If you have ever tried to read straight through Leviticus, the second half of chapter 19 is probably where you started skimming. The first half has the verse everyone knows (even if you thought it came from the New Testament), "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (19:18). The second half reads like a list of do's and do not's. Don't let your cattle breed with a different kind. Don't sow...  Read More

     Ask a room full of Christians to quote a verse from Leviticus and most of them will come up empty. Then read them this one: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). Pretty much everyone knows it. Jesus called it the second great commandment (Matthew 22:39), and Paul said the whole law is fulfilled in it (Galatians 5:14). Very few people know where it comes from. It is in ...  Read More

     Last Sunday, at the end of the sermon on the Day of Atonement, I said something about communion that I want to come back to. The priests in Leviticus were required to sprinkle the blood on the altar, and Jesus has us eat it. Then I opened Leviticus 17 to prepare for this Sunday, and the first verse of our passage says this:     "If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojour...  Read More

     We're a couple of months into Leviticus now, and I know it has started to feel like the same thing every week. Another animal, another altar, more blood, more rules for how to come near, and then next week the same thing again. If that's how it has felt to you, you aren't reading it wrong. Israel felt the same way, and Leviticus 16 is where all that repetition starts to point somewhere.     L...  Read More

     I grew up being taught that the reason I needed Jesus was how "bad" I was. It was drilled into me from a very early age that I was sinful and full of sinful desires. Everything in my life, at least when it came to church, was measured by how good or bad my actions, my thoughts, and even my motivations were. A lot of my religious experience was driven by a feeling of guilt and shame.     Then,...  Read More

     For seven chapters Leviticus has described its offerings in the abstract. If anyone brings a bull, if anyone brings flour, if anyone sins without knowing it, here is what happens. Chapter 8 is the first time we watch any of it done, by named men on a particular day, and chapters 8 through 10 are the only sustained story in the first half of the book. The system has been explained, and now it ...  Read More

     The first three chapters of Leviticus describe offerings a person brings to the tabernacle. The burnt offering goes up in smoke to God, the grain offering goes to God and the rest to the priests, the peace offering ends up being a meal of fellowship, and none of them were prompted by anything in particular. Someone could bring all three in the same week for no other reason than that they want...  Read More

     Leviticus opened up with the explanation regarding the burnt offering. The significance of the burnt offering was that the entire sacrifice was consumed by the fire, and the smoke that came from it was pleasing to the Lord, and no one would be able to eat the sacrifice. This week we read the next two chapters of Leviticus, and we learn that the grain offering in chapter 2 is eaten by the prie...  Read More

     One of the reasons why I wanted to do a sermon series on the book of Leviticus is because I wanted to better understand myself what the burnt offering was.     Leviticus chapter 1 describes the burnt offering in three distinct ways. First for someone who brings a bull, second for a person who brings a sheep or a goat, and third for someone who brings two birds. When we read this passage caref...  Read More

Exodus 40:34-38 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken u...  Read More

1 Corinthians 14:1-25Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himsel...  Read More

1 Corinthians 13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is...  Read More