This is no unnecessary matter for consideration, for not only is the Deity of Christ attacked to-day, but also His true Humanity, and that in circles where one might hope for better things. This arises partly from ignoring the labours of God’s servants in the past, especially in the first centuries of the Christian era, which we cannot afford to do. God overruled the early attacks on the Person of His beloved Son to consolidate and define the truths of His Deity and Humanity, and we owe a debt of gratitude to those whom He raised up to “contend earnestly for the faith.”

One truth which emerged as Scriptural from these conflicts was what is known as the “Hypostatical Union,” that is the union in the Lord Jesus Christ of two whole and perfect natures, the Divine and the Human, in equal relation with One Divine Person, the Eternal Son of God, of one substance with the Father. We cannot penetrate this mystery for “No man knoweth the Son but the Father;” we believe what is written. However, even the Arian heresy of the 4th century turned to the furtherance of the truth. The Arians taught the quasi-Godhead and quasi-Manhood of Christ. For them He was neither perfect God, nor true man, but something less than the former and more than the latter; and the spiritual element in His manhood (i.e., the spirit and soul) was replaced by His imperfect Godhead. The Arian controversy was a matter of life and death. Anus was a popular soft-spoken man and exercised a notable influence, as such men do to-day. However, the truth prevailed, and the Godhead of Christ, of the same substance as the Father, was established on a firm Scriptural basis, but His Manhood remained undefined.

It was the heresy of Apollinarius of Laodica (in Syria), an earnest opponent of Anus, that led to this. He taught that in the manhood of Christ the rational soul was lacking, and was replaced by the Godhead. This is virtually the error taught in some circles to-day. It was proved to be entirely unsatisfactory and unscriptural. If Christ were truly man, He must have been in possession of all that constitutes complete humanity—spirit, soul, body, will, etc. Indeed, His own words testify to this: “This is My body”; “My soui is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death”; “Father . . . not as I will, but as Thou wilt”; “Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit.” (Matthew 26:26, 38, 39;" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 26:26, 38, 39; Luke 23:46)." TARGET="_blank">Luke 23:46). Thus the words, “The Word became flesh”, imply something much more than that a Divine Person took a body, which might have meant little more than a Theophany of the Old Testament, but rather that He entered into manhood, that He became incarnate as truly “born of a woman,” a virgin, with all that perfect unfallen humanity implies. He was not less man, because sinless; not less experienced in human joys, sorrows, affections, weariness, hunger, pain, because truly God; not less capable of death, because not liable to death.

He was, moreover, not a dual Personality, as Nestorius of Constantinople taught (430 A.D.), but one Divine Person, in equal relation with His dual natures. As man, He is able in all points to sympathise with His people’s infirmities; as God, He is able to succour them.

W.H.

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How to link to the Online Bible at Gospel Hall dot Org

GospelHall dot Org provides a free online Bible search service at http://www.gospelhall.org/bible You can use the Online Bible from your own web pages by linking directly to the search result pages. Once you learn how to set up these links you will be able to link Scripture references directly to matching passages and search items directly to search results.

Creating a Basic Link

An example of a basic link to the Online Bible.

<a href="http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php" mce_href="http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php">Read the Bible Online. Click here.</a>

Creating a link to a specific passage

An example of a link to a specific scripture.

<a href="http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?passage=Genesis 1:1-5" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 1:1-5">Read Genesis 1:1-5" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 1:1-5</a>

You may substitute your own choice of scripture instead of "Genesis 1:1-5" Here are some examples

Single verse <a href="http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?passage=John 3:16" TARGET="_blank">John 3:16 ">For God so loved the world...</a>
Entire chapter <a href="http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?passage=Luke 19" TARGET="_blank">Luke 19 ">Read Luke 19" TARGET="_blank">Luke 19 online</a>
Range of verses <a href="http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?passage=John 3:1-16" TARGET="_blank">John 3:1-16 ">Conversation in John chapter 3</a>

Creating a link to a specific Bible version

A link to a specific scripture looks like this. Specify the Bible version with the parameter &ver1=

You may choose the following versions of the Bible. If you do not specify a Bible version, the default choice will be KJV.

<a href="http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?passage=Genesis 1:1-5" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 1:1-5&ver1=kjv">Read Genesis 1:1-5" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 1:1-5 in the King James Version</a>

KJV - King James Version
ASV - American Standard Version
BBE - The Bible in Basic English
DBY - John Nelson Darby Translation
ESV - English Standard Version
GFR - Gospels for Readers (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John only)
WEB - World English Bible
YLT - Young's Literal Translation

Creating a link to two Bible versions

Specify the second Bible version with the parameter &ver2= Use the list of abbreviation above.

<a href="http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?passage=Genesis 1:1-5" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 1:1-5&ver1=kjv&ver2=bbe">Read Genesis 1:1-5" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 1:1-5 in the King James Version and the Bible in Basic English.</a>

Create a link to a search phrase

An example search for phrase "heaven hell" in King James Version

<a href="http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?search=heaven+hell">Search for the words "Heaven Hell" in the King James Version </a>

Commentary Explanations

An example of how to display commentary explanations of the passage.

<a href="http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?passage=Genesis 1" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 1&commentary=jamison">Display Genesis chapter 1 and the Jamison Commentary</a>

You may use the following commentaries. Not all commentaries contain information for every verse, but all of the commentaries have comments for the first verse of every chapter in the New Testament.

commentary=jamison
commentary=barnes
commentary=darby
commentary=kelly
commentary=robertson

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Should we pray to the Son or only to the Father?

Is it scriptural to teach that when we come together to remember the Lord, our worship should be directed to the Father only, and that even hymns addressed to the Lord Jesus should not be sung?

Our Lord when censuring certain leaders in Matthew 15:9," TARGET="_blank">Matthew 15:9, applied to them the words of God through Isaiah, “In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” And there are many rules being laid down in connection with worship to-day, regarding which the last clause of this quotation might fittingly be used; since they are nothing else than “the commandments of men.”

Of such the teaching referred to in the question is a typical example; for there is no command whatever in the Word of God to the effect that the Son should be excluded from worship. On the other hand, there is the statement that “All men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father”; and also many examples of worship directed to Christ, such as Hebrews 1:6;" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 1:6; Matthew 2:11;" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 2:11; Matthew 28:9,17;" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 28:9,17; Luke 24:52," TARGET="_blank">Luke 24:52, etc.

If it be objected that none of these examples has reference to a breaking of bread meeting, we ask the objector to point out where in the Scriptures is the word “worship” at all used in connection with such a meeting? It will then be possible to consider what special limitation, if any, is placed on our worship in that connection.

W.R.

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In 2 Corinthians 8:23, does "the glory of Christ" refer to the assemblies or the messengers?

In 2 Corinthians 8:23," TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 8:23, does "the glory of Christ" refer to the assemblies or the messengers?

"Whether ... our brethren be enquired of, they are the messengers of the churches, and the glory of Christ." If the words are translated literally, these brothers were "apostles of churches, glory of Christ." Mr. Darby therefore translates, "deputed messengers of assemblies, Christ's glory." This suggests the lovely thought that assemblies in some unique sense express Christ's glory. This is consistent with the truth of many New Testament passages. The glory of His headship (1 Corinthians 11:3)," TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 11:3), Lordship (1 Corinthians 12:3)," TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 12:3), and sacrifice (1 Corinthians 11:26)" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 11:26) are among the honors that belong to Christ and are uniquely displayed in the assembly. In fact, every detail of the design of the assembly "says, 'Glory"' (Psalm 29:9," TARGET="_blank">Psalm 29:9, NASB).

The more general consensus of translators, however, is that these men who accompanied Titus were honorable men, expressing the glory of Christ. Nameless, they carried a financial gift to Jerusalem, having been sent by the churches for this purpose (in this sense, they were -apostles," sent ones). They set the standard for all who serve God's people in whatever capacity; they expressed the glory of Christ. Since the context is the commendation of these men, this is more likely the meaning of the passage.

D. Oliver
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Can a person be put away for "domestic railing"?

Can a person be put away for "domestic railing"?

It seems highly unlikely that railing against a child would require excommunication. Spousal railing that requires excommunication would be an extreme, but possible case. If all else fails, it may be necessary, but "the more excellent way" would be to deal with the problem at its roots. As frustrating as godly teachers and guides may find it, their spiritual intervention is a first responsibility. The grace that brought salvation to all men taught Cretans to live above their native culture (Titus 2:11, 12)." TARGET="_blank">Titus 2:11, 12). Hours of opening the Scriptures in the home, applying the lessons of grace, and being physically present will have a preventative affect on patterns of verbal and physical abuse. Better than that, as this promotes a believer’s ever-so-gradual growth in grace, the transforming power of the indwelling Spirit changes hearts and homes. The behavior patterns that come from being abused or from abusive models and years of captivity to sin don’t all vanish at conversion or in the first year after. The Lord has brought the "half-dead" to the assembly to receive care (Luke 10:34, 35;" TARGET="_blank">Luke 10:34, 35; 1 Tim. 3:5)." TARGET="_blank">1 Tim. 3:5). How much better when healthful words (Titus 2:1)" TARGET="_blank">Titus 2:1) nurse them to abundant life within the assembly, rather than having to carry their sick bed back out to the side of the road where they (and we) once were!

D. Oliver
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Should young Christian families use TV and videos as a baby sitter?

Should young Christian families use TV and videos as a baby sitter?

With television about as common in the home as electricity and running water, suggesting that children grow up without it sounds hopelessly archaic. Nevertheless, "mine eye affecteth my heart" (Lamentations 3:51)" TARGET="_blank">Lamentations 3:51) expresses a principle. Even if parents were to effectively control the programming, the blatant materialism, violence, and suggestiveness of the advertising is detrimental. Television offers some valuable content. Its liabilities seem to outweigh its value.

While videos can likewise be harmful, they offer valuable content. With appropriate choices, parents can provide historical, scientific, geographic, and spiritual material through videos.

None of this, however, is a substitute for the value of a developing relationship between the child and his parents. Solomon remembers and values his personal relationship with both his mother and father in Proverbs 4:3." TARGET="_blank">Proverbs 4:3. To habitually fill a child’s hours with a replacement for parenting is misguided. The parental relationship is especially important for a young child; it’s the foundation for the teen years.

D. Oliver
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How to link to the Online Bible at Gospel Hall dot Org

Creating a Basic Link

Creating a link to a specific passage

Creating a link to a specific Bible version

Creating a link to two Bible versions

Create a link to a search phrase

Commentary Explanations