These chapters tell about the boundaries of the tribal groups. Reading the chapters is like reading documents from the hall of records at city hall…not very interesting! Yet there is something wonderful about this single verse for today. The portable temple that God’s people had set up during their travels through the wilderness to the Promised Land now comes to rest in a permanent place. For the next one hundred years, the tabernacle will be in Shiloh, about thirty-five miles north of Jerusalem.
We need something similar in our lives—a place in our homes where we sense God’s presence in a special way. For you, maybe it will be a little meditation table such as I have in my bedroom…maybe a special seating arrangement in your family room or kitchen table when you gather together to pray and talk together as a family for a time.
Here’s an idea. Cut out a star from construction paper and tape it above the door you usually use to go in and out. Like the star of the Magi that stopped and stayed over the place where Jesus was, so does this star remind you that Jesus has come to stay in your house permanently, turning it into a place of worship. Will you and your family live together in such a way that how you relate to each other becomes an act of worship to God?
Tuesdays are dedicated to the Old Testament books of history and the Hebrew “Writings.” This year in the season of Advent to Epiphany
we read Joshua and Proverbs 1—3.
These Firestarters are from a new edition of The Bible Through the Seasons being developed for families with children. For the Firestarters in the original edition, I recommend the ebook. You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or table! Check the menu options at the site for more information.
The Bible Through the Seasons 