Exodus 24-28

God tells Moses, Aaron and some other important menfolk to come up unto him. Moses will have a one-on-one and the others will keep their distance. This is an essential part of making shit up. The make-believe conversations you're having with God can't be witnessed by anyone else.

Moses builds an altar, burns a few oxen and sprinkles blood around. Standard altar stuff you probably do at home. Then he spends 40 days and 40 nights with God on Mt. Sinai. God gives Moses directions for building a tabernacle, the good old ark of the covenant. I need to watch Indiana Jones again to see how he fits into this whole story. God goes into excruciating detail about how to build the ark. It's made of shittim wood with gold overlay, three branches of the candlestick, and tongs thereof. There are purple, blue and scarlet curtains of linen. There are cherubims, fifty hooks of gold, forty sockets of silver. There are brass rods, more shittim wood, cubits of this, and cubits of that. The detail is mind numbing.

Aaron and his sons become ordained ministers which appears to mostly involve wearing the right garments, including a breastplate, an ephod, a robe, a broidered coat, a mitre and a girdle. You must bedazzle your ephod with sardius, topaz, carbuncle, emerald, sapphire, diamond, ligure, agate, amethyst, beryl, onax, jasper and gold. Beneath the hem of the garment you are to put a bell and a pomegranate. I couldn't make this up, folks. Aaron's sons wear linen breeches to cover their nakedness. They also don bonnets and girdles. I guess the fancy boys like a little role play. Things can get a little dull trekking across the desert.

The whole idea is for Aaron and company to be dressed in a suitably holy way when they are at the altar. This brings us to Chapter 29 and the subject of how to minister. I was going to include that in this post but I just don't have it in me to trudge through another overly detailed chapter tonight. Soon though - stay tuned for more fun and godly learning with Moses and the gang.