There were 48 boards in the walls of the Tabernacle. You can read about the boards in Exodus 26. The boards were made of shittim wood. This wood is a very enduring wood.

There were corner boards. These boards are probably representative of Christ. These boards gave the framework for the rest of the walls. In the New Testament, Christ is referred to as the chief cornerstone that was used to give the framework for buildings of the first century.

The rest of the boards may represent the church. Shittim wood (acacia wood) came from small, thorny trees. It required a lot of patient work to prepare the wood for use. It required removing the thorns, hewing and smoothing the wood. Then many pieces would have to be fit together to make a board. Each one of us must undergo removal of spiritual thorns and must be polished to be of proper use in the church.

The boards were covered with gold. The gold was pure and represents Christians being covered by Christ. Pure gold had been tried in the fire. We cannot appear pure in the sight of God without the covering we get through Christ.

There were five bars that held the boards together. It is interesting that one of them ran through the middle of the boards. The others were on the outside of the boards. These bars may very well represent the One God and Father (Ephesians 4:6). He is said to be above all, through all and in us all. Unless we are bound together by the One True God, the church will fall apart and be useless.

The boards were held up by fitting into sockets made of silver. These formed the foundation for the walls. Christ is the foundation for the church (1 Corinthians 3:11). When the boards were small trees, they were rooted in the ground of this world. But as boards in the Tabernacle, they no longer were in this world, but were held up by the sockets. When we become Christians, we are no longer to get our spiritual nourishment from this world. We stand on Christ.

The boards of the Tabernacle are another wonderful picture of the church and Christ. Keep reading your Bible to learn all you can about our Great God. And if any of this is hard to understand, ask an adult to help you.

For some time, Jesus had been going to the synagogue once a week on the Sabbath. Now he was old enough to go every morning with the other boys of Nazareth. Inside the low, flat building, on this first day of school, he could look around as he could not do during the services on the Sabbath.

At the east side of the building there was a little alcove in the wall called an "ark." Inside the ark were the scrolls on which were written the first five books of the Bible. Jesus had seen the rabbi on Sabbath days go to the ark and carefully take out a scroll. He would then stand on the platform in front of the ark, and read the scroll which he had placed on a reading desk. As Jesus looked around, he saw the balcony where his mother sat on Sabbath days with the other women. The women were not allowed to sit with the men.

Now it was time for school to start. The rabbi came in and the boys sat on the floor. He taught them lessons from the scroll, which they learned by repeating them out loud. They wrote with sticks called styli on waxed tablets.

When school was over, Jesus hurried home to tell his mother and father all about the things he had seen and heard. This is not from the Bible, but it is very possibly the way it was for Jesus his first day at school at the synagogue. This is the way that young boys were taught at the time Jesus lived. You can find two of the laws which Jesus learned in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18.

We know that Jesus studied, learned and applied all that he learned. This is how he was able at the age of twelve to ask very difficult questions in the Temple and to give very good answers. He also was subject to his parents (Luke 2:51).

Keep reading and studying your Bible. Follow the example of Jesus and learn as much as you can from God's Word. And if any of this is hard to understand, ask an adult to help you.

(The above is adapted from Thoughts of God for Boys and Girls edited by Edith Frances Welker, 1948, p.23)