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Leviticus 15 | Psalm 18 | Proverbs 29 | 2 Thessalonians 3

Leviticus 15 underscores the fact that the theology of cleanness wasn’t always something to do with outright sinfulness, or even abnormal disease. In fact, there were routine ways in which all Israelites were counted to be unclean at regular intervals through normal—and even perfectly healthy—bodily functions.

So, in Leviticus 15, we see a range of possibilities for being rendered ceremonially unclean. Any man who had a discharge—that is, probably from some kind of infection (Lev. 15:2–3)—or an emission of semen, whether through a nocturnal emission or through intercourse (Lev. 15:16–18), or anyone who came into contact with such a man (Lev. 15:4–12) was thereby unclean.1

Or, whenever a woman menstruated (Lev. 15:19), or if she had a discharge of blood not related to menstruation (Lev. 15:25), that woman was unclean until she was healed. And again, if anyone came into any contact whatsoever with such a woman (Lev. 15:19–27), that person was also rendered unclean.

Just as a normal, healthy childbirth made a woman unclean until she went through the appropriate purification process (Lev. 12), so also normal bodily functions (e.g., discharges from infection) and healthy bodily functions (semen emissions and menstruation) would leave Yahweh’s people unclean until purified.

Nowhere is there any suggestion that these people had specifically sinned in some way. But, listen to the reason Yahweh gives as to why he would insist on such thorough precautions: “Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst” (Lev. 15:31).

The principle was simple: the corruption of the fall was contagious, so the Israelites had to prevent any of that corruption from defiling Yahweh or his tabernacle.

This theology helps us to understand better the story of the woman who suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years, as we read about in Matthew 9. This woman was unclean because of her discharge, and so she should have kept her distance from Jesus. Nevertheless, she reached out to touch the fringe of his garment, and immediately she was healed (Matt. 9:20–21).

Jesus might have been offended that the woman would touch him in her uncleanness—she had touched the Word who became flesh and tabernacled among us (John 1:14)—but his response was gracious: “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well” (Matt. 9:22).

Holiness under the old covenant was weak and fragile, liable to be contaminated. The glory of Jesus, then, was that he did what the old covenant could not: he healed, cleansed, and sanctified the sick, unclean, and unholy.

Where uncleanness was contagious in the old covenant, it is now the holiness of Jesus that is contagious, transforming miserable sinners into radiant children of the Most High God through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.2

1 Allen P. Ross, Holiness to the LORD: A Guide to the Exposition of the Book of Leviticus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 306–7.

2 See, e.g., Craig L. Blomberg, Contagious Holiness: Jesus’ Meals with Sinners (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Leviticus 14 | Psalm 17 | Proverbs 28 | 2 Thessalonians 2

Because of the connection of leprosy to sin and death—as we discussed in yesterday’s meditation—anyone with a skin disease had to remain outside the camp of Israel until their condition was healed (Lev. 13:45–46). In Leviticus 14, Yahweh gives Moses instructions for how someone suffering from leprosy could be cleansed in order to be reconciled back into the camp of Israel.

First, the leprous person had to present himself or herself to a priest, who would examine the person’s skin to ensure that the disease had, in fact, been healed. It is important to note that the priest did not have the ability to heal but only the authority to evaluate whether a person had already been healed.

Second, if the disease had been healed, then the healed person must be cleansed. The cleansing process involved sprinkling with sacrificial blood and water (Lev. 14:6–7), shaving off all of the person’s hair (Lev. 14:8–9), anointing with oil (Lev. 14:15–18), and four sacrifices: a grain offering, a guilt offering, a sin offering, and a burnt offering (Lev. 14:10–20). These rituals illustrate the full range of corruption for the victims of this disease, as well as the completeness of their purification before Yahweh.

One of the more intriguing parts of this process is the use of two birds in Leviticus 14:4–7. The priests would kill one of the birds and use its blood along with clean water to sprinkle on the person who was cleansed, and the other bird would be released in the open field. The significance of this ceremony is that one animal dies as a sacrifice (“this life in exchange for yours”), while the other animal carries away the disease when it is set free, and it is very similar to what we will see in Leviticus 16 prescribed for the Day of Atonement.1

We should glean at least two principles from this ceremony. First, while we certainly recognize some of the evil of sin, disease, and death, we should see from all this that Yahweh recognizes far more of the horror of the fall. We cannot comprehend our own depravity.

Second, this process for cleansing a leper is a perfect summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the law. On the one hand, not a single step is neglected for the purification of someone who had been healed, but on the other hand, the law carries with it no provision whatsoever to heal.

If the human race hadn’t been helplessly enslaved in bondage to sin, then the law might have been an option for us to live through our obedience. But because we were dead in our sins and transgressions, Jesus Christ came to save sinners—not those who were well, but as the Great Physician to heal terminally sin-sick people (Mark 2:17).

1 Allen P. Ross, Holiness to the LORD: A Guide to the Exposition of the Book of Leviticus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 288–89.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Leviticus 13 | Psalms 15–16 | Proverbs 27 | 2 Thessalonians 1

Leprosy gets significant attention in the book of Leviticus, both in chapter 13 (our reading for today) and even through chapter 14, which we will look at tomorrow. It is important to note that the word for leprosy here does not necessarily refer to Hansen’s Disease, the proper name for the condition that we refer to as leprosy today, which causes severe nerve damage in the body’s extremities. Rather, this word should probably be translated more generically as “skin diseases.”1

The larger context surrounding the issue of leprosy is the issue of cleanness, which we discussed yesterday. There were two ways that skin diseases meant uncleanness, and therefore defiled the holiness of Yahweh in their midst.

First, problems like disease, deformation, and death all came as a direct result of the fall of Adam and Eve into sin—that is, skin diseases are a physical manifestation of humanity’s spiritual problem. In the Garden of Eden, only perfect life, health, and purity existed. For Yahweh to re-create a holy dwelling place on the earth (the tabernacle) similar to what was lost at the fall, no product of the fall may remain in his presence.

Second, leprosy also provided a physical illustration of a spiritual problem: the clinging, corrupting influence of sin on humanity. Splotchy, swollen, or boil-infected skin vividly illustrates how sin takes hold of us and ruins our health. As such, the people who lived in the midst of a holy God needed to address leprosy and other skin diseases immediately. Even more, lepers were powerless to do much to cure themselves except to watch, wait, and pray that God would heal them. And because they didn’t know much about the causes or cures of these skin diseases, other people could only wait in fear and pray that they would not contract those diseases from their fellow Israelites.

This is why Jesus surrounded himself with lepers during his life on earth. Leprosy was one of the ugliest, most feared, chronic reminders of the reality of sin and death, and victims of the effects of the fall were helpless to save themselves.

But Jesus, out of deep compassion, came as the Great Physician to heal the sick. Certainly, he could have healed them at a distance, by his word, but Jesus chose specifically even to touch lepers as he healed them (Matt. 8:3).

Why? Just as Jesus came to make lepers clean, he also came to make sinners clean. In the same way that he rolled back the vivid effects of the fall in the form of skin diseases, he also came to roll back the whole scope of the curse of sin, death, and the devil through his life, death, and resurrection.

And still today, when sinners ask Jesus, “If you will, you can make me clean” (Mark 1:40), Jesus responds with mercy: “I will; be clean” (Mark 1:41).

1 Gordon Wenham, The Book of Numbers, OTG (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 37.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Leviticus 11–12 | Psalms 13–14 | Proverbs 26 | 1 Thessalonians 5

Up to now, Leviticus has dealt largely with issues concerning the work and ministry of the Levites themselves—that is, the proper sacrifices to offer, the proper way to offer them, and the ordination of Aaron and his sons for priestly ministry. Beginning in Leviticus 11, the focus of our readings shifts toward the issues of holiness and cleanness in the camp where Yahweh made his dwelling place.

Allen Ross gives this helpful explanation of these fundamental concepts of holiness and cleanness in his commentary on Leviticus, Holiness to the LORD:

Under the law everything was classified according to the categories of holy or unholy, with only the holy being permitted in the presence of God. What was not holy (i.e., what was common) included two subcategories: clean and unclean. The normal state or condition of most people and things was clean; what was clean could be elevated to holy through sacrificial ritual, but it could also be degraded to unclean by pollution or sinfulness. Accordingly, the Levitical ritual was designed to cleanse and sanctify: something that was unclean could be made clean by purification, and then what was clean needed the blood ritual to make it holy.1

Only the priests, then, worked at all in the realm of the holy. Their garments were holy; the sacrifices and the altar on which they offered those sacrifices were holy; the tabernacle and all its furniture was holy; and the priests themselves had to be sanctified (i.e., made holy) to serve in their priestly duties.

For the most part common Israelites did not have access to the realm of the holy. So, the concern of most Israelites was not with maintaining holiness as much as it was with maintaining cleanness. In Leviticus 11, then, we read about the foods that were clean for Israel to eat as well as those that were unclean for Israel’s consumption. In Leviticus 12, we read about the rituals required for women who have given birth to be made clean again.

To our ears, this can all seem bizarre, restrictive, or even oppressive, but we shouldn’t miss the overarching theological point from these stories: because Yahweh himself was living in the midst of his people, Israel had to maintain a certain minimum threshold of cleanness to avoid defiling his holiness.

But ultimately, even this arrangement will prove to be unsatisfactory. Israel will eventually fail to keep themselves clean in the presence of Yahweh, and Yahweh, who cannot dwell long-term in anything less than absolute holiness, will eventually abandon his people to judgment.

This arrangement, then, is a step toward something greater—the day when Yahweh will dwell with his people in not merely a clean city but a holy city. On that day, Yahweh will dwell with his people in the New Jerusalem, where “nothing unclean will ever enter it” (Rev. 21:27).

1 Allen P. Ross, Holiness to the LORD: A Guide to the Exposition of the Book of Leviticus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 243–44.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Leviticus 10 | Psalms 11–12 | Proverbs 25 | 1 Thessalonians 4

The holiness of God is awful and terrible—not in the sense of being “bad,” but in the sense of commanding great fear, dread, and reverence. One of the great sins of modern Christians is that we take the holiness of God too lightly, over-emphasizing God’s grace and love to the point that his holiness vanishes altogether.

In Leviticus 10, Nadab and Abihu offer up some kind of unauthorized fire on the altar of God, possibly after imbibing wine or strong drink (Lev. 10:9). This defilement of Yahweh’s altar and his holiness provokes him to consume Nadab and Abihu with fire, proclaiming, “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Lev. 10:3). Notice that Yahweh insists on a special kind of responsibility for those who are “near” to him. Those who enjoy the special privilege of Yahweh’s presence are held to a higher standard than those who are not.

The Hebrew word for “unauthorized” (zarah) is a word that occurs in the Bible primarily to speak of the things that are not allowed into the presence of Yahweh. Zarah is the enemy of holiness. So, offering unauthorized fire had been explicitly forbidden in Exodus 30:9, and later in Numbers, one of the main jobs given to the non-priestly Levites is to encamp directly around the tabernacle to prevent unauthorized people (zûr, another form of zarah; Num. 1:51) from coming too near to Yahweh—with lethal force, if necessary.

In the New Testament, Hebrews 10 interprets the significance of Leviticus 10 for us today. First, the author of Hebrews tells us that as Christians, we enjoy the high privilege of being called to “draw near” to God through Christ, all the way into the presence of his holiness (Heb. 10:19–22), just like Nadab and Abihu. Still, he warns us that if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving a knowledge of the truth about Jesus, we stand in terrifying expectation of judgment of God’s holy “fury of fire” (Heb. 10:26–27).

These passages aren’t about losing salvation but about the kind of hardness of heart of someone who goes on for a long period of time hearing the word of God preached, participating in the prayers of the people of God, and even receiving the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper without ever actually believing, only to fall away completely in the end.

For such a person, the author of Hebrews concludes with this dire warning: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). Take stock of your heart and your life: Do you rest in the protection of the righteousness of Jesus Christ with full assurance of faith, or are you in danger of falling into the judgment of the living God?

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Leviticus 9 | Psalm 10 | Proverbs 24 | 1 Thessalonians 3

At the end of Leviticus 8, after Moses had washed Aaron and his sons, dressed them in their priestly garments, offered all the necessary sacrifices, smeared sacrificial blood on their bodies, and sprinkled them with holy anointing oil to consecrate (i.e., to make holy) Aaron and his sons in strict observance of the instructions of Yahweh, the priests-to-be had to wait seven days until their ordination could be completed (Lev. 8:32).

At the end of this period of waiting, on the eighth day, Moses calls Aaron and his sons forward again to offer their first sacrifices before Yahweh. Although Aaron and his sons had laid their hands on the sacrificial animals in Leviticus 8, it was Moses who actually offered the sacrifices until this eighth day, when Aaron and his sons took up the responsibilities of the priesthood in full. After making their sacrifices, Aaron lifted up his hands to bless the people and then accompanied Moses into the tent of meeting, and then blessed the people again (Lev. 9:22–23). At that point, the glory of Yahweh appeared, and fire from Yahweh consumed the sacrifices, indicating Yahweh’s approval of his new priests and causing the people of Israel to fall down before Yahweh in worship (Lev. 9:24). Aaron and his sons were duly ordained and installed to full duties as priests.

But as I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s meditation, the exclusive priesthood of the sons of Aaron was only a temporary arrangement. God eventually raised up a new priest from a different priestly line altogether—a priest who offered himself, once for all, as an eternal sacrifice for God’s people. That is, God appointed his Son to be our great high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, not Aaron (Heb. 7).

Furthermore, God removed the office of priest as a position of leadership under the new covenant. The only ordained offices of leadership in the new covenant are that of elder and deacon (1 Tim. 3), not priest.

But that doesn’t mean that priests no longer exist. Rather, God has commissioned all believers to serve as priests: “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5). In the new covenant, we are called as priests to bring true worship before Yahweh—the sacrifice of praise (Heb. 13:15)—and also to offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1).

We do not and we cannot atone for the sins of anyone—Jesus Christ alone atones for sin through his sacrifice on the cross—but we are nevertheless called to a unique position of nearness to Yahweh to worship him with our praise and with our lives.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Leviticus 8 | Psalm 9 | Proverbs 23 | 1 Thessalonians 2

Leviticus 8 marks the official ordination of Aaron and his sons to serve as priests before Yahweh, a pivotal moment for Israel. We saw the leadership of Israel expanded beyond Moses alone in Exodus 18 when Moses appointed a hierarchy of judges to help him give justice to the people, but now Aaron and his sons step into the role of priests to help meditate between Yahweh and Israel.

The Levitical priests were called out of Israel and set apart from the rest of the nation—and even from the other members of the tribe of Levi who did not descend directly from Aaron himself—for a special purpose. From this point on, they will serve as the chosen representatives for the rest of the nation of Israel before Yahweh himself in the tabernacle, bringing the nation’s offerings and sacrifices and pleading with Yahweh on behalf of their people. Accordingly, the names of the tribes of Israel are physically inscribed on jewels on the ephod and the breastpiece of the priests (Lev. 8:7–8; cf. Ex. 28:29, 39:14), and even the Urim and Thummim symbolize the judgment of the people of Israel that the priests bear on their hearts before Yahweh (Lev. 8:8; Ex. 28:30).

Also, the Levitical priests will serve as the chosen representatives of Yahweh to Israel. Their turbans carry a crown with the inscription “Holy to Yahweh” (Lev. 8:9; cf. Ex. 28:36, 39:30), and the priests will consult the Urim and Thummim to determine the will of Yahweh on complicated matters (Ezra 2:63). The priests (along with the other Levites) will also serve as the main teachers of the law to the people of Israel (Deut. 33:10; Neh. 8:1–8).

Yahweh has not permitted that any others should come before him in this way, so the Levitical priests both shoulder a great burden and also enjoy a great privilege that the rest of their people will never experience.

It’s important to recognize, however, that this priestly role was never meant to be permanently exclusive to the sons of Aaron. Yahweh intended the Levitical priests to execute this responsibility of mediating between himself and the people of Israel only until he could introduce a single new high priest—his own Son Jesus Christ—who would serve as the one mediator between God and men (1 Tim. 2:5), obtaining his priesthood not according to the legislation of the Levitical priesthood but according to promise (Ps. 110:4), after the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 7).

But also, Yahweh only intended the sons of Aaron to serve as priests until he could make his entire people a nation of priests through the new covenant. In fact, you and I have been made priests before Yahweh (1 Pet. 2:5) through Christ—a subject we will explore in tomorrow’s meditation.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Leviticus 7 | Psalms 7–8 | Proverbs 22 | 1 Thessalonians 1

Being a Levite carried with it a few unique provisions—and sometimes even drawbacks. For example, the Levites were not counted in the census to be eligible for military service with the rest of Israel (Num. 1:47–54), and additionally, only the tribe of Levi went without receiving an inheritance in the Promised Land (Josh. 13:33).

The reason for the peculiar treatment of Levi was simple: God had given them greater privileges than military service or property ownership because he had given them himself. Joshua 13:33 puts it this way: “But to the tribe of Levi Moses gave no inheritance; the LORD God of Israel is their inheritance, just as he said to them.”

In Leviticus 6–7, then, we read about part of the special privileges the tribe of Levi received for their service to Yahweh in the tabernacle. Specifically, they were given food to eat from the sacrifices that worshipers brought to the temple. To be sure, no one from any tribe was permitted to eat blood or fat (Lev. 7:22–27), but one of the main ways that God provided for the physical needs of his Levites was to feed them from the sacrifices brought by the rest of Israel.

In fact, the idea of feasting with God is a major theme throughout salvation history. In the beginning, Adam and Eve were free to eat from any of the trees of the Garden of Eden (only one tree excepted), and after the fall, one of the greatest privileges we have seen human beings enjoy up to this point was when Moses took seventy of his elders halfway up Mount Sinai to eat and drink with God (Ex. 24:9–11).

These provisions to feed the Levites from Yahweh’s own altar were remarkably gracious—so gracious that not even the rest of Israel could partake. The inheritance of the Levites was not land but the opportunity to taste of heavenly things that were set apart as holy.

It is remarkable, then, to read this warning from the letter to the Hebrews given to Jews who were considering apostatizing back to Judaism: “Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat” (Heb. 13:9–10).

What the Levites enjoyed was good, but we have something better. Their eating and drinking with God was merely a shadow of our feast at the table of our Lord. We who have been bought with the broken body and shed blood of Jesus enjoy a feast that even the Levites had no right to eat.

Do you marvel at your privileges in Christ as you celebrate the Lord’s Supper?

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Leviticus 6 | Psalms 5–6 | Proverbs 21 | Colossians 4

In Leviticus 5–6, we read about the final type of sacrifice under the old covenant Levitical priesthood: the guilt offering. The guilt offering was similar to the sin offering in two ways. First, the guilt offering, like the sin offering, was offered to make atonement for a specific sin, rather than being a general offering for sins like the burnt offering. Second, both the guilt offering and the sin offering were only available for sins that were committed unintentionally (Lev. 5:14, 17), not for sins committed with a “high hand,” that is, deliberate sins.

The difference between the sin offering and guilt offering, then, comes in the way the guilt offering made restitution for the specific value of the wrong the person committed. So, if someone had pledged to bring an offering of a certain value to God but failed to keep that pledge, the worshiper would make restitution by bringing 120 percent of the value of the pledge to the tabernacle along with a guilt offering (“add a fifth to it”; Lev. 5:16). Or, if someone cheated another person in business, the guilty party similarly owed his victim the full value of what he had defrauded him, plus another fifth (120 percent; Lev. 6:5). And only after making restitution would the sinner bring the guilt offering before Yahweh to make atonement for his sin.

The principle behind the guilt offering is clear: even though God promises that he will forgive us our sins, not holding his wrath and judgment against us any longer, there are nevertheless no sacrifices that allow us to absolve ourselves of the material consequences of our sins. When we have wronged people, we have real debts that we need to make up.

In his commentary on Leviticus, Allen Ross reminds us of the teaching of Jesus, who said, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5:23–24). Ross then wisely writes this: “Many sins cannot be made right, but those that can should be, otherwise worship is hindered.”1

The fact that Jesus Christ has paid for all of our sins does not mean that the consequences of our sin vanish. We need to proactively find the people we have wronged, seek their forgiveness, and, if possible, restore what we took from them. The guilt offering from Leviticus gives us a theological model to separate out the issues of atonement and forgiveness before Yahweh from the issue of restitution. The same Jesus who made atonement for our sins commands us to make restitution to the people we have wronged.

Is there anyone to whom you need to be reconciled before you worship the Lord today?

1 Allen P. Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship from the Garden to the New Creation (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2006), 200.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Leviticus 5 | Psalm 3–4 | Proverbs 20 | Colossians 3

In the Levitical sacrificial system, the offerings worshipers brought were, by design, costly. In the ancient world, wealth wasn’t measured as much by the number of dollars in a bank account but more often by the amount of livestock a person owned. So, when God says, “For every beast in the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills” (Ps. 50:10), he is making a claim that he possesses all the wealth in the entire world, as measured by animals—not only domesticated livestock (cattle), but even the wild beasts in the forest.

The question we should be asking by this point, then, is this: What will all the poor people in Israel do to bring sacrifices before Yahweh? If they can’t afford to bring bulls or goats (which were incredibly expensive), what would they do? Would they be unable to receive atonement and forgiveness for their sins? Is the worship of Yahweh something that only the richest in Israel could afford to do?

Not at all. In Leviticus 5:7–13, we see yet another degree of Yahweh’s gracious mercy toward his people as Yahweh makes provision for people who could not afford to bring the more expensive sacrifices. If, for example, someone couldn’t afford a lamb, that person could bring two pigeons or two turtledoves (Lev. 5:7)—and if someone couldn’t even afford turtledoves or pigeons, then that person could simply bring an ephah of fine flour (Lev. 5:11). No matter whether you were rich or poor, Yahweh had appointed a sacrifice that was within your means to offer.

But at the same time, we should recognize that sacrifices were supposed to be costly. If the sacrifices cost nothing of the worshiper, then they didn’t qualify as sacrifices. For this reason, Yahweh was furious in Malachi 1:6–14 with the worshipers who demonstrated such great contempt for him by bringing blind, lame, or sick animals for offerings—animals that they would never dream of bringing to their governor (Mal. 1:8). Even if we are unable to afford expensive sacrifices, we should never dream of offering to God something that isn’t costly to us.

In the New Testament, we are told exactly what kind of costly sacrifices God demands: he asks us to offer nothing less than ourselves. In Romans 12:1, Paul writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” It isn’t that we can atone for our own sin—only the infinitely costly sacrifice of Jesus Christ can atone for sin—but God asks us to worship him by giving him everything we have and everything we are.

Does your own pattern of sacrifice to God meet the requirement of costliness, even if you personally cannot afford something that others would deem expensive?

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.