God's Interactions- Day Seven of the 90-day Bible read-through; Exodus 30- Leviticus 3 God directs those whom He has gifted with talents to build, mold, and shape what will be needed in the construction of the tabernacle and the furniture necessary to identify His holy people as His Nation. He not only gifted individuals, but he required offerings from everyone.
In Exodus 30:11-16, we see God set up the offering for the Tabernacle to reveal that He is not a respecter of persons. It says, "Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 12 “When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them. 13 This is what everyone among those who are numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (a shekel is twenty gerahs). The half-shekel shall be an offering to the Lord. 14 Everyone, including those who are numbered twenty years old and above, shall give an offering to the Lord. 15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when you give an offering to the Lord, to make atonement for yourselves. 16 And you shall take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of meeting, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord, to make atonement for yourselves.”
The nature of the ransom was such that "the rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than the half shekel, when you give the contribution to the Lord to make atonement for yourselves." The ransom was the same for both the rich and the poor. The LORD is no respecter of persons. A rich person does not have an advantage when it comes to their standing before the LORD. The poor don't get to claim victimhood. Here, everyone had an equal amount to pay for ransoming their lives. This is symbolic in that the redemption price is the same for all people. This was a requirement for Israel, prior to Christ, no different than the responsibility of circumcision, which was a necessity to be identified with God as His national people.
The same thing is asserted today with our redemption: everyone who joins the family of God comes through the price paid by Jesus for all. No one comes differently; all of us are required to repent, believe, deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow Him. There is a visible identity associated with Christianity, the same as with Israel; each person came to the Tabernacle to identify as a citizen in God's Kingdom, through the price each one paid, the same for all. The Scripture speaks of visible identification as those in The Kingdom of God; with all diligence, we apply faith, and then we add moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly-kindness, and love. Those are the offerings we bring, rich or poor, because God is not a respecter of people.
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