I struggled this week being excited and interested in the text. The reading from this week covered text from Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, and focused on the Israelites receiving and putting into practice commandments from the Lord for what to eat (Leviticus 11:1-47), how to request forgiveness for different sins (Leviticus 4:1-35; 5:1-13), how to offer up different types of offerings (Leviticus 6:8-30), and how to prepare the priests to serve (Leviticus 8:1-36).
So I started to think about all of these detailed instructions and two thoughts occurred to me:
1) The Israelites were a people, who while with a common heritage, had lived far away from the home of their ancestors for a long time. They had for hundreds of years been under Egyptian rule, and probably did not have group government or rules. The Lord provided them with both so that the would become a powerful people.
2) Since the fall, I think, God was pursuing his people and by offering up specific ways people could come before him it was a way to create connection between Him and His people. The idea of animal sacrifice is strange for us "modern day", but for the Israelites and their era, I guessing, it wasn't an unusual practice and would have truly been a sacrifice because animals were the lifeblood of the nomadic person.
One of the verses that I had marked this week has to do with instructions about sin, "When you become aware of your guilt in any of these ways, you must confess your sin." Leviticus 5:5. An instruction from God that has stood the test of time. We still need to be aware of our thoughts and actions, and be ready to confess our sins.
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