Tag: Classroom Series

When “Seeing” Really Was “Believing”

The Copper Serpent, by Fyodor Bruni [1839]

For the Christian, there are some moments of utter beauty in the Old Testament where the atoning death and/or victorious resurrection of Jesus is prefigured with astounding clarity. The story of the bronze serpent on the pole in the wilderness is one of these vignettes. But the story doesn’t stand alone; rather, it comes at the end of a series of episodes which transpire while the Israelites are on the 40-year trek through the desert from Mt Sinai to the Plains of Moab. Those who walk a journey of faith with God sometimes say, Believing is Seeing, a play on words of the popular modern sentiment, Seeing is Believing. But for those Israelites, to see the elevated figure on the wooden apparatus really was to believe: “Yes, that is for me!”

Suggested Reading: Numbers 11-21

Lecture: The Bronze Snake in the Wilderness [43 mins]

This lecture was recorded in Apr 2016 for the Zion Evangelical Bible School in Khayelitsha, South Africa.

When you burn meat, it stinks

Burnt Offering, by Phillip Medhurst [1970]
from the Collection of Bible Illustrations, CC by-SA 3.0

In the ancient Israelite sacrificial system, God commanded the Israelites to offer burnt offerings as a “sweet-smelling aroma” to Him. Which works just fine if burning incense, like the priests did inside the tabernacle, on a specific altar for this very purpose. But that’s not what a “burnt offering” was. A burnt offering was where a cow (or some other animal) was burned with fire on the huge altar outside of the tabernacle. And when you burn meat in a fire, it doesn’t smell sweet at all. In fact, it stinks. Clearly, God has lost His marbles…or perhaps not?

Suggested Reading: Leviticus 1-7, 16, 19

Lecture: God’s Law for the Israelites [43 mins]

This lecture was recorded in Apr 2016 at the Zion Evangelical Bible School in Khayelitsha, South Africa.