… Be filled with the Spirit,
Moses comes down the mountain for the second time. He carries with him a renewed copy of the terms of the covenant between man and God. The Horeb wedding is on again, the Tabernacle therefore needs to be built to house the Tables of the Covenant and for Hashem to indwell his people. Moses is not the one to build the tabernacle, instead the Father directs him to two skilled workers whom as the Text says, are ‘filled with the Spirit’ (Exodus 35:30-35).
In contemporary charismatic circles, the infilling of the Spirit is mainly a pneumatic or emotional experience. As a result today, many a Bible teachers claim to be ‘led of the Spirit’ in their studying, spiritual walk and teaching, while at the same time they refuse to learn from the work of previous spirit-filled expositors such as the Jewish sages from which our messianic faith derives. They therefore read the Scriptures ignorantly and feed themselves with erroneous doctrinal conclusions. Over the millennia, they have redefined the understanding of the infilling of the Spirit, the indwelling of God within man, baptism, and redemption which are all Jewish concepts exhaustively expounded on in the Tanach תנך as well as in Jewish commentaries. Those people refuse to study from the knowledge of others, so instead they feed on their own errors from their own head. They are in essence the epitome of the ‘blind leading the blind’, and not only do they lead themselves into a pit but they bring others along with them.
What we are seeing in the appointment of the two Israelite workmen is that the infilling of the Spirit has more to do with divine inspiration in the understanding and application of a learned skill than with the clairvoyant-type mystic who is led by vague pneumatic feelings and tingling sensations. The Spirit-filled biblical person is a person of study, ability, and understanding. This person is knowledgeable in the complex intricacy of their skill, understands it, and is inspired (animated) by the Spirit of the Almighty in the accomplishment thereof. One can possess divine musical inspiration and love music, but if he doesn’t learn music or how to play an instrument, he will only produce dissonant noises uncomfortable to the ears. Such are the teachings of those who solely rely on inspiration without the aid of education.
What we need today is more than the empty hot air of charismatic teachings. We need instead true solid teaching based on the pragmatic and practical wisdom of the fathers of our faith. Maybe that’s what it means that in the end of time Elijah will come … to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared (Luke 1:17).
May God give us true teachers who are not full of themselves and their own errors, but teachers filled with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship (Exod. 35:31), teachers who have studied the Word of God and who acknowledge that they stand on the shoulders of others wiser than they are.