How do you keep God's presence at the centre of life? From worship to work, from the tabernacle to the home, these chapters reveal a life shaped by God's continual provision and presence.
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What strikes you as you consider how the people's calendar was to be impacted by the Lord and his presence?
How do these chapters help you to rejoice in Jesus?
How are you freshly challenged to live all of life with Jesus as Lord?
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Felicity: Welcome to Two Sisters in a Cup of Tea, your weekly 20-minute Bible study for everyday life. Grab a brew, find an English-style biscuit, and join us as we work our way through a book of the Bible to discovering truths that don't just inform our minds but shape our lives. This season has been brought to you thanks to the generosity of you, our listeners. We're just so grateful for your sacrificial giving, enabling us to encourage, equip, and model what getting the Bible open in everyday life can look like. If you're new here, welcome. If you've been with us for a while, we're so glad you're back as we carry on in our season in Leviticus.
Sarah: Welcome to Two Sisters and a Cup of Tea. My name is Sarah, I live in the UK. I'm here as ever with my sister Felicity, she's in the USA and today we are looking at Leviticus chapters 21 through to 24. It's another fairly big chunk but it's thinking about what it looks like for the Lord to be in it all, in all of life again. Felicity, here's a question for you as we think about God's presence in the most of everything. Whose presence would you most like to share a cup of tea with?
Felicity: This is a funny because I was thinking about this and I thought, you're probably expecting me to say someone big and famous and you know, presence the aura of that person. But actually, I would just our our granny died a little while ago. And she was a very lovely cup of tea kind of person. You know, she had particular cups and just she had a kind of quite a restful kind of presence to her. Didn't it? If you sit down for a cup of tea with her, it was like a very calm. And she would just say “darling, how are you?” And I just I would love that. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. That's that's kind of where my mind first went on this. Yeah. Did you have anyone anyone big in your mind in in that sense?
Sarah: Yeah, so you're gonna bring a tear to my eye just thinking about that? Well I actually just thought I'd really like to do this in person with you. I like I just would like to share it really in your presence but also that I just went to Moses or Jesus too so you know. Us, granny, Moses and Jesus. There you go, in a room together, putting the world to right. Yes!
Felicity: With a custard cream. Absolutely. Well, Sarah, before we get to today's passage, anyone who has been in Leviticus, anyone who's been reading along with us as we go along, will be aware that Leviticus raises a lot of questions about Old Testament law. Like what do we do with it? What do we do with all the cultural differences? How do we realistically apply this today? And if you've been listening along with us, you might have noticed that we haven't really dealt with those questions in any great depth as we've been chatting. And and really the question is, is that okay? Like are we just kind of dodging the bullet there by not really going big on these questions? Can you can you help our listeners understand why we're not actually giving over a whole episode even to those kind of questions?
Sarah: Yes, because we're not. To disappoint anyone who's hoping that that's going to be right now, here right now, we're not going there. We are going there in kind of small ways, but as we say in each season, what we're doing here is just providing the starter of a conversation. What we're wanting and what we're hoping, what we're praying is that our conversations are a prompt for others to think these things through more deeply. So if you are coming away going you know what, I don't know whether I know what I think about the Old Testament law and I don't know whether I've ever spent any time actually thinking that through. Well this is your prompt, this is your spur to go, do you know what, I'm going to go away and do some thinking about this, I'm going to ask my pastor for some recommendations of books to read, I'm going to go to a couple of commentaries and just start to wrestle that through with others, it's always a really helpful thing to do as well. So the big picture, what we've been seeking to do in our conversations and what we've been surprised at, how much we've seen of is God's heart behind the law. That's where we've kind of landed. And also, as the Bible helps us to, we're seeking to let the New Testament and Jesus's words shape how we view this law. We haven't gone into as much detail as we would have liked necessarily or other people might have wanted us to. But that is where we've landed on how to walk through this. And yeah, that's where we're at.
Felicity: That is where we're at and we're not gonna be going into it any further.
Sarah: No, so today, today we're into chapters 21 and 22. Let's just talk through those, we're not going to read those chapters, but you're then going to read chapter 23. So chapters 21 and 22 of Leviticus, give us a brief kind of overview of what's going on there.
Felicity: Well, we have this kind of preservation of the holiness of anything to do with the tabernacle, with kind of walking into the presence of God. That's been the big overarching thing throughout Leviticus, hasn't it? So chapter twenty-one, we have lots about the priests. Like how can the priests kind of maintain their holiness in order that they would be able to continue fulfilling their responsibilities by mediating between between the people and the Lord and twenty-two, really, again, like what does it look like? The objects that are involved with the tabernacle, but also the sacrifices, like what is it so it's kind of like a this really is how holy God is. This all these instructions have been given about how to approach him. And now what does it look like to say sustainably, I guess, like keep being able to approach the Lord?
Sarah: Yes, super helpful. And chapter 23 then kind of takes us wider, doesn't it? So it's not just the tabernacle that's to be transformed by God's holiness, but time itself is to be punctuated with remembrance and sober reflection and celebration, to be punctuated by remembering the Lord, that the Lord dwells with them. And 24 also goes into that as well. Felicity, you're going to read for us chapter 23 though now.
Felicity: Yes, chapter twenty three.
The LORD said to Moses, Speak to the Israelites, and say to them, These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies. There are six days when you made work, but the seventh day is a day of Sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You're not to do any work. Wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord. These are the Lord's appointed festivals, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times. The Lord's Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. On the fifteenth day of that month, the Lord's festival of unleavened bread begins. For seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. On the first day, hold a sacred assembly and do not do any of your ordinary work. For seven days present a food offering to the Lord. And on the seventh day, hold a sacred assembly and do not do any of your ordinary work. The Lord said to Moses, speak to the Israelites and say to them, When you enter the land I'm going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before the Lord so it be accepted on your behalf. The priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath. On the day you wave the sheaf you must to sacrifice as a burnt offering to the Lord a lamb a year old without defect, together with its grain offering of one fifth of an epha of the finest flour mixed with olive oil, a food offering presented to the Lord a pleasing aromaand its drink offering of a quarter of a hint of wine. You must not eat any bread or roasted or new grain until the very day you bring this offering to your God. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come wherever you live. From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count seven full weeks, count fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord. From wherever you live, bring two loaves made of one fifth of an epha of the finest flour baked with yeast as a wave offering of first fruit to the Lord. Present with this bread seven male lambs, each a year old and without defect one young bull and two rams. They will be a burnt offering to the Lord, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, a food offering and aroma pleasing to the Lord. Then sacrifice one male goat for a sin offering and two lambs, each a year old for a fellowship offering. The priest is to wave the two lambs before the Lord as a wave offering together with the bread of the first fruits, they are a sacred offering to the Lord for the priests. On that same day you are to proclaim a sacred assembly and not do any ordinary work. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come wherever you live. When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God. The Lord said to Moses, say to the Israelites, on the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of Sabbath rest a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do not do any of your ordinary work, but present a food offering to the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, The tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves, and present a food offering to the Lord. Do not do any work on that day, because it is the day of atonement, when atonement is made for you before the Lord your God. Those who do not deny themselves on that day must be cut off from their people. I would destroy from among their people any one who does any work on that day. You shall do no work at all. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live. It is a day of Sabbath rest for you, and you must deny yourselves from the evening of the ninth of the month until the following evening you are to deserve observe your Sabbath. The Lord said to Moses, Say to the Israelites, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when the Lord's festival of tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days. The first day is a sacred assembly, do not do any of your ordinary work. For seven days present food offerings to the Lord, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the Lord. It is the closing special assembly. Do not do any of your ordinary work. These are the Lord's appointed festivals, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies for bringing food offerings to the Lord, the burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings required for each day. These offerings are in addition to those for the Lord's Sabbaths, an addition to your gifts, and whatever you have vowed and all the free will offerings you give to the Lord. So, beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you've gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days. The first day is a day of Sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of Sabbath rest. On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees, from palms, willows, and other leafy trees, and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. Celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in temporary shelters for seven days. All native born Israelites live in such shelters, so that your descendants will know that I made the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. So Moses announced to the Israelites the appointed festivals of the Lord.
Sarah: Brilliant, well done, thank you. I think it's just worth reminding ourselves of the context in which this is written, isn't it? That the Lord is giving these lasting ordinances, there was a repetition there of the lasting ordinances to be celebrated through the generations to come. And they're going to be in different places if they do that. So right now they have been rescued from Egypt and they are in the wilderness, aren't they? But not long to go, at some point they're going to be into the Promised Land and there's kind of that kind of looking back now and looking forward in how he's appointing these festivals, isn't there?
Felicity: Yeah, and the the repetition we had that again and again throughout that chapter, this is a lasting ordinance to the Lord, that this is the pattern and the rhythm which is then gonna determine what your life looks like. This these punctuations with a view to you're right, past, present, and future, but the but if you think about the future, what it looks like to live in this land that will be given to them in amongst the the different people. They're not gonna be the only people in the land. And so so what does it mean to be God's people? And these rhythms that are presented here, actually, as we dig into them a bit more, we'll see there's just huge elements of identity in there. Like, what is it to be God's people? We heard it there just as I was reading that chapter. I was reminded again: the repetition of I am the Lord, I am the one who rescued you. Like these things are happening in response to what God has done, and therefore who you are as God's people. And that's been big thing throughout Leviticus, hasn't it? This identity our holy God, our holy people. And this is just one more means of of being those people.
Sarah: Yeah and that identity transforms the way that you look at your calendar, it transforms the way that you kind of look at your time over weeks, months and years doesn't it? So if we just kind of go a little bit into the detail here, the first one is the Sabbath which kind of harks back to creation, harks back to that kind of picture of Eden doesn't it, of rest, resting with the Lord and this would be distinctly different to what they'd had in Egypt with Pharaoh and just this sense of actually one day a week you're gonna pause, you're gonna stop, you're gonna trust the Lord that you've done enough. And just that kind of, that's the kind of weekly rhythm and that then goes into a festival thinking about his past rescue, doesn't it?
Felicity: Yeah, so Passover Exodus that moment as they're taken out of Egypt, that the blood of the lamb over the doorway. And that's so that so verses four through eight, that's what's being kind of recognized there. Again, do not do any of your ordinary work. Like this is a moment to stop. Trust in the God in God's provision for right now, in this very day, because it would have been probably quite hard to stop work actually, because this is not that you've built up your savings and you can rely on that. This is like each day you do your work in order to be able to eat. And so to stop, reflect, like trust the Lord. And as you're looking back, you're trusting the same God to provide.
Sarah: Yes, and it's very experiential, isn't it? Like, they're to participate in Exodus-like events there. It's a kind of experiential remembering. It's not just, I'm just going to read about it or I'm going be told a story about it. It's a kind of all of life is going to incorporate this kind of remembrance of what has happened, which I think is powerful, isn't it?
Felicity: Yeah, absolutely. And so then the next next one you get this kind of o the offering that actually as you come into the land, this is what it's going to be to really give thanks, to offer your first fruits of your your grain harvest of of what the land is giving you, you are then gonna give it back to the Lord in a recognition that God again is the one who's given you the land. He's the one who's providing, and therefore we are to give it back to him as the Israelite people at this moment.
Sarah: Yes and I love the heart in the festival of weeks a bit further down I love that they're to leave, again to leave some of the harvest for the poor, for the foreigner residing among them so that they can do that too, so that they can worship too, they can bring their offerings to the Lord, again the heart of the Lord too. This is an inclusive worship, this is kind of seeking to bring the nations in isn't it, in that.
Felicity: Yeah, yeah. Just in the in the mid in the a s little snippet there that you you get these festival of trumpets, this kind of like celebratory like Yes I love the sound of the trumpet.
Sarah: Yes. Yeah, I didn't really know. I know you used to play the trumpet, but I didn't really know what that was about. couldn't really, like, I didn't really get much. You don't really get much here about the trumpets other than like, I think it's a joyous thing. It's just like, hooray! Yeah. So solemn.
Felicity: No, I feel like it's just kind of I think it's just l I kinda feel like it's just adding to the tone. It's kind of like this is a joy. But then interestingly, the next one is all about the atonement, which is a much more sober, much more yeah, and we've obviously spent lots of time in Leviticus 16 thinking about what that is actually doing. So, but that I feel like that's also just a helpful thing. If you think this is all of life and these punctuations to everyday life. Within that we do have the emotional range within it. It's not just like triumphant trumpet blasts that we are God's people and we've got the land and that's it. Just carry on, everybody. Yeah, yeah. Sin is still real. Day Atonement is still needed. Sacrifices still need. Like it's that's just real life, isn't it? Like why and we're gonna talk about how this looks for us, this side of the cross and the new covenant of Jesus. But that is our life as well, the the ups and the downs and you know, you and I would testify to we can be laughing one minute and crying the next and that's just kinda normal life, isn't it?
Sarah: Yes, and that's okay, exactly. But I think what's in it all is the recognition, the acknowledgement that the Lord is in it all and that he is Lord over all. And we get that then in chapter 24, as they're kind commanded to keep the fire burning continually, a symbol of the Lord's presence amongst them continually. And this kind of 12 loaves being symbolised in the 12 tribes of Israel to be presented before. Lord, again just the Lord's people are continually in God's presence. It's not just about the Tabernacle, it's not just about these particular festivals at particular times of year, but this is an always and forever thing. And I think that's just been a really helpful reminder, and a reminder for us now as well, that actually like we've seen the repetition through these later chapters of I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, and just that reminder if I was to just keep saying the Lord. Lord is God through all my day, that would really impact the way I go about life I think.
Felicity: Hmm, yeah, really helpful, really helpful. So as we just kind of zoom out a little bit and we've kind of got into some of the detail here as to what these things are doing, but let's take it to Jesus and really see Jesus fulfills all of these remembrances, all of these kind of punctuations. They are actually big fat signposts towards Jesus Himself. So this side of the cross. We as we don't we don't observe these same festivals, but we do observe what Jesus has done for us and therefore who we are in Christ. And as we recognize and remember and testify to who Jesus is, what happened on that cross, what his resurrection has achieved, then actually our lives are marked by these similar rhythms, isn't it? Like as you're saying, this everyday remembrance of those things.
Sarah: Yeah, yeah, to proclaim Jesus is Lord through all of it. And I think for me, it's been specific. I've really appreciated just being able to see Jesus is my Sabbath rest. He is the Passover lamb. He is the bread of life. He is the first fruits of the new creation. He is the atoning sacrifice for my sin. He is the light of the world as the Festival of Tabernacles kind of alludes to, he is forever dwelling with his people by his spirit now. And I think just for me, that's really been so, so cool to just kind of see how much he fulfills. The depth of the fulfillment is not just surface level. In every way, this points us forward to Jesus. And I just, I've loved that. I've loved it.
Felicity: Yeah. I think that's so that is so that is so good. And the we talked at the start, we talked walking through those first couple of chapters, this preservation of the holiness of God and recognizing that actually the means by which we stay holy, the means by which we can keep approaching the Lord, the means by which we don't actually need to have priests getting it all right and all those things, is through Jesus. And again, we go back to Hebrews or we go forward to Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 7, 26, 28, we have this Christ as our high priest. He truly does meet our needs in order to make us holy. Like that, that is the kind of the vehicle, the means, the everything as to how we would be in the presence of the Lord as his people. And it's amazing.
Sarah: It really is, it? It really is. Considering all the efforts, all the work, everything that's involved, you can imagine all the people and how they operate life in these chapters and actually just thinking, we have it in Jesus. We have it in Jesus.
Felicity: We have it in Jesus Yes so good. Sarah, pray for us in response to that.
Sarah: Lord Jesus we just praise you that we have all of this in you. We praise you that you are the fulfillment of the law. We praise you that you are the one it all points toward. You are that forever high priest, the one who does not need to make sacrifices day after day. You are the perfect sacrifice yourself without defect able to atone for us in. We praise you that you dwell with your people. You came to dwell with your people and we praise you Lord by your spirit you dwell with us now. Lord would we be mindful of that as we head into our days, we head into our week, our months, our years. Lord would you help us to proclaim and keep preaching that Jesus is Lord and would that really shift the way that we think about our days, our weeks, and months. Lord we pray to the praise of your glory. Amen.
Felicity: Amen. Well, we are just it's just really enjoyable. I hope, I hope that people are reading along with us, not just listening along, that you are listeners in your own time reading Leviticus as we go in, there's been a lot though, hasn't there, as we've been really kind of racing through large chunks of scripture. So why not take one or two of our discussion questions and and just take some time to think it all through, all the better if you're able to do that with a friend, maybe even over a cup, although we accept all beverages in that. It doesn't have to be tea. But we will be back into the next few chapters of Leviticus next time and we will look forward to seeing you then.
Sarah: See you then, bye bye.
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