Tag Archives: Detail

“New Things Come”

February 27, 2025 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

On the eighth day Moses summoned Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel.
Leviticus 9:1 (NIV)

I have learned over almost 45 years as a disciple of Jesus that this spiritual journey as His follower is all about my transformation. It’s the gradual migration from my earthly and worldly mindset into having my mind fixed on the things of God. Treasures on earth lose their perceived value for me as spiritual treasures are considered increasingly more priceless in my mind. What I desire becomes less significant (in fact I desire things less) and what God desires of me becomes more of a priority. This is literally what Paul was writing about when he told the Corinthian believers: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

In today’s chapter, Aaron and his sons are facing an abrupt transformation. The chapter begins by describing the events as taking place on the eighth day. In yesterday’s chapter, God told Aaron and the boys to camp out at the entrance of His tent for seven days. Granted, this seems like a strange request to our logical sensibilities. Today’s events take place on the eighth day. God is using His base language of metaphor again. What does everyone know, from the very beginning of the Great Story in Genesis took place in seven days? Yep, creation. How long were the dudes camping with God? Yep, seven. It is now the eighth day. Something is new. A spiritual transformation has taken place. Something new has been created in Aaron and His sons. The dudes are now priests of the Most High God.

In today’s chapter, Aaron performs the priestly duties and sacrifices for the first time. This is new. Another thing that is abundantly clear is that Aaron performs the offerings exactly as prescribed by God through Moses. The text is painfully repetitive as it recounts Aaron’s exact actions detail for detail. In fact, it’s one of the strange things about Leviticus that drives modern readers bonkers. As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, two things came to mind.

First, I returned to the reality that these are events are taking place in the toddler stage of humanity thousands of years ago. Writing is a relatively new technology that few know and reading isn’t even a thing for the masses. Things were passed down orally and as an actor currently working on my lines for a role in a play I am reminded that repetition is the key to memorization. When toddlers watch Sesame Street they are introduced to a letter and a number and those are repeated over and over and over again in that episode. The repetition was likely helpful and necessary to the ancient Hebrews learning these detailed instructions.

Second, there is a spiritual lesson taking place even in Aaron’s exacting conformity to God’s instructions. Five hundred years or so later, the Hebrews will decide they want a king and they will choose a guy named Saul. Saul will subsequently decide that he can perform these offerings even though he’s not a son of Aaron as prescribed. Samuel tells him:

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

One of the spiritual lessons God is attempting to teach His fledgling people through this sacrificial system is the importance of obedience. The obedience is more important than the sacrifices themselves. In fact, God makes this abundantly clear in Psalm 50:

“Listen, my people, and I will speak;
    I will testify against you, Israel:
    I am God, your God.
I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices
    or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
I have no need of a bull from your stall
    or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine,
    and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
    and the insects in the fields are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
    for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats?“

At the end of the chapter, as a result of Aaron’s obedience in presenting the offerings according to the instructions, the “glory of the LORD” shows up in the form of fire. So this spiritually transformed dude who is now a priest obeys God, does as instructed, and God responds. It’s the eighth day. It is a new beginning for Aaron and the boys. Old things have passed away. New things have come.

Which is exactly what God has spiritually done in me through being joined with Christ thousands of years later. In fact, spiritually speaking that transformation includes making me a priest of the Most High God, as well (see 1 Peter 2:9).

In the quiet this morning, I find myself marveling once again at how God’s message is consistent even as He communicates it differently at different points of the Great Story, even as I communicate about these same things differently to my toddler granddaughter than I do to her adult parents.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

Order and Freedom

March 5, 2018 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.
1 Corinthians 14:40 (NIV)

Along my spiritual journey I have been a part of worship with many different traditions. I was raised in a very liturgical Methodist church, meaning that every part of the service was very structured around ancient traditions. There was a lot of repetition and it was largely the same service every week with minor differences to account for different seasons of the traditional church year. I get how repetitive religious practices lose all power of their metaphorical meaning when a) no one remembers why we’re doing it in the first place and b) there’s no Spirit connection between the repetitive words/actions and the spirits of those worshipping.

At the other end of the spectrum I spent some time in the Quaker tradition (also known as the Society of Friends) which developed out of reacting to all the liturgical structure of the traditional church. In a traditional Quaker service (even their anti-liturgy style becomes its own form of “tradition”) there is little or no structure. Everyone sits in a circle and is quiet (they call it “centering”) until someone feels moved by the Spirit to speak or to sing or to do whatever. Anyone can do so and can say pretty much whatever it is they want to say. The original intent was that everyone would wait for Holy Spirit to prompt them and to be loving and mindful of everyone else in the group. It’s a beautiful idea, but eventually things were so unstructured that there were problems with things in many Quaker churches becoming what would be described by some as a chaotic free-for-all.

I have come to understand that we as human beings like and need a certain amount of structure and order. I think this is part of us being made “in the image” of our Creator. If you stop to think about it, everything in creation has a certain detailed structure and order to it. This is the way God made it. Even the seemingly chaotic tangle of bare tree branches is actually an orderly visual fractal. At the same time, you can get so lost in the order that you, as we say, “lose the forest for the trees.” I’ve come to believe that corporate worship is another example of truth being found at the point of tension between the extremes.

Along my chapter-a-day journey through Paul’s letter to the believers in Corinth, I find there is no doubt that their local gathering was rapidly moving along the disordered chaos side of the spectrum. Paul points this out multiple times. There had been a breakdown to the point that Paul even says their weekly gatherings to worship were doing “more harm than good” (11:17).

In context, I find today’s chapter to be about Paul trying to reestablish some order and structure to the chaos in Corinthian worship. He’s trying to pull them back from their chaotic free-for-alls. Paul hints that they’d come to resemble a pagan food orgy (11:20-22), and the chapter reads like an instruction manual for bring some semblance of structure and order to the Corinthian gatherings. He sums it up by saying “everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.”

This morning I’m thinking about differences, even in our human personalities. Some of us tend toward the side of “free spirit” in which we go with the flow. As such, it’s easy for us to get little accomplished and to create chaos around ourselves that becomes counterproductive. Some of us tend toward the side of detail and order. As such, it’s easy for us to major on the minors and to create rigidity that becomes counterproductive.

In the quiet this morning I once again find myself seeking balance: freedom with ordered structure; order with room for movement of Spirit and expression.

Chapter-a-Day

Left-Brain Development in a Right-Brain Dude

October 19, 2017 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

When Moses entered the tent of meeting to speak with the Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim above the atonement cover on the ark of the covenant law. In this way the Lord spoke to him.
Numbers 7:89 (NIV)

Confession time this morning. I am an organized wannabe. My whole life I have had a desire for my life to be organized, measured, well-structured and disciplined. In that effort I’ve dabbled in Day-timer, Day-keeper, Seven Habits, Scan Cards, pocket calendars, Palm Pilots, Outlook, and you-name-the-organizational-big-name-fad-gadget-system-of-the-moment-here.

My right brain always betrays me. Just ask my wife, Wendy, who is a certified, card-carrying rock star of the organized world, and also sports an amazingly developed, creative right brain.

Now, in my defense, I will tell you that I’ve progressed a long way in my life journey. I’m more organized and disciplined than, perhaps, ever. My organizational discipline has grown and developed over time and it has developed in parallel with my spiritual journey. Get this: I’ve come to realize that God holds the tension between right and left brain. The Creator is the ultimate fullness of both creativity and order. God is both limitless possibility and infinite detail. The further I get in my spiritual journey of unity with the Creator, the more balanced I find my life becoming in this regard.

Let’s be honest. Today’s chapter is a slog. It’s the longest chapter in the five books known as the Torah (a.k.a. Pentateuch, Books of Moses, Law of Moses). The chapter is incredibly ordered, detailed and repetitive as it describes the pageantry of the dedication of the traveling temple tent (called the Tabernacle) that the Hebrews carried with them on their march out of Egypt and to the promised land. In orderly fashion the leader of each of the twelve Hebrew tribes brings their offering to the Tabernacle. Each tribal leader brought the same gift, listed in the same order in detail. They brought the gifts in the same order given for the organization of their marching and their encampment around the Tabernacle. Today’s chapter is a left-brain’s dream on steroids (as the right brain reaches for a bottle of five-hour energy).

I’m reminded this morning of Paul’s letter to Jesus’ followers in Corinth where he writes:

Let all things be done decently and in order.

The kicker comes at the end of today’s chapter (if you make it that far) when it reports that after the orderly pageant God’s presence and voice became manifest to Moses when he would enter the inner sanctuary of the tent before the ark of the covenant [cue: Indiana Jones Theme]. In other words, God’s power, presence, and voice came at the end of well-ordered offering and dedication.

This morning I’m reminded of the description of the Temple of Solomon (designed to replicate the basic structure of the Tabernacle tent) the we read back in 2 Kings just a few weeks ago [here’s the post]. No order. The scroll with the law of Moses had been lost for years. The Temple of God had become an unruly farmer’s market style carnival of religious idols, complete with temple prostitution. No order. No discipline. No presence.

Despite the groaning from my creative, go-with-the-flow right brain, I’ve come to acknowledge along life’s journey that detail and organization are a critical, spiritual component. There is a certain peace, power and presence of Spirit that accompanies life and worship when things are managed in a detailed, disciplined, orderly way. And so, I press on in the development of my left-brain.

Now, does anyone know where I put my phone?

Photo Friday

Decorative Details

August 28, 2015 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

Sometimes photo opportunities come from paying attention to details. While in Edinburgh this past summer I began noticing that many of the old buildings contained small decorative flourishes with a message. They were often Bible verses or a moral reminder. Once I started noticing them I began to take photos of them. Themed photos can make for fascinating collages.