I think it’s pretty clear that the 2 1/2 tribes who built the Altar as well as the many Israelites who built their mini altars and set them up in their own homes did not mean to be rebellious.
Again, in their minds, this was just a symbol and a visual testament to their faith in the one and only living God.
However, would the next generation feel the same way?
When it came time to offer up sacrifices per the commandment, instead of traveling all the way up to the Lord’s designated location for offering up sacrifices, maybe members of the next generation would say to themselves..
“Dang, it’s a long journey all the way up to Shiloh. Listen, I know the God we worship is a God of love and He knows my heart. Therefore, I can’t see why he wouldn’t accept my sincere sacrifices being offered up on this Altar here”.
I imagine that’s just the kind of thing every modern believer says to him or herself as he or she breaks the Shabbat or every time they partake of some unclean food.
“It doesn’t really matter because the Lord knows my heart anyway”.
And of course, the Christian church has the nice and convenient “Jesus did away with the Law” nonsense on their side as they gleefully break the Lord’s commands.
Here’s what we’ve got to come to terms with homies.
Correct worship of the Lord STARTS with obedience, not sincerity.
It didn’t matter that the leaders of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh were honest and sincere when they told Pinchas and his delegation that they had zero intention of worshipping at the altar or declaring allegiance to some other false god.
They never should have built that altar in the first place even if it was only a symbolic thing.
Again, I get that their motivation was born from a sincere desire to worship the Lord properly and keep their identity with the Israelites who were living in the Promised Land.
I understand their motivations were sincere and noble.
But it still didn’t matter.
Because the way they went about demonstrating their sincerity was outlawed by the Torah.
And that’s the end of the story right there man!
What they did came close to costing them their lives and lives of their families (just like what happened with Achan when he stole holy property).
Speaking about creating symbols that the Bible outlaws, think about all the symbols the Christian church has made (especially in Catholicism).
Indeed, this matter of our sincere feelings somehow overriding the Lord’s clear commands manifests itself in so many different ways.
Again, using a Biblically outlawed symbol is a sin EVEN IF it’s for a purpose different than how the Scripture says it’s prohibited.
We’ll continue this discussion the next time we meet.
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