Half a Shekel

Exodus 30: 

12 When you take the sum of the children of Israel, according to those of them who are numbered, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to Jehovah, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them.

13 This they shall give, everyone enrolled with those who are numbered, half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as a heave offering to Jehovah.

14 Everyone enrolled with those who are numbered, from twenty years old and over, shall give the heave offering of Jehovah.

15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than the half shekel, when you give the heave offering of Jehovah to make expiation for your souls.

16 And you shall take the expiation silver from the children of Israel and shall give it for the service of the Tent of Meeting, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before Jehovah to make expiation for your souls.

This morning as we pursued the Life-Study of Exodus, Message 155, I was newly enlightened to see the deeper meaning of propitiation silver offered to Jehovah by the male, of age twenty and above as heave offering as memorial to Jehovah, half a shekle each one, not more, not less.

Half a shekel, is the portion of temple tax given to the Temple as commanded in the book of Exodus, still held valid fifteen hundred years after, even during the time of the Lord Jesus. It was a mandatory tax paid by all the children of Israel who were qualified to be the army of God.

Qualifications for Half a Shekle Temple Tax Assessee :

• Male : Male signifies the stronger believers. It is not gender based in spiritual application. The stronger believers are those who are strong in their spirits and actively living out Christ in their daily living.
• Twenty Years Plus: This signifies maturity in life and have grown to certain level as to be able to be formed as God's army. 
• Half a Shekle Silver : A standard temple tax to be offered by those who would be formed as the army of God. This just a small amount, meaning, God's requirement from His children is minimal and is practical for all to offer.
• Heave Offering : An offering signifying the ascension of Christ; to be offered in the resurrection and ascension of Christ typifying the offering of the highest experience of Christ.
• Memorial : A memorial is a pleasant matter. In the sight of God, the half-shekel paid by the children of Israel drafted into His army was a memorial.
• Tent of Meeting : The payment of the half-shekel in Exodus 30 was a kind of tax. This tax was used by God to accomplish two things. 
• First, God used this tax to collect silver for the building up of the tabernacle. From Exodus 38:25-28 we learn that the silver from this tax, the propitiation silver, was used to make the hundred sockets for the pillars of the tabernacle and also to make the caps, the hooks, and the fillets. 
• Second, God used this tax to accomplish the formation of an army. Therefore, through the single matter of the half-shekel payment God did something for the building of the tabernacle and the formation of the army.

Today, the Lord requires that all the believers enjoy Him that we may be "male", strong in spirit and be grown to maturity, attaining the standard age of "twenty and above", spiritually mature enough to be drafted into the Army of God. These entails that every believers live a normal Christian life of eating and drinking the Lord every day and growing in the divine life. And as we enjoy the Lord in such a normal way, we must offer "half a shekle" each towards the "temple" building. This is just a normal and minimal requirement of offering our best experience of Christ as a "heave offering." And such offerings are to be used for the building up of the tabernacle.  

This is the burden these days that all the saints function normally for the building up of the Body of Christ. Each saint offering "half a shekle" emphatically means that each saint function equally, not too much nor too less. Too much functioning may lead to a "clergy" class and too less a "laity", thereby producing the "clergy-laity" system, which is the degraded system of Christianity. 

Each saint functioning is the way for the Lord to fulfill His purpose on earth. This is the Lord's recovery of recovering every saint's function, equally and normally for the Building up of His Body.