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Unpacking a phrase I hate and why our kids need better and
Loading up 3 scripts for how that idea might sound to a kid
Let’s dive in!
This past Sunday, as I preached on the Tabernacle, I was reminded again of a phrase that, while categorically untrue, persists in Christian subculture nonetheless.
The Tabernacle takes up a massive chunk of Scriptural real estate, from Exodus 25-31 and 35-40. If you were to read the whole section, you would find an extreme level of detail devoted to the construction of this tent for worship. It’s no simple outdoor canopy with twinkle lights. This mobile worship space was ornate, lavish, excessive even in its design and decor.
And its purpose is the guaranteed presence of God.
Which brings us back to the phrase. Have you heard it?
A holy God cannot be in the presence of sin.
This one lie had maimed the telling of God’s story to kids for so long. Because it becomes a lens through which a person reads the whole of the Bible, an assumption about God’s character and capacity.
It’s why Adam and Eve are sent out from the Garden.
It’s why God appears as fire and cloud, obscured.
It’s why God the Father forsook Jesus at the cross.
Except it’s not. Because it’s not even slightly the truth. And it’s not helpful in reading any of those three example stories well.
Because God comes to the people in the Garden after their choice to eat, God protects them as they go from the Garden (and sending them out is protective), then God comes to their children in the very next chapter.
And the fire and cloud are assurance of presence, not barriers to it.
And God did not forsake Jesus at the cross. Jesus quotes the psalmist in that cry, grabbing a line that represents his anguish and his expectation for vindication and justice from the God who will see him.
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