Growing up, Tuesday was the designated cleaning day at our small church. Every week, a group of members would arrive at the familiar brick building, greeting each other with “Praise the Lord!” “Good to see you,” and “How’s your week going?” The sound of gospel music filled every room as we cleaned and bopped our heads, singing along with John P. Kee, Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond, and other voices rotating through the radio station’s playlist.
I didn’t understand as a kid, but as an adult, I’ve realized the significance of what we were doing. There was something almost holy, priestly even, about our routine of care for that space where our close-knit community of believers would gather to worship God. Aged, wooden pews were polished with lemon PledgeⓇ. Dining room floors were mopped with Pine-SolⓇ, its distinct and invigorating smell permeating the church. Those fond memories from my childhood began to resurface as our team curated passages and drafted content for this reading plan.
The book of Leviticus is about God preparing His people for His presence. It shows us how God made it possible for His people to come near Him without compromising His holiness and excusing Israel’s sin. The instructions He gave and the systems and processes He established are key to understanding how God frees us from sin and keeps us free—through sacrifice and atonement.
It’s this context, this language of atonement, that the New Testament writers used to describe who Jesus is and what He has done for us. He is the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) and our Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:15). Leviticus connects us to this imagery; without it, the full significance of these metaphors and analogies is lost to us.
I pray that each day of this reading plan you will hear the promise to God’s people: they will be forgiven. May it cause you to cling to the hope we have in Jesus: in Him, we are forgiven. We are free. And we are invited into His presence—forever.
This makes me very thankful that God doesn’t require us to do these things anymore. Thankful for the ultimate sacrifice.
Welcome to
I really like how they took us through the Old Testament and we read what they had to do, to please the Lord and then at the end of the read we read Jesus is our sacrifice with no blemish, we are so blessed to have Jesus who saved us from our sins.
So thankful for God’s sacrifice!
Did anyone else feel like they were reading a fiction horror novel while reading Leviticus 1 & 3?! I haven’t read through Leviticus in awhile & I forgot how difficult it can be to read. The way God wants them to kill these animals (the blood, the gore, the nastiness) is quite disgusting. If the process of OT atonement is this disgusting, the sin that caused them to even need this process, must be just as bad. It’s a reminder of how disgusting my sin is & its effects on me. If it wasn’t for Jesus, these Old Covenant ways would be expected of me today. I’d have to take part in the messy, sticky, stinky, uncomfortable process of atoning for my sins by slaughtering animals at the altar. Praise God for Jesus! That he endured a messy, sticky, stinky, uncomfortable crucifixion on my behalf, so that my past, present, & future sin is atoned for THROUGH Him!
Thanks for making it simple.
At first, I was really shocked and confused. I’ve never really dug into the OT and I forget how brutal it can be. It was so encouraging to read everyone’s take and how God decided to have Jesus be the brutal sacrifice so that we may get to know Him.
They are great! You can also listen to their podcast about the Bible study :)