Schaaf's Kopf: Levitical Likings
Schaaf's Kopf: Levitical Likings Rev. Schaaf had a great experience teaching Bible class on Leviticus. I loved reading that book in Matins/Morning Prayer a couple weeks back, serving as liturgist. Read on...
One thing that became apparent for my class participants was the idea concering what exactly is an offering? What are our offerings to be like? The end result was the realization for them that the offering was being given to the Lord, but what does the Lord do with it? He gives it back! One of my members tonight stated "I look at 'offerings' and giving in a totally different way." "Rather than giving to God and making him pleased as many think, I see that God takes the gifts and turns around and gives them back to us through Word and Sacrament and other means". I about fell out of my chair when I heard this and it is so very true. He has no need of being fed or of piling up his grain bins in heaven. No, he takes the offering they give of the firstfruits, blesses it, burns it and then redistributes it to the priest for their necessities and the layity for their families as well. What a marvelous statement that foreshadow what Christ continues to do for us through his sacrificial offering on the fiery altar of the cross. I always love to see the connections of the OT with the NT and especially when my people's eyes are opened up and they see that what once took place in the OT temple is now given to them each and every Sunday in the New Covenant called the Divine Service.
