Today’s Scripture Reading (August 3,
2015): Exodus 29
The
Bilderberg Group is an annual private conference that includes 120-150 of the
world’s most significant thinkers and politicians from Europe and North America
(the most recent one took place in Austria in June 2015.) The purpose of the
Bilderberg Group is vague, and that combined with the secret nature of the
group has left the group open to criticism from all sides. And one of the
conspiracy theories that the secrecy has generated is that the Bilderberg Group
is all about world domination – or at the very least the determination of the
way the world works that has been designed by a very small group of people. The
Group has not denied this goal, although they obviously don’t believe that the
goal of a one world government has anything sinister in its nature. Denis Healey,
a British Politician and one of the original founders of the group, said: "To
say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly
unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one
another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we
felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."
But it is the secrecy of the group that seems to be the
real asset – and the problem. Because it is private, what is said in the
meetings stays in the meetings – anyone can say anything without it impacting
their careers. But on the other hand, because it is private, those outside the
meeting can only guess at what is happening on the inside – and therefore the
ever present conspiracy theories that surround the group begin.
It would seem that the place of meeting for Israel was
designed for the reverse process. Israel stands alone as a faith that has
demanded a daily sacrifice (in modern times this might be compared to daily
devotions with God.) Daily a sacrifice was to be burned at the entrance of the
house of meeting – a ritual that Israel actually followed, except for times of
extreme apostasy, as long as a temple in Jerusalem was standing. The last daily
sacrifice was offered in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E., just before the Temple
was destroyed by the Romans.
But all of this is not just to fulfill the worship
requirements of God. And it is also not an effort designed to create an
equipped labor force to carry out the work of God in the world. The daily
sacrifices were designed to create a people who were willing and prepared to be
in conversation with their God. There were to be no secrets, God wanted to be
in a daily dialog with his people. There may have been places where the people
were not allowed to go, but they were to have a clear understanding of what was
happening – even behind the closed doors of the Tabernacle and the Temple. The
work of God was a public work.
And it continues to be a public work. Secrets have always
been deadly to the church. There are times when we need to maintain confidences
and protect people – but the work of God is a public work, after all, it was
the public world into which God sent his son.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus
30
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