After I joined the board of trustees of a Bible College, the long-term leader announced his retirement. I found myself among those tasked with searching for a new president. Together, we amassed a daunting list of qualifications. How would we find someone to fulfil such a complicated and vital role?
I wondered the same as I read God’s specifications for the tabernacle’s lampstand to be crafted of pure gold, with flower-like cups and almond flowers and six branches (Exodus 25:31-36). And the courtyard was “to have curtains of finely twisted linen, with twenty posts and twenty bronze bases and with silver hooks and bands on the posts” (27:9-10). Who could fulfil such assignments?
God answers, “I have chosen Bezalel . . . and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills . . . to engage in all kinds of crafts” (31:2-5). God also said, “I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded you” (v. 6).
Where do we turn to fill a vacant role for a high-level leader, a volunteer at church or to orchestrate an event? To the God who calls and equips His people. God laid out an ambitious design for His temple. Then He chose and equipped His people to implement it. God’s answer to His plans is God’s people.
By Elisa Morgan
REFLECT & PRAY
How have you seen God gift people to do His work? What has He equipped you to do?
Holy God, I look to You to choose and equip the people needed in my life, my church and in my place of work.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Having given Moses a series of instructions for the people of Israel, God now begins to show him how these will be carried out (see Exodus 31:1-11). Many of these commands included plans for work that must be done. God equipped the people with the appropriate skills to complete His work, and Bezalel and Oholiab were to lead much of that effort.
According to scholar John D. Barry, Bezalel’s name can be literally interpreted “in the shadow of El [God]”—another way of saying that his gifts came from God. Barry notes that El was an older name for the Supreme Being, not the name of Yah that had only recently been revealed by God to His chosen people. Similarly, Oholiab’s name means “father is my tent.” This is fitting, as he would be designing the tent of meeting (see Exodus 26). As He did with Oholiab, God also enables us to accomplish the tasks He gives us.
Tim Gustafson
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