Pure Gold

             Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it. (Exodus 25:11)

 

See also Exodus 25: 17, 24, 29, 31,36,38, 39; Exodus 28:14, 22, 36; Exodus 30: 3, 35, 35; Exodus31:8, and Exodus 37:2, 6, 11,16, 17,22,23, 24, 26, and 29. If you read on through the rest of Exodus and Leviticus, there are more references there. Quite simply, whenever gold was used in the construction of the Tabernacle or the Temple, pure gold was the rule. The Jews were not to mix silver, copper, zinc, nickel, palladium, cobalt, or anything else with the gold. Doing so would probably have made the gold, which is a soft metal, stronger, harder, and possibly less expensive, but if anything is clear anywhere in Scripture, it’s clear that just any old gold was not acceptable.

The Jews had to find and refine it, or buy it, and either way, it would be an expensive process. Nothing was to be done to cheapen it. As I think about purity again, this is something to consider. What is pure costs more and takes more work. Effort must be made to keep everything else out of it. When we go through hard times, we sometimes talk about being purified by going through the fire.

I’m not going to say that we should seek the greatest level of pain we can find. This isn’t about pain but about purity. I’m not even sure how to say it. But what if God were willing to do what He does for us without allowing anything (on His end) to cheapen it? And what if our focus was on being to God, to others, or to ourselves our best selves, or our best effort - even going “above and beyond” to make sure that nothing cheapened it?