Think about God’s dwelling place in Israel and you immediately think about Jerusalem. But that wasn’t His first “address.” That isn’t where God, literally, first pitched His tent. No, Joshua 18 reminds me this morning that, after “the land lay subdued before them, . . . the people of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there” (Joshua 18:1).

Shiloh . . . literally “place of rest” . . . that’s where God first took up residence within the freshly occupied promised land. Shiloh in Ephraim, not Jerusalem in Judah, was the initial resting place of the tent of meeting . . . the place where the ark first resided . . . the place where the glory first dwelt in the land . . . the place where Joshua could meet with the Lord (Joshua 18:8, 9). What a privileged place Shiloh was. What a blessed place. What a holy place. Oh, how tragic, that it became the “previous place” . . . the empty place . . . the place where the glory used to dwell.

I don’t know if the people who put my reading plan together did it on purpose, of if it is just a “God thing”, but I also came across Shiloh in my reading in the Psalms this morning . . . the one and only reference to Shiloh in the Psalms.

“When God heard, He was full of wrath, and He utterly rejected Israel. He forsook His dwelling in Shiloh, the tent where He dwelt among mankind and delivered His power to captivity, His glory to the hand of the foe.” (Psalm 78:59-61 ESV)

The Psalmist recounts the repeated gracious, mighty works of God on behalf of the descendants of Jacob, and the just as often repeated rebellion of “a generation whose heart was not steadfast, who spirit was not faithful to God” (78:8b) . . . who “tested God in their heart” (78:18) . . . who “did not believe in God and did not trust His saving power” (78:22) . . . who “tested and rebelled against the Most High God and did not keep His testimonies, but turned away . . . provoked Him to anger . . . moved Him to jealousy” (78:56-58) . . . so that God forsook His dwelling at Shiloh (see 1Samuel 1:3, 4:4-11 for more on Shiloh’s fall) . . . and moved out. (Deep sigh!)

Shiloh . . . the first home of God . . . the forgotten home of God . . . the place where the glory used to dwell. Kind of set me up for my reading in 1Corinthians this morning . . .

” ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be enslaved by anything. . . . do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1Corinthians 6:12, 19-20 ESV)

Paul reminds me of another dwelling place of God . . . another place where, by His grace, He has taken up residence . . . another place where He desires His glory to dwell and to be known. Uh, that would be me. And while I don’t believe God would “move out” on a believer, I do know believers of whom it can be said, “The glory of God used to be on him . . . the presence of God used to be with her.” I can think of those who aren’t living up to the potential of God in them . . . of those who, though once were on fire for the Lord, are, for now at least, not finishing well. Sad thought . . . to be the place where God’s glory used to be known.

Oh that, by His grace, I might not be such a place. That, by the power of the Spirit in me, I might check any spirit of pride or rebellion . . . that I would resist any pull toward a half-hearted, compromising faithfulness to the things of the kingdom . . . that I would just say “No” to joining myself to that which would draw me away from my “first love” (Rev. 2:4). I so don’t want to be a Shiloh . . .