Sabbath: Longing for More

Image © Pacific Press

Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: 1 Corinthians 10:1-11, Leviticus 4:32-35, John 1:29, Hebrews 4:1-11, Psalm 95:8-11.

Memory Text: “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Corinthians 10:6).

The Queens Museum of Art in New York, United States, houses the world’s largest architectural model of a city, depicting all of the buildings of New York. On a scale of 1:1,200 (where 2.5 centimeters or 1 inch corresponds to 33 meters or 100 feet) it covers nearly 870 square meters (9,335 square feet). It was originally completed in 1964 by 100 craftsmen who had worked for more than three years to complete the project. It has been updated to the 1990s and does not reflect the 2021 cityscape. It is an amazingly intricate and detailed copy of the original.

In the end, though, it is still just that: a copy, a model, a representation of something grander, bigger, deeper, and much more intricate than the model itself.

That’s how all models are, actually. They are not the original but function only as symbols of the originals. A model helps us grasp the essence of the original, but it can never replace it. Rather, it is there to help people better understand what the original is all about.

Scripture itself is full of miniature models of activities and institutions that all point to larger, heavenly realities. Hebrews 4 helps us discover one of these realities as it relates to the biblical question of rest.