The One Year Bible- February 9th
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.
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