The One Year Bible- February 10th
Later this week we
will start the book of Mark and right at the beginning of this Gospel there is a
verse that jumps out at me, “News about him [Jesus] spread quickly
over the whole region of Galilee” (Mark 1:28 NIV). Just think of the power
of Jesus. Mark tells us “At once”
everyone around knew about him. It reminds me of living in the Internet age. We
can get information “at once” as soon as events happen. It is amazing how fast
news travels. But what has happened to the good news about Jesus? Why is his
fame not being spread everywhere? Well one reason is because the Devil doesn’t
want it to. Satan is waging war against the good news of Jesus Christ and at
times he seems to be winning. Satan is not happy that you are reading the Bible
this year and he will work on your soft spots to get you behind and tempt you
to give up. Don’t let his tricks get you down. You have the most powerful
weapon in the fight, the Word of God. Remember that the battle belongs to the
Lord and even though we may loose a few skirmishes here and there the ultimate
victory is the Lord’s. Keep up the good work and fight the hard fight as you
pick up the sword of the Spirit daily. On to the study...
Seth’s
Thoughts
The
Old Testament
The end of Exodus is
just a foretaste of what is to come in the book of Leviticus. We will be taking
a break from the narrative story for a while and read about many of the nuts
and bolts of religious life of the people of Israel. We usually do not read
these sections of scripture in Church so they may be brand new for you. Exodus
ends with the building of the tabernacle and all the furnishings. This place
(and later the temple) is the physical representation of Yahweh on earth. It is
quite literally, God’s house. The building of this structure is important for
many reasons. First of all, it gave the people something tangible in their
relationship with God. Secondly, it was a place where God could interact with
his people bringing mercy and forgiveness. Third, it sets up the life and
ministry of Jesus. Jesus referred to himself as a temple that would be
destroyed and build again in three days. Jesus himself came down to be a
physical representation of Yahweh on earth. In John 1:14 we read, “The Word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” The word we translate at
“made his dwelling” literally means that Jesus “tabernacled” among us. When
Jesus came to earth he becomes another tabernacle, this one wrapped in flesh
and poised to be the ultimate sacrifice for the forgiveness of the sins of the
world. Now the tabernacle had its own purpose in the days of the Israelites,
and the temple as well for that matter, but they both point to a greater
tabernacle and temple in the person of Jesus Christ.
One other thing I
want to do this week is give you an introduction on the many different
offerings that are mentioned in Exodus and especially in Leviticus.
Burnt
Offering: Leviticus 1; 6:
8-13; 8: 18-21; 16: 24 The burnt offering was for unintentional sin. This was a
blanket sacrifice for wrongdoing in general. The price was a male bull, lamb or
goat. It had to be a perfect animal, without defect. The poor could offer a
pigeon or dove. The penitent would present the animal at the entrance to the
tent, which housed the altar and the tabernacle. After presenting the animal,
the sinner would place his two hands on the animal and thus, it was accepted as
an offering for sin. Probably this act transferred the sin from the human to
the animal, which paid the penalty and was sacrificed. They would kill their
own offering and then the priests took over.
The priests bled the animal and
cut it up ceremonially. The priests sprinkled the blood on the altar. Some of
the internal organs and legs were washed. They then burned it whole on the
altar. The aroma was said to be pleasing to God. The fire had to be continually
burning and was never extinguished.
Grain
Offering: Leviticus 2; 6:
14-23 Voluntary worship and thanks: A grain offering is just what it says. The
grain had to ground into flour and could be put into loaves or cakes. Olive oil
and incense were added to make a pleasing aroma when it burned. Yeast was
forbidden for this offering. The cakes had to be salted. The offering was
presented to the priests who burned a small portion of it on the altar. The
rest was food for them and the Levites.
Fellowship
Offering: Leviticus 3: 7:
11-34
A voluntary act of worship, thanks and fellowship: This is called a
fellowship offering because the sacrifice is eaten communally instead of
burned. Any clean animal, male or female could be offered. Bread, both with and
without yeast, was also part of the offering. These were presented at the gate
of the tent. The priests would sprinkle the blood on the four corners of the
altar. The internal organs, the fat on them and the best part of the liver were
burned as a food offering. The rest had to be eaten within two days or else it
was burned also.
Sin
Offering: Leviticus 4: 1-5: 13;
6: 24-30; 8: 14-17; 16: 3-22 Mandatory for specific sins: All of these
offerings for sins are for unintentional transgressions. If you were guilty of
premeditated infraction, these offerings didn’t help you. Your stature in the
community determined the kind of sacrifice that you were required to offer. A
young bull was required for the sin of a high priest or for a community sin.
Leaders had to present a male goat. The common people could bring a female goat
or a lamb. The poor were permitted to offer a dove or pigeon and the very poor
could get away with a tenth of an ephah of fine flour. The bull’s fat was
burned inside the camp but the rest was burned outside. Leviticus 5 records the
sins for which a sin offering was required. These include unintentionally
touching an animal that is ritually unclean, touching something unclean of
human origin or making a careless promise.
Guilt
Offering: (Repayment Offering) Leviticus 5:14 – 6:7; 7: 1-6 Mandatory for unintentional sin requiring
restitution: This is a repayment offering for a sin committed against God, like
holding back your tithe. A ram or lamb was brought to the tent to be
sacrificed. The debt would have to be paid plus an additional twenty percent.
These were the offerings outlined in the first seven chapters of Leviticus. God
could forgive mistakes but intentional sins were another matter.
The
New Testament
This week we saw the
familiar words of institution as Jesus gives his disciples communion for the
first time. Remember that meals were very important for the Jews and the
connection that this new meal of remembrance first occurred during Passover is
by no means a coincidence. Remember that Matthew is writing to a Jewish
audience and this new covenant made in blood would ring a bell with all his
readers. This would cut to the heart of any Jew, hearing about this because
blood equals life. It is not in our culture to think of that. In fact when
people outside of the Christian faith hear about being washed in the blood of
the lamb, they get turned off from Christianity. I guess my point here is we
need to watch how we word some things. To a Jewish audience, Matthew does the
culturally relevant thing; when we share the message of Jesus we need to be
careful not to offend or even gross out someone when talking about blood.
I want to say a few
words about the Great commission that we will read later this week, and I hope
not to loose you when I start talking about Greek grammar. First of all every
time we translate the Bible from its original languages we loose something. The
phrase “Lost in translation” is really true. At times when we translate into
English we then, without thinking place certain rules and meaning based on
sentence structure and word order. Unfortunately many people, myself included,
have misinterpreted portions of scripture because of our cultural bias toward
English. In reading the Great Commission in English it seems to be that Jesus
is giving us a command (called an imperative) in the word “go”, but in the
Greek this word is an adverbial participle, not an imperative. What is an
adverbial participle? The action described by an adverbial participle is
primarily directed toward the verb. This kind of participle is usually
translated with an adverbial phrase. “While studying for his Greek final...” or
“While going through the world...”. So we see in Matthew 28 an interesting grammatical
sentence that if translated properly is very poor English. A very literal
interpretation would be, “As you are going, disciple all the nations, by
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things...” The only imperative in the Great
Commission is to disciple others—literally to make them learners. How do we do
it? Well, Jesus tells us, we are to baptize and teach. Again these words are
not imperatives but the natural flow of what will occur by “discipling” others.
Don’t even get me started on the NIVs use of the word “obey”. What a poor
translation that is. We are to observe the things of Jesus through his word and
actions and they serve as a guide. They are descriptive on how we are to live
not prescriptive. I could go on about this one but we don’t have time here.
One quick thing about
the book of Mark. As you read look for the extensive use of the word
“immediately” (or similar phrases such as “at once”, they are usually the same
word in the Greek). This is a book of action. It hits the ground running and
never stops. It is a good book to read as we slug through Leviticus. It will
give us some balance to our readings for the next couple of weeks.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home