Daily Scripture Reading Numbers 7:66-89
Mark was the kind of man other Christians pointed to when they talked about generosity. He had built a beautiful house on five acres just outside the city. It wasn’t flashy in a showy way. Instead, it was solid and lovely. It had stone, cedar, a chef’s kitchen with a six-burner range, a great room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the pond, and a master suite that felt like a high-end hotel. The total came to just over $1.1 million, including the landscaping and the detached three-car garage with a workshop. He never bragged about it. He just said, “God has been good to our family.”
Every year he and his wife took two big trips: one to Europe or the Caribbean, and one with the kids to Disney or the mountains. They ate out often, belonged to a nice country club for the golf and the networking, and enrolled their kids in good private schools and sports leagues. Mark’s entertainment budget alone was larger than most families’ entire annual income.
Mark was also known for giving. Every month he sent checks to three different mission organizations. He sponsored two children through Compassion, funded a well in Uganda through his small group, and quietly covered the rent for a single mom at church when she lost her job. When the offering plate came around on Sunday, he gave generously. People respected him for it.
Then the church decided it was time to build a new building. The little white building they had met in for thirty years was bursting at the seams. They were running two services, the nursery was in the fellowship hall, and the youth met in a rented space down the road. The elders formed a building committee and asked Mark to serve as the chairman because he understood money.
At the first meeting, Mark laid out his position clearly. “I think we should keep this as simple and inexpensive as possible,” he said, sliding a printout across the table. “We should build a basic metal building with a concrete slab, some classrooms, a fellowship hall, offices, and a sanctuary that seats four hundred. We don’t need anything fancy. We can probably do the whole thing for under $1.8 million if we go with the right contractor. That way the vast majority of what people give to the church can still go straight to missions and outreach.”
Mark’s mentality is very common in modern evangelicalism. We spend a lot of money on ourselves. We believe it is better to spend as much money on missions and charity as possible. But when it comes to building a church building, many Christians want to spend as little as possible. In other words, we are willing to spend money on ourselves and other people, but we are not willing to spend enough money to create a church building that communicates the glory and grandeur of our God.
The seventh chapter of Numbers describes a series of offerings which were brought to the altar at the dedication of the altar. Beginning with Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, the leader of the tribe of Judah, each day for twelve days a leader from one of the tribes brought an offering. Each leader brought an identical offering. These offerings were not for the poor. They were for Yahweh. When we consider the value of the offerings they brought to Yahweh, we should reconsider our mentality about how much money we are willing to spend to honor Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Num. 7:66 ¶ On the tenth day it was Ahiezer the son of Ammishaddai, leader of the sons of Dan;
Num. 7:67 his offering was one silver dish whose weight was 130 shekels, one silver bowl of 70 shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;
Num. 7:68 one gold pan of 10 shekels, full of incense;
Num. 7:69 one bull from the herd, one ram, one male lamb one year old, for a burnt offering;
Num. 7:70 one male goat for a sin offering;
Num. 7:71 and for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five male goats, five male lambs one year old. This was the offering of Ahiezer the son of Ammishaddai.
The modern-day value of all the items that were brought by Ahiezer on the tenth day is around $35,000. Again, this was just one of twelve gifts that were brought at the dedication of the altar.
Num. 7:72 ¶ On the eleventh day it was Pagiel the son of Ochran, leader of the sons of Asher;
Num. 7:73 his offering was one silver dish whose weight was 130 shekels, one silver bowl of 70 shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;
Num. 7:74 one gold pan of 10 shekels, full of incense;
Num. 7:75 one bull from the herd, one ram, one male lamb one year old, for a burnt offering;
Num. 7:76 one male goat for a sin offering;
Num. 7:77 and for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five male goats, five male lambs one year old. This was the offering of Pagiel the son of Ochran.
Num. 7:78 ¶ On the twelfth day it was Ahira the son of Enan, leader of the sons of Naphtali;
Num. 7:79 his offering was one silver dish whose weight was 130 shekels, one silver bowl of 70 shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering;
Num. 7:80 one gold pan of 10 shekels, full of incense;
Num. 7:81 one bull from the herd, one ram, one male lamb one year old, for a burnt offering;
Num. 7:82 one male goat for a sin offering;
Num. 7:83 and for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five male goats, five male lambs one year old. This was the offering of Ahira the son of Enan.
Num. 7:84 ¶ This was the dedication offering for the altar from the leaders of Israel when it was anointed: twelve silver dishes, twelve silver bowls, twelve gold pans,
Num. 7:85 each silver dish weighing 130 shekels and each bowl 70; all the silver of the utensils was 2,400 shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary;
Num. 7:86 the twelve gold pans, full of incense, weighing 10 shekels apiece, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, all the gold of the pans 120 shekels;
Num. 7:87 all the oxen for the burnt offering twelve bulls, all the rams twelve, the male lambs one year old with their grain offering twelve, and the male goats for a sin offering twelve;
Num. 7:88 and all the oxen for the sacrifice of peace offerings 24 bulls, all the rams 60, the male goats 60, the male lambs one year old 60. This was the dedication offering for the altar after it was anointed.
Verses 84-88 list the total of all the items that were brought across the twelve days. The modern-day value of all these items is around $420,000.
Num. 7:89 ¶ Now when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with Him, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim, so He spoke to him.
It is very common for modern Christians to build cheap church buildings because we want to save as much money as possible for missions and the poor. However, first and foremost, we are servants of Jesus. Just as the Israelites sacrificed a great amount of wealth in order to honor Yahweh, so too perhaps we should be willing to build church buildings that communicate the glory and majesty of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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“Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com.”