One of the things I love about scripture is how wide and varied it is, there are parts so simple and beautiful that when read they immediately take root, very little heart preparation is needed, very little pruning needed, and the words take root in any soil. We will all know and probably cherish a lot of these, and share the joy and hope in a lot of them together.
Chapters like 1 Corinthians 13, verses from Jeremiah 29 “for I know the plans I have for you says the Lord..”.
Then there are other areas, that are so full of beauty and grace, they become more complex, the soil needs a bit of preparation, pruning is good and the more time invested the more you receive, but the scripture so beautiful and so dense in God’s goodness, we make the effort to drink it in. Passages like Romans 8, where we see God in all his grace and beauty and we realise the enormity of what has been done for us.
I love it, I love the spectrum that scripture has, in complexity, in beauty, in purpose, in directness. I love how some verses are universally loved and cherished and some verses feel like they were written just for you. Yet there are some verses that are rarely beloved, rarely cherished, rarely spoken of daily, highlighted or book marked, yet we know are still all God breathed and useful for teaching and rebuking. One of these passages is the first portion of Leviticus, where at great length we are given details on the offering system that was in place for God’s chosen people at the time. We read about the grain offerings, the burn offerings, the peace offerings, the sin offerings. Then more detail is given governing specifics, edge cases, how it applies to different people at different times and while it can be an interesting read it is a lot of work and is not a commonly loved and cherished area of scripture but a few years ago, these passages grew in great value to me and I now return to them as needed rather than while passing.
Why? Because this passage challenged me deeply on our relational commitment to God, both personally and as a church. I found myself reading the passage thinking, “all these offerings and rules and edge cases, it just seems like hard work”, and then I realised, I was both right and irrelevant at the same time. The system of offerings required for relationship with God was intense, page after page, back then tablet upon tablet, but with a little perspective, none of that should matter. And to the people of Israel it didn’t, it didn’t matter how many burn offerings, how many peace offerings, how many sin offerings, how many grain offerings were required, God was offering a relationship with him and they were going to take it. And why wouldn’t they?
We are so spoiled by grace, and I return to this passage to challenge me on commitment, whatever offering is required, the offer is relationship with God, and I never want to find myself skipping over the offer, because I lack the offering.
Tim Holt
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