We end off this series in Leviticus with a pretty heavy study. Most, if not all of us would find this a difficult text to read. What is so hard about this text? What would you do if you read this in your QT? Perhaps this passage has confusing practices and conversations. Perhaps it really feels like a different God is present in this text. Perhaps we want to find out why things happen and the reasons for the event, but Scripture is silent here. Whatever your questions may be, remember the words of Rom 15:4-6, that Scripture is given for our instruction and encouragement, so that through endurance, we may have hope. Scripture does not really tell us all that we want to know, and it is for us to work through and pray through. Scripture is not like our encyclopedia of ready answers. Most importantly in our Bible studies and personal devotion, the aim is not to come up with clever explanations of obscure parts of the Bible, but to meet the living God. We know that He speaks through His Word, and though we may not always understand, we know that we must.
Leviticus 9 begins with the words ‘on the eighth day’. This is a continuation of the previous chapter, which ended off with the command for Aaron and the priests to be confined for seven days (Lev 8:33).
Leviticus 1-7 consisted of detailed instructions for the various offerings. Leviticus was written to show the Israelites, and us, what it takes for a holy God to dwell amongst sinful people. In today's study, we'll look at the setting aside of the priests, who were so important to the system. We're moving a bit away from the intricacies of the system, to focus on the people that God has set aside to serve Him.
So far, we've been looking at the 5 offerings in some depth. But to be honest, Leviticus is a tough book for many of us. What does knowing what to do with animals, sprinkling blood all over the place mean for us modern people? It all seems foreign and outdated. Today's passage takes us back to these 5 offerings again, and in doing so, perhaps we learn something about our worship, God's providence, and fellowship with Him.
Today we will consider the 5th and final offering – the guilt offering or the ‘reparation’ offering.
Today, we'll consider the next offering -- the sin offering. But before we do so, and before we can fully understand the need for such an offering, it is important for us to understand the nature of sin, and why it is a problem for us all (and may actually be an even bigger problem than we initially thought).
After the burnt offering, and the grain offering, we move on to the third offering in Leviticus 3 -- the peace offering.
Last week we studied the burnt offering, the first of the 5 offerings. Today, we continue with the instructions for the grain offering, or the minhah.
Today we look at the first of the five offerings: the common burnt offering.
To understand Leviticus properly, we need to understand the God who gave Leviticus, and the God of Leviticus. Leviticus is basically about God coming down to live among us, but we are presented with a problem because of who God is, and because of who we are. The God of the Bible is a specific being. And this God describes human beings in a very specific way too. The theology and anthropology of the Bible is very unique. Leviticus is all about how we try and deal with the problem, but continues to hint that the answer is not in us, but really in Christ. And the God of Leviticus, of all the ceremonies and slaying and fire, is the God of Christmas.
We begin our series in Leviticus, not with the book proper, but we're taking time to understand the context and purpose of this book. Leviticus is not an easy book to understand, but if we believe in 2 Tim 3:16, we know that the book of Leviticus is God-breathed and useful!
