I’m a bit ahead in time zones so I hope it’s ok for me to post after I’ve done my morning reading and it’s fresh in my head.
I never fully appreciated the animal sacrifice “system” and what it all meant! It is a literal exchange of what should be a death sentence for the individual for their sin yes?
I think that’s a point of some argument. That would be the OT equivalent of penal substitutionary atonement, which is debated pretty hotly, and which I don’t subscribe, necessarily. I think that it’s more of a symbolic cleansing ritual, an offering, and a supplication that showed contrition and a heart willing to literally sacrifice for the Lord and be obedient, than a literal “God demanded blood so we give him blood” argument. Also, it would have aligned with their expectations for worship and atonement culturally, and I think God was big on meeting people where they were in all the phases of His church.
I haven’t listened to that one yet, but it’s possible that she subscribes to that interpretation. I get it too, it doesn’t jive with God’s nature or a few other factors for me. But atonement theories are all interpretations (guesses lol) no matter what so I try not to sweat it. 😅
In my very engineering/scientific brain, the 1+1=2 aspect of this makes sense. But then my human (non-robotic! 🤣🤣) side feels it’s a little wrong and too black and white.
Totally fair! I tend towards black and white naturally too, so it’s work not to. lol I think a lot of things in the Bible that we try to make “either/or” we might find out later were actually “both/and” and that we were thinking too small.
Jumping in on this convo late! Ughhhhh Simona, I'm struggling with all the animal sacrifice! I.....hate it. Plain and simple. I hate the idea of it. I use a study bible and one of the little blurbs was about why kill animals to worship god and why all the blood. It highlights a few things that maybe are interesting? (honestly, I file this under a "weird God" thing that doesn't make sense to me and genuinely don't get or like)
- a just and Holy god cannot ignore sin and sin has a consequence which is death
- God required this gruesome payment because he didn't want people ignoring the severity of sin -- anything less than blood would have devalued forgiveness of sin
- it served as a vivid reminder that sin is deadly serious
- blood, representing the life of the animal, was the cleansing agent that removed sin
In another section the question is, why did God require sacrifices?
the answer they give is basically penal substitution. I don't know if I necessarily FULLY subscribe to that?! my bible says "the key is this: God's holiness requires that sin not be ignored. someone must pay the price to remove the offense. Once the price is paid, the sin can be forgiven. Sacrifices were God's way of teaching this spiritual truth to people" It also talks about how sacrifices involved something of value being given to God as a token of gratitude and how the sacrificial system performed an important community function just like in the NT churches celebrated the Lord's Supper.
I don’t think that the priests were doctors so much as they were the final authorities of who were clean or unclean. At least that’s what I get from the reading.
Where priests doctors also? Did they have people that treated all these terrible skin diseases they seemed to be prone to? Or was it just the priest? Did the priests have some sort of protection from God I wonder, for things that were contagious? If they were the 'go to' people for skin issues, I'd imagine they were exposed to a bunch of nasty things.
I feel sorry for teenagers at the time..........and anyone that had to be banished to be alone and walk around saying "Unclean! Unclean!".
As with all Leviticus to date, very precise instructions from God.
Such an interesting thought! I’m going to have to agree with Jane. Not so much doctors and not sure how much anyone performed that role. I think doctoring was very minimal at this point in time.
On the other hand, the skin issues were likely not acne. It was about rashes and contagions and infections and such. A lot of these “unclean” things were in fact just anything that caused a person to potentially leave behind bodily fluids. Puss, semen, blood—these things CAN transmit infections. I was thinking of how God might have been using this not only to keep his Temple free of disease but also to teach folks about washing and keeping distance from these fluids, before any human understanding of pathogens existed.
If you consider the fact that sex made you ceremonially unclean for the day, I really don’t think it was always a matter of shame so much as a way you knew you would be sometimes. Everyone would have moments when they were in this state. It’s humbling perhaps, but I think it was also considered temporary and part of life, like, well, like colds and periods and infections are now!
Things were definitely harder then, but I think people’s sensibilities were also “harder” to match. Life itself was a struggle in many ways, just to survive.
I'm going to miss our church's Shrove Tuesday (like Fat Tuesday) feast and the Ash Wednesday service, which would have been my first time at either. I'm super bummed, I have no idea what to expect and I wanted to see, but we are traveling. That said, I've been praying about Lent and really decided giving something up in general probably wasn't going to be ideal, but I'm practicing a sort of quiet, listening prayer each day. Sitting in silence with God has not been a thing I've done. I'm normally filling all the space with words (mentally, not so much out loud) and read about some other ways to pray that I want to try. Besides that, I'm probably not going to do meat on Fridays. lol
I usually use Lent as a very self-centered practice of, oh, good an excuse to diet before spring (yikes) it was literally just this year that it hit me that that's what my focus is usually. This year, I wanted to just spend the last 30 minutes before bed without my phone and ACTUALLY praying...not like how I usually do it-- prayer in bed and falling asleep during. The past two nights have already not gone as planned and it's putting me in a bad headspace like I've already failed at this haha hoping to get into some sort of new rhythm
So something really interesting came up in my life group, when we were discussing Lent. Because I am new to the practice I was asking a lot of questions and our deacon said that failing during Lent is kind of the point. We fail, we turn back to God and ask Him to help us and we keep turning back every time we fail. It’s like practicing repentance (my interpretation).
Try to think of “failures” as invitations to closeness with God and dependence on Him. The goal of this walk and this “way” is to be always drawing nearer to Him, right? You’re already drawing nearer than years past. You might not win Lent, my sweet little Bundle, but the victory is on our behalf, not on our merit.
I love this Elizabeth, thank you so much for sharing! This is my first time taking part in Lent and just reading this has really taken the pressure off trying to do it ‘right’
Okaaaaay. Today was rough for me lol I'm gonna need everyone's perspectives on what I'm about to lay out. I felt like today's reading was very much speaking to me -- I was...wandering...and really, REALLY wanting a home and it was not going well with COVID and interest rates and yada yada -- I think you guys know my dumb story. Anyway, cut to now, we DO have a home and it ....isn't the house I wanted *per se*, but I'm so grateful to even have it and we're really making it work -- it has all the things, it's just ...so so so much work and expensive and it's really been a struggle. Sometimes to the point I question if this was yet another "my will" type thing and I don't really even belong here but god was like, suit yourself. ANYWAY -- I related my struggle to Moses and Co. God says....when you get to your destination AND YOU HAVE HOUSES.... so, okay, YAY! we're gonna make it and have houses! But then plot twist-- "I put mold there."
I mean........to me, that's so defeating? I just don't see where the "good" is there. Is it good that they now have houses? absolutely. is it good that we live in a fallen world BUT God is sovereign over everything, even mold? sure, of course. Is it good that suffering means you're forced to rely on God more? yes. I know those are like the ...typical answers maybe? and maybe that really is just all of the explanations, but... it's still hard. for me anyway haha
I actually presented all this to my husband (who, refresher, is a "believer" but has what I like to call a laissez faire approach -- actively praying this changes)
his take was: mold isn't as bad as wandering for decades HAHA so I guess I'm going to ask my very non-emotional, passive, logical husband more often what he thinks about these hard passages that I get very excitable about
I have wondered that myself! It would start to smell I would think if they didn’t clean it, it feels like. I’m on a long car ride today and I’m going to research this! lol Love your brain!!
I don't remember where I heard it (podcast? read it maybe?) but the incense served in multiple ways and one of them was basically to hide the smell!
I really love what Jenn said about the sanitization of faith. SUCH a good point! I think about that a lot -- faith-wise and just our day-to-day, how we live and how far removed we are from just...actually living to survive, you know?! Like not hiking to get water, not killing our food, etc. The idea of all this blood and killing animals is such a stark contrast to what we're used to.
I have ALWAYS wondered this. Why blood, and how did they clean it, and did it smell?? Also, this round I was struck by God providing for the priests. For some reason I always thought they were sitting around a lot waiting for the next sacrifice but this time I realized they're probably busy doing this all day long so they can't work in other ways and need the sacrificial food to survive.
I agree with you. I was really struck by the blood and details of these sacrifices. For the most part, my life is so sanitized and separate from any semblance of blood and gore. It makes me wonder the consequence of that sanitization on my faith. These readings are making me contemplate this more deeply.
This was a really thought-provoking response. I’m going to contemplate “the sanitation of faith” a bit and I would love to hear you explore that thought more if you feel like it.
I’ve been with this idea of “sanitization of faith” for like a week now and so far I’ve had a few different avenues of thought. One was that I grew up in a church that as I recall was simple - a nice sermon on Sunday about how to be good the week ahead. The church itself was modern with stain glass windows and a plain cross. I never went to a funeral there. I never saw a struggle or tears or actual pain (that I remember). We believed in Jesus and loved God. We tried to be good. That’s my summary. I remember going to a Catholic church with my best friend and was shocked by the image of Jesus on the Cross. I remember feeling a little frightened by the rituals and incense. And I was intrigued with what I would have called depth of the services. Like it got me on a darker emotional level. As an adult and I had to actually life through very hard experiences, my very plain and simple faith from my childhood did not have the dark corners for me to go into to. I didn’t understand the suffering of life and didn’t know why God let all this happen. I was very naive. My husband is Catholic so during some of the harder moments I would go to his church and was so pleased to be around folks that were talking about suffering. It felt more tangible (physical) and out in the open. When I look back I feel like my childhood church was sanitized of the blood and guts of life, they hinted at it, but I did not feel it. It did not match my inner experience. Now all this blood sacrifice is pretty shocking to me and it is hard for me to read it all, and yet, it feels like it was reflecting actual life for the people in that time- difficulty, suffering, paying your debts, births, death. I appreciate the physicalness of these rituals and dramatic nature of them, like it is closer to how I experience the actual world. I’m having a hard time make this make sense because it’s not a one to one correspondence - blood sacrifice vs. plain/simple & “nice” Christianity. Hopefully, you’re getting enough of what I am saying.
I’ve been processing this since last night. I’m still processing it. Really some profound insight, Jenn. You sent my brain down a path it had not explored but it explains a lot of my experience moving into a church that does “smells and bells”, (incense on holy days, and well…bells) and a lot of other embodied worship practices.
I have more to say in response. lol. I’m going to have to sit at my desktop. So good, Jenn, thank you so much for sharing
Wow.. interesting thought! Wonder where your contemplations took you.. When I read your words I immediately thought is it about bringing the physical experience more into our spiritual practice? Like, God desires us to be conscious of our physical posture toward the world and Him instead of just our mental/emotional posture? idk... musings haha
Some interesting stuff from today: the mention of the bread of the Presence is such a cool preview of the Eucharist/Lord's Supper, it actually makes THAT make more sense to me.
I also get a little caught up in the details of the crafts that God told people to make, sort of wondering like, why? But since that is kind of unknowable, beyond that He has His reasons, I have been thinking about how cool it is that He specifically and repeatedly mentions (in verses prior to this) how he has equipped these craftsmen with the skills to make these things. It shows me how much God values beauty and art, and artists, even if it doesn't strictly make "sense."
I am also just in awe of the amount of things folks had to do to enter the presence of God and really really grateful that Jesus removed the necessity of all of that. Would I have bothered, back then? I hope so. But it was...a lot. Then again, if God came to me directly and told me, I'd probably be pretty inspired!
Oh, also. Aaron. Generations of priests coming from him, the dude who just five minutes ago made a golden idol when Moses was away for a minute. God is like YOU CAN'T MESS UP MY PLANS and Aaron is like "try me" but...God wins. No surprise there. Glad I can be as stupid and sinful as I have been and still be allowed a ministry.
Sunday, February 18, Day 49: Leviticus 16-18
Tuesday, February 13, Day 44: Leviticus 1-4
I’m a bit ahead in time zones so I hope it’s ok for me to post after I’ve done my morning reading and it’s fresh in my head.
I never fully appreciated the animal sacrifice “system” and what it all meant! It is a literal exchange of what should be a death sentence for the individual for their sin yes?
I think that’s a point of some argument. That would be the OT equivalent of penal substitutionary atonement, which is debated pretty hotly, and which I don’t subscribe, necessarily. I think that it’s more of a symbolic cleansing ritual, an offering, and a supplication that showed contrition and a heart willing to literally sacrifice for the Lord and be obedient, than a literal “God demanded blood so we give him blood” argument. Also, it would have aligned with their expectations for worship and atonement culturally, and I think God was big on meeting people where they were in all the phases of His church.
Does that make sense? What do you think?
Yes that makes sense. The TLC recap explained it in a way that made me think it was a literal sin=blood approach. Maybe my misinterpretation.
I haven’t listened to that one yet, but it’s possible that she subscribes to that interpretation. I get it too, it doesn’t jive with God’s nature or a few other factors for me. But atonement theories are all interpretations (guesses lol) no matter what so I try not to sweat it. 😅
In my very engineering/scientific brain, the 1+1=2 aspect of this makes sense. But then my human (non-robotic! 🤣🤣) side feels it’s a little wrong and too black and white.
Totally fair! I tend towards black and white naturally too, so it’s work not to. lol I think a lot of things in the Bible that we try to make “either/or” we might find out later were actually “both/and” and that we were thinking too small.
Jumping in on this convo late! Ughhhhh Simona, I'm struggling with all the animal sacrifice! I.....hate it. Plain and simple. I hate the idea of it. I use a study bible and one of the little blurbs was about why kill animals to worship god and why all the blood. It highlights a few things that maybe are interesting? (honestly, I file this under a "weird God" thing that doesn't make sense to me and genuinely don't get or like)
- a just and Holy god cannot ignore sin and sin has a consequence which is death
- God required this gruesome payment because he didn't want people ignoring the severity of sin -- anything less than blood would have devalued forgiveness of sin
- it served as a vivid reminder that sin is deadly serious
- blood, representing the life of the animal, was the cleansing agent that removed sin
In another section the question is, why did God require sacrifices?
the answer they give is basically penal substitution. I don't know if I necessarily FULLY subscribe to that?! my bible says "the key is this: God's holiness requires that sin not be ignored. someone must pay the price to remove the offense. Once the price is paid, the sin can be forgiven. Sacrifices were God's way of teaching this spiritual truth to people" It also talks about how sacrifices involved something of value being given to God as a token of gratitude and how the sacrificial system performed an important community function just like in the NT churches celebrated the Lord's Supper.
I don’t think that the priests were doctors so much as they were the final authorities of who were clean or unclean. At least that’s what I get from the reading.
Where priests doctors also? Did they have people that treated all these terrible skin diseases they seemed to be prone to? Or was it just the priest? Did the priests have some sort of protection from God I wonder, for things that were contagious? If they were the 'go to' people for skin issues, I'd imagine they were exposed to a bunch of nasty things.
I feel sorry for teenagers at the time..........and anyone that had to be banished to be alone and walk around saying "Unclean! Unclean!".
As with all Leviticus to date, very precise instructions from God.
Such an interesting thought! I’m going to have to agree with Jane. Not so much doctors and not sure how much anyone performed that role. I think doctoring was very minimal at this point in time.
On the other hand, the skin issues were likely not acne. It was about rashes and contagions and infections and such. A lot of these “unclean” things were in fact just anything that caused a person to potentially leave behind bodily fluids. Puss, semen, blood—these things CAN transmit infections. I was thinking of how God might have been using this not only to keep his Temple free of disease but also to teach folks about washing and keeping distance from these fluids, before any human understanding of pathogens existed.
If you consider the fact that sex made you ceremonially unclean for the day, I really don’t think it was always a matter of shame so much as a way you knew you would be sometimes. Everyone would have moments when they were in this state. It’s humbling perhaps, but I think it was also considered temporary and part of life, like, well, like colds and periods and infections are now!
Things were definitely harder then, but I think people’s sensibilities were also “harder” to match. Life itself was a struggle in many ways, just to survive.
Lent/Ash Wednesday Discussion
I'm going to miss our church's Shrove Tuesday (like Fat Tuesday) feast and the Ash Wednesday service, which would have been my first time at either. I'm super bummed, I have no idea what to expect and I wanted to see, but we are traveling. That said, I've been praying about Lent and really decided giving something up in general probably wasn't going to be ideal, but I'm practicing a sort of quiet, listening prayer each day. Sitting in silence with God has not been a thing I've done. I'm normally filling all the space with words (mentally, not so much out loud) and read about some other ways to pray that I want to try. Besides that, I'm probably not going to do meat on Fridays. lol
Sounds like a good plan Elizabeth - this year I’m
Thinking of taking something on rather than giving something up (which is usually chocolate!)
I usually use Lent as a very self-centered practice of, oh, good an excuse to diet before spring (yikes) it was literally just this year that it hit me that that's what my focus is usually. This year, I wanted to just spend the last 30 minutes before bed without my phone and ACTUALLY praying...not like how I usually do it-- prayer in bed and falling asleep during. The past two nights have already not gone as planned and it's putting me in a bad headspace like I've already failed at this haha hoping to get into some sort of new rhythm
So something really interesting came up in my life group, when we were discussing Lent. Because I am new to the practice I was asking a lot of questions and our deacon said that failing during Lent is kind of the point. We fail, we turn back to God and ask Him to help us and we keep turning back every time we fail. It’s like practicing repentance (my interpretation).
Try to think of “failures” as invitations to closeness with God and dependence on Him. The goal of this walk and this “way” is to be always drawing nearer to Him, right? You’re already drawing nearer than years past. You might not win Lent, my sweet little Bundle, but the victory is on our behalf, not on our merit.
I love this Elizabeth, thank you so much for sharing! This is my first time taking part in Lent and just reading this has really taken the pressure off trying to do it ‘right’
What’s that saying? “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” 🥰
I LOVE THIS! and you :')
Love you!!
I used to use Lent for dieting also 🤦🏻♀️
Saturday, February 17, Day 48: Leviticus 14-15
Okaaaaay. Today was rough for me lol I'm gonna need everyone's perspectives on what I'm about to lay out. I felt like today's reading was very much speaking to me -- I was...wandering...and really, REALLY wanting a home and it was not going well with COVID and interest rates and yada yada -- I think you guys know my dumb story. Anyway, cut to now, we DO have a home and it ....isn't the house I wanted *per se*, but I'm so grateful to even have it and we're really making it work -- it has all the things, it's just ...so so so much work and expensive and it's really been a struggle. Sometimes to the point I question if this was yet another "my will" type thing and I don't really even belong here but god was like, suit yourself. ANYWAY -- I related my struggle to Moses and Co. God says....when you get to your destination AND YOU HAVE HOUSES.... so, okay, YAY! we're gonna make it and have houses! But then plot twist-- "I put mold there."
I mean........to me, that's so defeating? I just don't see where the "good" is there. Is it good that they now have houses? absolutely. is it good that we live in a fallen world BUT God is sovereign over everything, even mold? sure, of course. Is it good that suffering means you're forced to rely on God more? yes. I know those are like the ...typical answers maybe? and maybe that really is just all of the explanations, but... it's still hard. for me anyway haha
I actually presented all this to my husband (who, refresher, is a "believer" but has what I like to call a laissez faire approach -- actively praying this changes)
his take was: mold isn't as bad as wandering for decades HAHA so I guess I'm going to ask my very non-emotional, passive, logical husband more often what he thinks about these hard passages that I get very excitable about
Maybe mould is the reminder that God is across EVERYTHING, the big and the very small. And that nothing is perfect except Him?
Friday, February 16, Day 47: Leviticus 11-13
Thursday, February 15, Day 46: Leviticus 8-10
Wednesday, February 14, Day 45: Leviticus 5-7
A really silly observation from today’s reading but did the blood splashed on the altar always stay on or did they clean it off?
That's a great question! One of the things I've thought of is how bad it must have smelled in there.
I have wondered that myself! It would start to smell I would think if they didn’t clean it, it feels like. I’m on a long car ride today and I’m going to research this! lol Love your brain!!
LOL - that’s the mum side of me coming out! 🤣🤣 thinking how grubby it would have got and wondering what their cleaning strategy was! 😃
I don't remember where I heard it (podcast? read it maybe?) but the incense served in multiple ways and one of them was basically to hide the smell!
I really love what Jenn said about the sanitization of faith. SUCH a good point! I think about that a lot -- faith-wise and just our day-to-day, how we live and how far removed we are from just...actually living to survive, you know?! Like not hiking to get water, not killing our food, etc. The idea of all this blood and killing animals is such a stark contrast to what we're used to.
I have ALWAYS wondered this. Why blood, and how did they clean it, and did it smell?? Also, this round I was struck by God providing for the priests. For some reason I always thought they were sitting around a lot waiting for the next sacrifice but this time I realized they're probably busy doing this all day long so they can't work in other ways and need the sacrificial food to survive.
I agree with you. I was really struck by the blood and details of these sacrifices. For the most part, my life is so sanitized and separate from any semblance of blood and gore. It makes me wonder the consequence of that sanitization on my faith. These readings are making me contemplate this more deeply.
This was a really thought-provoking response. I’m going to contemplate “the sanitation of faith” a bit and I would love to hear you explore that thought more if you feel like it.
I’ve been with this idea of “sanitization of faith” for like a week now and so far I’ve had a few different avenues of thought. One was that I grew up in a church that as I recall was simple - a nice sermon on Sunday about how to be good the week ahead. The church itself was modern with stain glass windows and a plain cross. I never went to a funeral there. I never saw a struggle or tears or actual pain (that I remember). We believed in Jesus and loved God. We tried to be good. That’s my summary. I remember going to a Catholic church with my best friend and was shocked by the image of Jesus on the Cross. I remember feeling a little frightened by the rituals and incense. And I was intrigued with what I would have called depth of the services. Like it got me on a darker emotional level. As an adult and I had to actually life through very hard experiences, my very plain and simple faith from my childhood did not have the dark corners for me to go into to. I didn’t understand the suffering of life and didn’t know why God let all this happen. I was very naive. My husband is Catholic so during some of the harder moments I would go to his church and was so pleased to be around folks that were talking about suffering. It felt more tangible (physical) and out in the open. When I look back I feel like my childhood church was sanitized of the blood and guts of life, they hinted at it, but I did not feel it. It did not match my inner experience. Now all this blood sacrifice is pretty shocking to me and it is hard for me to read it all, and yet, it feels like it was reflecting actual life for the people in that time- difficulty, suffering, paying your debts, births, death. I appreciate the physicalness of these rituals and dramatic nature of them, like it is closer to how I experience the actual world. I’m having a hard time make this make sense because it’s not a one to one correspondence - blood sacrifice vs. plain/simple & “nice” Christianity. Hopefully, you’re getting enough of what I am saying.
I’ve been processing this since last night. I’m still processing it. Really some profound insight, Jenn. You sent my brain down a path it had not explored but it explains a lot of my experience moving into a church that does “smells and bells”, (incense on holy days, and well…bells) and a lot of other embodied worship practices.
I have more to say in response. lol. I’m going to have to sit at my desktop. So good, Jenn, thank you so much for sharing
Wow.. interesting thought! Wonder where your contemplations took you.. When I read your words I immediately thought is it about bringing the physical experience more into our spiritual practice? Like, God desires us to be conscious of our physical posture toward the world and Him instead of just our mental/emotional posture? idk... musings haha
Monday, February 12, Day 43: Exodus 39-40
Some interesting stuff from today: the mention of the bread of the Presence is such a cool preview of the Eucharist/Lord's Supper, it actually makes THAT make more sense to me.
I also get a little caught up in the details of the crafts that God told people to make, sort of wondering like, why? But since that is kind of unknowable, beyond that He has His reasons, I have been thinking about how cool it is that He specifically and repeatedly mentions (in verses prior to this) how he has equipped these craftsmen with the skills to make these things. It shows me how much God values beauty and art, and artists, even if it doesn't strictly make "sense."
I am also just in awe of the amount of things folks had to do to enter the presence of God and really really grateful that Jesus removed the necessity of all of that. Would I have bothered, back then? I hope so. But it was...a lot. Then again, if God came to me directly and told me, I'd probably be pretty inspired!
Oh, also. Aaron. Generations of priests coming from him, the dude who just five minutes ago made a golden idol when Moses was away for a minute. God is like YOU CAN'T MESS UP MY PLANS and Aaron is like "try me" but...God wins. No surprise there. Glad I can be as stupid and sinful as I have been and still be allowed a ministry.
I like that God is a details man (well not man - God - but you get what I mean).
Somehow I missed this post completely last week :'( I'll try to post some next week. Loved reading through some of these today though!