Surely temple

As those in my Bible Study are blatantly aware, I'm still working out how to best move from the Old Testament to the New. However this failure to work it out for myself hasn't stopped me from trying to teach it to my student leaders on campus as we look at Exodus this semester. One of the problems is the options open to us.

Where should we go in the New Testament when we are studying the laws given in Exodus 24-31, regarding the making of the house of the LORD. I can think of six different options off the top of my head.

1. John 1:14 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (lit. tabernacled)

2. Ephesians 2:21 where the body of Christ is being built into the temple of Lord, which is often associated here and elsewhere with holiness

3. Revelation with the place of the temple in the new creation

4. Hebrews 10:19ff which discusses the access to God (confidence to enter the holy places) through Jesus.

5. Acts 7 and Stephen's speech encouraging the people that God could never be contained in a house and therefore the centre of Christianity was not the temple.

6. The Gospels and Jesus speaking of his body as the temple which would be destroyed and raised again.

So to which of these should we go? I'm still not certain.

My conclusion to the student leaders was there are some NT passages which more accurately reflect the emphasis in Exodus. For example with Exodus 24-31, my preference would be to take people to Hebrews, because the distance and barriers that need to be set up to enable God to dwell with his people is very thematically strong in both passages. Whereas when these laws are reiterated and restated as the commands are followed in Exodus 35-40 and God's glory fills the tabernacle, I would go to John 1. While there is much room for freedom of choice, if we ask first what is the emphasis within Exodus, we are less likely to go to our hobby horses. That is, for anyone with a temple hobby horse.