Jesus, Our Grain Offering

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 2.1-3
1 “ ‘When anyone brings a grain offering to the Lord, their offering is to be of the finest flour. They are to pour olive oil on it, put incense on it 2 and take it to Aaron’s sons the priests. The priest shall take a handful of the flour and oil, together with all the incense, and burn this as a memorial portion on the altar, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord. 3 The rest of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the food offerings presented to the Lord. 

Reflection: Jesus, Our Grain Offering
By John Tillman

The connection between grain and worship is deep. Its roots go all the way back to Eden, in which, before any other profession, we were gardeners.

The first worship controversy involved Cain’s grains being unacceptable to the Lord. (Genesis 4.3-5) Presumably, they were not the best of his crop. Abel’s offering of the “fat portions” of the “firstborn of his flock” was accepted. “Fat portions” does not mean literal fat or waste fat that a chef or butcher might trim from a fine steak and discard. They are the richest part of the animal—the best cut, not the worst. 

All offerings prescribed in Leviticus, whether grain, baked bread, oil, cakes, incense, or animals, were expected to be of the “finest” ingredients. Leftovers, defective animals, second-rate goods, or anything less than the “finest” was an insult to God.

Another way the scripture describes offering God the best is the term, “firstfruits.” Firstfruits referred to the first and best part of the harvest. 

Metaphorically, Israel was the firstfruits of God’s efforts to cultivate righteousness on Earth. Scripture shows Israel as a wild, unruly vine that resists being cultivated. She is a stubborn and unfruitful fig tree that requires great labor to be fruitful. These images show the deep emotional investment God has in his people. God is a cultivator of hearts. He is willing to dig, fertilize, work, prune, labor, and invest in his plan for Salvation. (Luke 13.6-9)

But, until Jesus, all the seeds that God planted failed to fruit. Where he expected righteousness, he would find only leaves—or worse, rot and corruption. (Luke 6.43-44; Matthew 7.19; 21.19; Hosea 9.16)

Jesus recognized that his life was a seed that when planted would fruit one-hundredfold. Paul described Jesus as the “firstfruit from among the dead.” (1 Corinthians 15.20) Jesus is the first and best part of God’s harvest of righteousness. 

When we stand before God, Jesus is our grain offering of the finest ingredients. Jesus is the fully-fruited head of righteousness, from which we can feed and be made fruitful in him. He is the healthy vine into which we can be grafted, so that his life-giving sap can flow in our branches.

Jesus is the bread, the grain, of life. He has offered himself for us and to us. 

Through worship, prayer, and the word of God, may we feed more and more on Jesus, the bread of life, who brings health, strength, and righteousness to the body.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading
Then they said to him, “John’s disciples are always fasting and saying prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees, too, but yours go on eating and drinking.” Jesus replied, “Surely you cannot make the bridegroom’s attendants fast while the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them; then, in those days, they will fast.” — Luke 5.33-35

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Reading
Leviticus 2-3 (Listen 4:43)
Luke 24 (Listen 6:16)

This Weekend’s Reading
Leviticus 4 (Listen 5:17Acts 1 (Listen 3:58)
Leviticus 5 (Listen 3:35Acts 2 (Listen 6:35)

Read more about Bread and Oil
The bread is symbolic of God as the source of life. Jesus was likely thinking of this bread when he said that he was the bread of life.

Read more about Supporting Our Work
Please consider becoming a donor. Support ad-free content that brings biblical devotionals to inboxes across the world.

Prayer for Outcasts—Readers’ Choice

Readers’ Choice Month:
This September, The Park Forum is looking back on readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, on March 8, 2022, based on Proverbs 27.8 and Leviticus 19.34.
It was selected by reader, David: 
“Amen, Thank you for this reminder of what our call is.  We can all pray.”

Scripture Focus: Proverbs 27.8
8 Like a bird that flees its nest
is anyone who flees from home.

Leviticus 19.34
34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Image: Today’s image comes from the painting, War Refugees in the Snow by Alfred Ost, painted in 1914.

Reflection: Prayer for Outcasts—Readers’ Choice
By John Tillman

There have been many crises in history that have caused waves of migrants, refugees, and immigrants to flee their homes.

Some of the largest refugee movements in history happened during World War II when from 1939 to 1959 approximately 20 million people fled Europe. Our current decade, however, has nearly matched that 20-year stretch. Approximately 17.8 million refugees have fled Ukraine, Myanmar, Venezuela, Syria, South Sudan, and Libya, since 2011.

Refugee crises will continue to grow as nations and prideful leaders continue to choose violence.

Welcoming the stranger is a consistent command throughout the Bible. One must work hard not to pick up on it, but some do go out of their way to avoid it. It may be normative in the world of politics to stigmatize, persecute, and ghettoize foreigners, but it is antithetical to biblical living.

Welcoming the stranger is counter-cultural, not only today but in its original context. The evil treatment Israel received in Egypt is the experience God holds up as the source of his commands to welcome and treat well strangers and foreigners. “As Egypt was, you must not be. As you were treated, you must never allow others to be treated. Do unto others as you would wish they had done to your ancestors.” (Exodus 22.21; Leviticus 19.33-34; Deuteronomy 10.18-19)

In reflection on the continuation of the Ukrainian war, the widening flow of refugees, and a sobering awareness that this conflict has the potential to encompass other countries, we pause today to pray for migrants, immigrants, and refugees.

Prayer for Outcasts
Lord, we pray, today, for those who flee. Aid their flight.
May they avoid danger, escaping the fowler’s snare.
May they find fair winds, lifting their wings and spirits.
May they settle among the branches of the righteous who are like trees, providing healing for the nations.

We pray for those who are called by God to welcome them.
May our hearts overflow with the love of God for his children
May our eyes see the image of God in each face
May rivers of living water flow from our hearts that will satisfy, not just their physical needs, but their needs for emotional shelter, food, and healing.

When they flee violence, let us show gentleness.
When they flee hatred, let us show love.
When they flee scarcity, let us sate them.
When they flee abuse, let us console them.
When they flee oppression, let us free them.

Music: “God Help the Outcasts” — Hunchback of Notre Dame

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of the ram’s horn.
Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises.
For God is King of all the earth; sing praises with all your skill.
God reigns over the nations; God sits upon his holy throne. — Psalm 47.5-8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Lamentations 2 (Listen 4:55) 
2 Corinthians 13 (Listen 2:19)

Readers’ Choice is Here!
Your recommended posts from the last 12 months have blessed us! Which one helped you overcome fear?

Read more about Abandon Human Vengeance
The tactics of human vengeance are escalatory. We always hit back harder than we were struck.

Prayer for Outcasts — Guided Prayer

Scripture Focus: Proverbs 27.8
8 Like a bird that flees its nest 
is anyone who flees from home.

Leviticus 19.34
34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Image: Today’s image comes from the painting, War Refugees in the Snow by Alfred Ost, painted in 1914.

Reflection: Prayer for Outcasts — Guided Prayer
By John Tillman

There have been many crises in history that have caused waves of migrants, refugees, and immigrants to flee their homes.

Some of the largest refugee movements in history happened during World War II when from 1939 to 1959 approximately 20 million people fled Europe. Our current decade, however, has nearly matched that 20-year stretch. Approximately 17.8 million refugees have fled Ukraine, Myanmar, Venezuela, Syria, South Sudan, and Libya, since 2011.

Refugee crises will continue to grow as nations and prideful leaders continue to choose violence.

Welcoming the stranger is a consistent command throughout the Bible. One must work hard not to pick up on it, but some do go out of their way to avoid it. It may be normative in the world of politics to stigmatize, persecute, and ghettoize foreigners, but it is antithetical to biblical living.

Welcoming the stranger is counter-cultural, not only today but in its original context. The evil treatment Israel received in Egypt is the experience God holds up as the source of his commands to welcome and treat well strangers and foreigners. “As Egypt was, you must not be. As you were treated, you must never allow others to be treated. Do unto others as you would wish they had done to your ancestors.” (Exodus 22.21; Leviticus 19.33-34; Deuteronomy 10.18-19)

In reflection on the continuation of the Ukrainian war, the widening flow of refugees, and a sobering awareness that this conflict has the potential to encompass other countries, we pause today to pray for migrants, immigrants, and refugees.

Prayer for Outcasts
Lord, we pray, today, for those who flee. Aid their flight.
May they avoid danger, escaping the fowler’s snare.
May they find fair winds, lifting their wings and spirits.
May they settle among the branches of the righteous who are like trees, providing healing for the nations.

We pray for those who are called by God to welcome them.
May our hearts overflow with the love of God for his children
May our eyes see the image of God in each face
May rivers of living water flow from our hearts that will satisfy, not just their physical needs, but their needs for emotional shelter, food, and healing.

When they flee violence, let us show gentleness.
When they flee hatred, let us show love.
When they flee scarcity, let us sate them.
When they flee abuse, let us console them.
When they flee oppression, let us free them.

Music: “God Help the Outcasts” — Hunchback of Notre Dame

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us. — Psalm 67.1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Proverbs 27 (Listen – 2:43)
Psalm 94 (Listen – 2:08)

Read more about Abandon Human Vengeance
The tactics of human vengeance are escalatory. We always hit back harder than we were struck.

Read more about Grief Unable to be Counted
If secularism were capable of bringing peace we would look to Europe, who would be well on the way.

Beyond Consent — Readers’ Choice

Readers’ Choice Month:
In August, The Park Forum looks back on our readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, April 14, 2021, based on readings from Leviticus 18.
It was selected by reader, Jason, from Texas
A society that espouses physical intimacy as the highest form of love loses the script when it comes to friendship and sacrifice. Higher loves are subjected to lower ones.

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 18.3-5, 24-28
3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord. 

24 “ ‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, 27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you. 

Reflection: Beyond Consent — Readers’ Choice
By John Tillman

In an old stand-up comedy routine that was a favorite of ours in college, a comic (whose name I can’t remember) told a story about a sign in a hospital containing an injunction against having sex in the delivery room of the obstetrics ward. 

When you think about things you might want to ban in a delivery room, that’s not one that jumps immediately to mind. “No smoking” probably. “No foul language” maybe. But no one would make a sign like that for no reason. The comic quipped, “Somebody had to do that.” 

Many of the sexual prohibitions listed in Leviticus and other forbidden practices were also things that no one would ban for no reason. The Egyptians were doing it. The Canaanites were doing it. Even brutal Ammonites were doing it. But God was clear that his people were not to follow along.

These common practices were uncommonly dangerous and damaging. The nations that practiced these things were enslaving women, sacrificing children, destroying their God-given bodies and families, yet they sneered at the prohibitions. Immersed in their culture, they couldn’t see the damage.

Our culture is no different. We think we are so sensitive and self-aware, but we are numb and calloused to the damage of the non-existent sexual ethic of our culture. When the only sexual ethic that exists is “consent” a lot of evil, manipulation, deception, and abuse gets a free pass. 

The very first step of abuse is to groom victims until they consent to abuse. Our culture has groomed many of us to accept the idea that the “freedom” of unlimited sexual experiences is harmless to us and others. We often believe this despite the evidence of rising mental health issues among the most sexually promiscuous members of the population.

Today we view sexuality as the ultimate freedom, the ultimate expression of our identity. Any hint of restriction or restraint, no matter how commonsense, is viewed as unnecessary at best and a form of self-hatred at worst.

Every person, regardless of sexual behavior or sexual feelings, is an image-bearer of God and is called by God to live in purity. This means living in ways that do not damage themselves or others. 

May each of us submit every part of our identities, including our sexuality, to God’s calling in our lives.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth tremble before him. — Psalm 96.9

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Ruth 2 (Listen – 3:56)
Acts 27 (Listen – 6:09)

Read More about Readers’ Choice 2021
Have we heard from you yet? Tell us about posts from the past year (September 2020 – July 2021) that have helped you in your faith.

https://forms.gle/ozM13qvW9ouSWhJS7

Read more about Resisting Cultural Pressure

Culture wants us to think we are primarily identified by our race or sexuality or gender or political party.

Living Leviticus

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 27.34
34 These are the commands the Lord gave Moses at Mount Sinai for the Israelites.

Reflection: Living Leviticus
By John Tillman

When we read Leviticus, we may ponder, “How can we live like this? Are these commands for us today, or are they only commands for the Israelites gathered at the foot of Sinai?”

The themes of Leviticus are gospel values which we should enact.

Do we value holiness over hypocrisy? Even as it lays out the detailed performance of rituals, Leviticus grounds its purpose not in performative religious acts but in the identity of God and our relationship to him.

So let us take seriously the call to be a distinct and different people who reflect the holiness of God. Let us be not performative or hypocritical but take actions based on who God is and whose we are.

Do we value righteousness and justice? Leviticus levels the ground at the entrance to God’s presence. The rich have no advantage over the poor in seeking God. The wealthy are held responsible for the well-being of the poor and the powerful held responsible for the well-being of the weak. The foreigner and the native-born are commanded by God to be treated one and the same.

So let us, in our individual lives, in our communities, and in our governments, take seriously the call to care for the poor, the weak, and the outsider. Let us uphold the rights of the weak and prevent the powerful from abusing their positions.

Do we honor God with all we have acknowledging that we own nothing? Leviticus demands a willing admission that everything which we might think of as “ours” is truly God’s. 

So let us submit to being tenants and no longer claim to be owners. May we recognize that things we have deeds for, receipts for, titles for…they all belong to God. Let us give them over to God and put them to work to earn profits not for our own blessing but to bless others.

We can’t perfectly live out Leviticus but Jesus is our living Leviticus. The Levitical law is completed in Christ, not destroyed. He lived it out on our behalf. 

Jesus is the substitute that redeems us. He is the high priest who sanctifies us. His is the blood that makes us holy. It is under his authority that we can turn to others and offer redemption, sanctification, and holiness. Let us do so with love in our hearts and with open, pure hands.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Our sins are stronger than we are, but you will blot them out. — Psalm 65.3

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 27 (Listen – 4:45)
Psalms 34 (Listen – 2:14)

This Weekend’s Readings
Numbers 1 (Listen – 6:21) Psalms 35 (Listen – 3:21)
Numbers 2 (Listen – 3:47) Psalms 36 (Listen – 1:21)

Read more about Shameless to Blameless
Christ was shamed that we could be called righteous. The glory and righteousness he gained, he gives to the humble and repentant.

Read more about Stop Following Old Laws
These laws also were intended to shape God’s people into something new. All nations and empires were (and are) sinful and unjust. Israel was to be different.