Bellshill Central Parish Church is extremely fortunate to have many beautiful stained glass windows.
The corner windows were gifted in memory of the Blackie Family, benefactors of the Church for many years and were dedicated on 14 October 1973. These were designed by the renowned Gordon Webster with the leadwork being undertaken by Neil Hutchison.
The pictures displayed in the windows help you focus on the stories which lie behind and which, in fact, tell the whole story of the Bible. You are welcome to visit the Church, look at the windows and then read in one of the Pew Bibles the whole story depicted in each window.
The Giving of the Law/The Building of the Temple
This window is the first window on the West Side of the Church as you enter from the Main Vestibule.
This window is split vertically into two separate stories. On the left, Moses can be seen carrying The Ten Commandments with, perhaps, Aaron and Joshua beside him. In the background, Mount Sinai is dazzling with the Lord’s presence. According to a section at the back of the Pew Bible, this happened between 1700 BC and 1250 BC. Moses had led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and, at Mount Sinai; God gave Moses the Law and made a covenant with the people – an agreement of special relationship between the Israelites and God.
- Worship no god but me.
- Do not make for yourselves images of anything in heaven or on earth or in the water under the earth.
- Do not use my name for evil purposes
- Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy.
- Respect your father and your mother
- Do not commit murder.
- Do not commit adultery.
- Do not steal.
- Do not accuse anyone falsely.
- Do not desire another man’s house; do not desire his wife, his slaves, his cattle, his donkeys, or anything else that he owns.
The whole story can be read in the Book of Exodus, starting at page 56 of the Pew Bible.
The right hand side of the window tells about ‘The Building of the Temple’ and King Solomon can be seen with the plans in his hand and one of the workers with a piece of wood in his hand. To put a date on this event; Solomon ruled between 970 BC and 931 BC and in 1 Kings 6 (page 336 of the Pew Bible), it states that Solomon began building the Temple 480 years after the people of Israel left Egypt and it took 7 years to build.
The story can be found in The First Book of Kings and the First and Second Books of Chronicles, starting at page 329 of the Pew Bible. King David had wanted to build a temple as a permanent home for the Covenant Box which held the Ten Commandments but God would not allow it because David had spilled too much blood as a soldier. However, David had drawn up the plans for the whole building, down to the last detail, all as instructed by God and he passed all this on to his son Solomon. David had also bought the land and organised a lot of the materials.
It can be can read that David gave 100 tonnes of gold and 240 tonnes of silver for decorating the walls. Other leaders and officials gave 170 tonnes of gold, 340 tonnes of silver, 620 tonnes of bronze, 3400 tonnes of iron. There were also precious stones donated. When Solomon started the building, he had 70,000 men transporting materials and 80,000 quarrying stone with 3,600 acting as supervisors. The wood came from Lebanon; cedar, cypress and juniper. It was tied into rafts and floated by sea to Joppa and then taken to Jerusalem and Mount Moriah. There is also a lot of description of the inside of the building. With all the gold and silver, it must have been really grand but, in 2 Chronicles 2, Solomon says:
‘I intend to build a great temple, because our God is greater than any other god. Yet no one can really build a temple for God, because even all the vastness of heaven cannot contain him. How then can I build a temple that would be anything more than a place to burn incense to God?’
When all the work was done, Solomon arranged for the Covenant Box, containing the tablets that Moses had received from God on Mount Sinai, to be brought to the Temple.
