The Salt of the Covenant
I bought a bag of “Peanuts Roasted in the Shell” to take to the ball game. At the game, I tried several and all of them were terrible. I’d never had rotten peanuts before so I checked the bag to see if there was an expiration date. According to the manufacturer’s stamp, they hadn’t expired. Then I noticed an important word written under the bag’s title, “Unsalted.” Blahh!
What a difference salt makes. Anyone who has been asked to reduce salt intake will testify that a little salt makes a strong difference in flavor and savor. In Leviticus 2:13 God instructs that salt must be a part of all grain offerings presented to the Lord, “You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.”
I once accidentally bought unsalted saltine crackers too. Those stinkers still labeled the box “Saltine Crackers” but in much smaller letters wrote, “unsalted.” They should have put a big UN in front of the word saltine or taken the word saltine off the box. The salt makes all the difference.
According to J. Vernon McGee, “Salt is the final ingredient which was included in the meal offering. Salt is a preservative and is the opposite of leaven. Leaven produces decay; salt preserves from corruption. ‘The salt of the covenant’ is still eaten among Arabs as a seal to bind one in faithful obedience to a covenant. Salt was the token of faithfulness between the offeror and God.”
Two additional passages in the OT mention a covenant of salt. Numbers 18:19 “All the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you (the levitical priests), and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you.” 2 Chronicles 13:5 “Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt?”
A covenant of salt is ongoing and is intended to lead to provision and protection for God’s people. Jesus tells his followers in Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.” Believers’ are His salt of the covenant, intended to save and flavor the lives of the people God sprinkles us around.
John Riley
Sweeter than Honey
I am not sure if you ever have had an oven-fresh biscuit with butter and honey, but it might be one of the most amazing flavors ever. The aroma can be smelled from the next room and I know I was pleased when I could smell the aroma coming from the oven. Of course, God was not saying that biscuits and honey were bad in Leviticus 2:11, but he had given rules to the Israelites and simply expected them to do things his way. The Lord commanded no yeast and no honey in the grain offering. This made me have to do a little further research and of course, God intended a little more than baking instructions.
God wanted his people to be holy, he wanted them to be separate from the things of the world. In this case yeast and honey, they were the things to be given up. He was specific in how to make this offering because it was supposed to be pleasing to him. Peter uses a later chapter in Leviticus to apply the principle, “Be holy, because I am holy.” I think Peter took the position that we should understand our lives are the offering. We are to be separate and live in a way that is pleasing to God. Paul tells us to not be influenced by this world, but to be transformed (Romans 12:2). A life of obedience is part of the passage that transcends a grain offering and applies to everyday life.
This verse made me reflect on my life and choices lately. Am I living in obedience? Am I giving my best for him or for others? Do I really want to be holy or apart from the wrong influences of this world? As I reflected, I accepted God’s love and care to know that he has provided everything I need to live in obedience and enjoy what he is doing. There is joy and freedom in living in a way that honors him that is even more powerful than biscuits and honey. Let me encourage you to reflect for a moment and thank God for what he is doing in your life. Also, take a moment to think about where you are letting a little of the world’s influence be mixed into your offering. In both ways go to him and let God care for you.
Jeremy Johnson
A Fine Offering
“When anyone brings a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour.” - Leviticus 2:1
When I first read this verse, I wasn’t sure if “fine flour” was a reference to the flour’s size or to its quality. Did it mean finely ground flour or really high quality flour? Well, apparently the answer is “yes.” The highest quality flour is actually the finest in size. This is because of the process that wheat goes through to make grain. In those days, flour was not something that you bought in pre-packaged bags at the store. It was something that went through an incredibly time intensive process to get to your pantry. The wheat had to be sown, watered, grown, bathed in sun, and then reaped, threshed, sifted, and ground over and over in a mill. All of this made fine flour a very valuable commodity and a wonderful offering.
Here in this obscure passage in Leviticus we read about an offering of flour and it may seem a bit random, but it is important to remember that this was the most human of offerings. This was the type of offering that humans were created to give before sin brought death into the world and led to the sacrifice of animals. We were meant to give a fine offering.
The first words of the creation story that begins in Genesis 2:5 are, “Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground.” Did you catch what was missing? The creation was good, but there was no one to work the ground. You see, this is what we were created to do. We were created to work the ground and live off of it. We were created to cultivate the plants and to make fine flour. This would have been the perfect offering to God. That is, until sin entered in. Once we sinned, it brought about death and death brought the need for our offering to change. Instead of offering to God the works of our hand, we needed to offer the life of another living being. We needed to offer blood. This was not the original design.
However, there is good news. Because of Jesus, we have the opportunity to once again offer a bloodless offering to God. We can now offer a fine offering of something made with our hands because Jesus was our once-and-for-always-sacrifice! No more blood is needed. Now we are called to become a living sacrifice. It is no less costly, and no less meaningful, but it is most definitely fine. So the only question is… What is the fine offering that God has designed you to give today?
I pray God gives you the answer.
Josh Rose
Discipleship Pastor
Gratitude
When I was growing up, I noticed we had a very minimal weekly dinner selection. Dinner options were slim but you could always guess that one dinner was going to be spaghetti. It didn't bother me until I got into high school. One day, my grandma could tell I got annoyed because we were having leftover spaghetti for dinner. After complaining about it for a while, I remember her sitting me down and sharing about our financial situation. I was aware that we didn’t have a lot of money but was unaware of how bad it was. So bad that she shared that she and my grandfather had to sell all their jewelry, recycle cans out of dumpsters, and ask for help. She then explained how we would get groceries from the church weekly and would work with whatever we got. As I sat there feeling bad and slightly embarrassed, my grandmother grabbed my face and said we are blessed and God is our provider. I sat there for a second guessing what she said because my grandparents love the Lord but it seems to me he doesn’t love them back. Though I doubted that love, my grandmother fully embraced it and made it clear that regardless of what we have, in this house, we will have a heart of thanksgiving. My grandma would reference Leviticus 2 and explain that it’s a great reminder that God is our provider and we should have a heart of thanksgiving.
I share this short story with you because if we can be honest, life gives us so many challenges that we tend to get into a place of worry and doubt. Many know that God is a provider but we get so fixated on our issues that we will doubt that truth. I have found myself doing that many times in my life. If you’re like me, when you find yourself in a place of worry or doubt read what Jesus says in John 14:27:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
What a beautiful thing to know that Jesus says he will give us that peace if we are willing to accept it from him. When you feel the stress of life, allow the Holy Spirit to fill you with Jesus’ peace.
JT
Ascension
I had the wonderful privilege of reading Dante’s Purgatorio with my students recently, and Dante’s symbolism repeatedly came to mind as I prepared for this devotional. As Protestants we get a little nervous around words like “purgatory,” but rest assured, once you dive beneath the surface of Dante’s Purgatorio, at its heart is an allegory of the soul’s journey through repentance and restoration made possible through the power of God’s grace.
The journey Dante takes in Purgatorio is a process of becoming reordered back into a proper love for God, and this is a process of being completely and utterly undone. Dante’s whole self must be renewed so that what he wants to do and what he ought to do are one and the same thing (in other words, his will becomes completely aligned with God’s will). It’s a beautiful picture of what Paul speaks of in Romans: “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God…do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Dante goes through a process that completely reconforms his mind, heart, and inclinations to love what God loves, and to see as He sees.
Once Dante has been undone and remade, he must pass through a wall of fire and be consumed by its purifying blaze. Afterward, Dante is described in the last lines of the poem as having become “pure and prepared to leap up to the stars,” which symbolizes Dante being ready to enter God’s presence.
When we are “consumed” by God after we offer ourselves to him as a living sacrifice for the first time, we become transformed and renewed through Christ’s work on the cross. But this passage in Romans and Dante’s journey in Purgatorio is not about salvation. It’s about becoming transformed in our desires, inclinations and thoughts every day. About the transformation that occurs when we allow God to move and work in sanctifying us, because being transformed by God when we offer ourselves to Him wholly and completely is not just a one time thing, but a never-ending process.
It is when we repeatedly choose to come to God in total surrender that we really get to experience–not just the opportunity to live our lives with the benefits of his grace, free from guilt and shame–but the majesty, awe and joy that comes from being in his presences after relinquishing our will and desires to Him and saying with Job, “Though [You] slay me, yet will I trust in [You]” (Job 13:15).
Ashley Carr
Teacher
Wholly Consuming
In Leviticus chapter one, the Lord details how burnt offerings are to be prepared and offered. This was to be an offering, which means it was voluntary, something one would do out of a spirit of worship. The entire animal would be completely consumed by fire leaving nothing left. Most of the other sacrifices had portions to be set aside for the priests or even for feasts.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Romans 12:1
As followers of Jesus, we’re instructed to offer our living bodies as sacrifices rather than some animal. Like Christ, we are called to live wholeheartedly for God and his purposes. Much like the burnt offering, we are to offer all of ourselves, knowing full well what it costs. There should be nothing left of us to give to the world, or anything else.
Our sinful nature predictably squawks at the whole premise, as it is the sinful nature that burns in the Lord’s presence. The harder we push, the harder it resists, which turns the act of being a living sacrifice into a lifelong civil war. Sadly, we will always be an imperfect burnt offering, never fully ridding ourselves of our lesser nature. Praise be eternally to Christ for his grace towards us! He completes our partial offering with his perfect sacrifice.
Jonathan Duncan
A Fragrant Aroma
Leviticus 1:1-17
I’m going to be very honest with you. Leviticus is hard for me. Graphic descriptions of animal sacrifices, burnt offerings, and blood thrown around—not very appealing visuals are they?
As I began to study, it became apparent that the Lord gave Moses very specific instructions for worship in the newly completed “tent of meeting.” God wanted the people, not just the priests, to understand how to worship him. We learn that God required excellence in worship. He wanted the sacrifices made in a very specific way. Yes, they did things differently back then, but we can still apply the principles.
In Leviticus, the burnt offering was needed to be “accepted before the Lord” and we know that later because of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice on the cross for our sins, he became the believer’s atonement. In Leviticus, people participated in worship by following his instruction to slaughter the animal and present it in a certain way. The burnt offering was a pleasing fragrance to God. It was a sign of obedience and the desire to please their heavenly Father.
God is teaching his people something very important. God teaches us that he wants and seeks worshipers. There is no obstacle to worshiping God. There is no barrier to worshiping God. The Father wants true worshipers. Psalm 149:4 tells us, “For the LORD takes pleasure in his people.”
We are reconciled to God because of Jesus, the slain lamb who shed his blood for us. So when we worship, no matter how burnt out, worn out, or broken, we are the perfect sacrifice or atonement in God’s eyes. We can come to the throne of grace just as we are.
“But the hour is coming, and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” (John 4:23 ESV)
Putting on a coat doesn’t change the weather but it does protect you from the elements. Worship is the way you clothe yourself for a discouraging world. The same circumstances that crushed you yesterday become something you can thrive in today when you focus on Jesus through worship. Then we become the pleasing fragrance that spreads the sweet aroma of Jesus to those who don’t know the redeeming love of our Savior.
Deb Hill
Oblation
I don’t ever remember hearing the word oblation before this week. It refers to the act of bringing an offering to God. It can also be the actual offering itself. Today we normally say tithe, gift, offering, or sacrifice. It seems the word oblation has been around a long time, but not in my sphere. The Hebrew word qorban קָרְבָּן translates to oblation or offering and it refers to the act of bringing an offering and the offering itself.
It is curious to me how close oblation is to the English word obligation. Two little letters added to the middle ig. The internet explains that “The Latin root ag and its variant ig mean “do.” These roots are the word origins of a fair number of English vocabulary words, including agent, agile, litigate, and castigate. The roots ag and ig are easily recalled through the words agenda, or things to be “done,” and navigate, the “doing” or “driving” of a ship.”
To do:
☐ shop for groceries
☐ write check for offering
☐ schedule dentist appointment
☐ vacuum front room
In the OT, oblations continued while people cheated each other and lived for themselves. This made God mad. Isaiah chapter 1 reveals the Lord’s displeasure when his people’s gifts were only obligations. Here are some of the lines from that chapter:
11 “The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?” says the Lord.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
12 When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
14 Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
16 Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.
God isn’t looking for obligatory lives going through the motion of ritual or religion. He wants our hearts. Focus on him and care for the people around us. Lets pray that we live lives of oblation not obligation.
John Riley
So Much Blood!
In the late ‘80s, the Recording Industry Association of America started putting “Parental Advisory” labels on certain audio productions that they felt were “potentially unsuitable for children.” Sometimes I wonder if the Bible needs one of those stickers… especially when I read Leviticus. Not because the material is necessarily unsuitable for kids, but because there are many parts of it that need an explanation to kids of all ages… including myself.
I was reminded of this again this year as I was reading through Leviticus in our OT Reading Plan (you can find that at efcc.org/read-bible, it’s never too late to join in). I was absolutely shocked by how much blood was involved in the sacrificial system. Not only are animals killed, but it would seem that the blood of the animal was supposed to be sprinkled everywhere! There is even some evidence that when the Temple was built, there were special channels and drainage systems built into it just so that they could handle the copious amounts of blood. Priests would spend their entire workday making these sacrifices and then sprinkling their blood all over the place. There was just so much blood!
But maybe, it only seems “potentially unsuitable” to us because we don’t live in a time or place where we almost ever have to deal with blood. We let other people (or probably machines) do that for us. We just drive over to the closest In-N-Out, order up as many pre-processed slabs of cow that our hearts desire, then we eat them without ever having to consider that what we are eating was once a living, breathing animal, with blood flowing through its veins. We live in a society that is so distant from death that we rarely feel the pain of it. Maybe this was the point of the sacrifice… to be a reminder of the pain that sin brings.
So, maybe the emphasis on blood in Leviticus is really not meant to be gruesome or violent, but rather, it is meant to underscore the seriousness of sin. Instead of being grossed out by it, allow it to be a reminder that sin only steals, kills and destroys the life that God wants us to live. Then, be thankful anew for the life, death and resurrection to new life that Jesus experienced once and for all for us.
Josh Rose
Discipleship Pastor
Upside Down Kingdom
“Once you have given up knowing who is right, it is easy to see neighbors everywhere you look.”
-Barbara Brown Taylor
The gospels uniquely teach us about the life and ministry of Jesus and his heralding of an upside-down kingdom. The kingdom feels foreign yet it is one we were originally intended to experience. The Prodigal Son is one of three parables about lost things. Jesus launches into these stories as the Pharisees and teachers begin grumbling about the undesirable company Jesus is keeping (tax collectors and sinners- oh my!). I wonder if this grumbling stems from the Pharisees coming face to face with this upside-down kingdom. If King Jesus breaks bread with such company, then where do the devout, the ‘good guys’, and the ones who are ‘right’ fit in to this kingdom? Perhaps envy and fear are the basis of this grumbling. Maybe these Pharisees are even a little belligerent about their uncertain status.
In these parables, the preciousness of the lost item is emphasized. A dedicated shepherd lovingly searching for his lost sheep. An old woman tearing her house apart for that one coin. The prodigal son is precious to his father, clearly, the welcome home party demonstrates that- but what is he to his older brother?
The older brother, intent on pointing out who is right and wrong in this story misses the preciousness of his younger sibling.
Love your neighbor as yourself- we know this is one of the fundamental tenets of Jesus’ kingdom. If we desire to live within this kingdom, we must see neighbors - and their preciousness- rather than adversaries and opposition.
Anna Nielsen
Life on Mission Director
