Seriously

February 28, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
Leviticus 10:1-2 (NIV)

Our daughters are very different individuals. When they were young, Taylor was always dutiful, sweet and soft-hearted. If she was caught being naughty, all it took was my “dad look” to reduce her to tears. Madison was entirely a different matter.

One day I was headed out to run an errand and I heard Taylor screaming in the back yard. I investigated and found Madison hitting her big sister in the head with a whiffle-ball bat. With righteous paternal anger, I yelled and scooped Madison up in my arms. I decided to throw her in her car seat and take her with me on my errand so I could have a serious talk with my little one about assault and battery with a deadly weapon.

“Madison?! You NEVER hit people with something like a baseball bat! It’s dangerous and you can seriously hurt people!” I yelled as I looked at her in her car seat from the rear view mirror.

“How do you know?” the she replied casually from her car seat.

“Because it’s happened, Madison! People have been hit with baseball bats and have ended up in the hospital. Some people have even DIED!”

“But, daddy, how do you know?” she asked again, seemingly unfazed by my obvious anger and raised voice.

“Because it was in the NEWS! Someone got hit in the head and died and they reported it in the NEWS!” I screamed, my temper reaching DEFCON FIVE.

There was a long pause. Perhaps I finally got through to her.

“Daddy?” came the sweet voice from the back seat.

“WHAT?!” I yelled.

“Grandma says you can’t always believe what they say on the news.”

Sometimes, it is lost on children just how serious a matter can be.

In yesterday’s chapter, Aaron and his sons began their new lives as priests. Aaron offered God’s prescribed offerings for the firsts time, followed the instructions obediently, and the glory of the LORD appeared.

Today’s chapter tells a very different story. Two of Aaron’s sons fail to make the mental and spiritual transition from dudes to priests. The bros aren’t taking all this priestly stuff seriously. They start screwing around with the fire and incense in God’s tent temple. Fire from God’s presence consumed them and they died.

Sometimes, it is lost on children just how serious a matter can be.

The death of Nadab and Abihu is tragic, as are a lot of deaths that result when people don’t take mortal (and immortal) dangers seriously. For the Hebrews, this event right on the heels of Aaron’s obedience actions provide a sobering lesson. God is not playing games. When He said that He is setting before them life and death, and wants them to choose life, He wasn’t kidding. I imagine that Aarons remaining sons suddenly took their new jobs a little more seriously.

In the quiet this morning, I couldn’t help but think of a similar event in the early days of the Jesus Movement in the book of Acts. A couple named Ananias and Sapphira conspire to lie to Peter and the church about a financial matter for their personal profit. When their greedy deceit is brought to light, the couple fell dead. That incident, along with Nadab and Abihu’s tragic deaths are isolated incidents a thousand years apart from one another, but they both serve as a reminders that perhaps I should take God seriously.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Chapter-a-Day

“New Things Come”

February 27, 2025 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

On the eighth day Moses summoned Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel.
Leviticus 9:1 (NIV)

I have learned over almost 45 years as a disciple of Jesus that this spiritual journey as His follower is all about my transformation. It’s the gradual migration from my earthly and worldly mindset into having my mind fixed on the things of God. Treasures on earth lose their perceived value for me as spiritual treasures are considered increasingly more priceless in my mind. What I desire becomes less significant (in fact I desire things less) and what God desires of me becomes more of a priority. This is literally what Paul was writing about when he told the Corinthian believers: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

In today’s chapter, Aaron and his sons are facing an abrupt transformation. The chapter begins by describing the events as taking place on the eighth day. In yesterday’s chapter, God told Aaron and the boys to camp out at the entrance of His tent for seven days. Granted, this seems like a strange request to our logical sensibilities. Today’s events take place on the eighth day. God is using His base language of metaphor again. What does everyone know, from the very beginning of the Great Story in Genesis took place in seven days? Yep, creation. How long were the dudes camping with God? Yep, seven. It is now the eighth day. Something is new. A spiritual transformation has taken place. Something new has been created in Aaron and His sons. The dudes are now priests of the Most High God.

In today’s chapter, Aaron performs the priestly duties and sacrifices for the first time. This is new. Another thing that is abundantly clear is that Aaron performs the offerings exactly as prescribed by God through Moses. The text is painfully repetitive as it recounts Aaron’s exact actions detail for detail. In fact, it’s one of the strange things about Leviticus that drives modern readers bonkers. As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, two things came to mind.

First, I returned to the reality that these are events are taking place in the toddler stage of humanity thousands of years ago. Writing is a relatively new technology that few know and reading isn’t even a thing for the masses. Things were passed down orally and as an actor currently working on my lines for a role in a play I am reminded that repetition is the key to memorization. When toddlers watch Sesame Street they are introduced to a letter and a number and those are repeated over and over and over again in that episode. The repetition was likely helpful and necessary to the ancient Hebrews learning these detailed instructions.

Second, there is a spiritual lesson taking place even in Aaron’s exacting conformity to God’s instructions. Five hundred years or so later, the Hebrews will decide they want a king and they will choose a guy named Saul. Saul will subsequently decide that he can perform these offerings even though he’s not a son of Aaron as prescribed. Samuel tells him:

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

One of the spiritual lessons God is attempting to teach His fledgling people through this sacrificial system is the importance of obedience. The obedience is more important than the sacrifices themselves. In fact, God makes this abundantly clear in Psalm 50:

“Listen, my people, and I will speak;
    I will testify against you, Israel:
    I am God, your God.
I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices
    or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
I have no need of a bull from your stall
    or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine,
    and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
    and the insects in the fields are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
    for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats?“

At the end of the chapter, as a result of Aaron’s obedience in presenting the offerings according to the instructions, the “glory of the LORD” shows up in the form of fire. So this spiritually transformed dude who is now a priest obeys God, does as instructed, and God responds. It’s the eighth day. It is a new beginning for Aaron and the boys. Old things have passed away. New things have come.

Which is exactly what God has spiritually done in me through being joined with Christ thousands of years later. In fact, spiritually speaking that transformation includes making me a priest of the Most High God, as well (see 1 Peter 2:9).

In the quiet this morning, I find myself marveling once again at how God’s message is consistent even as He communicates it differently at different points of the Great Story, even as I communicate about these same things differently to my toddler granddaughter than I do to her adult parents.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Across the Divide

February 26, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“You must stay at the entrance to the tent of meeting day and night for seven days and do what the Lord requires, so you will not die; for that is what I have been commanded.”
Leviticus 8:35 (NIV)

Throughout the Great Story, there is a clear separation established between the kingdoms of this world and our earthly realities, and the Kingdom of God which exists in a different realm, a heavenly realm, a realm of Spirit. Dotted through the Great Story are experiences in which the divide between these two realms is breached. Angelic visits are a great example. Individuals like Isaiah, Ezekiel, and John being given a glimpse of God’s throne room are another. Typically, when humans experience these breaches of the spiritual divide, the human being is reported to be scared to death.

In his exploration of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) in the book Imagine Heaven, John Burke reports what people who have physically died, experienced the other side, and were sent back describe of their experiences. He found that most described it as more real than anything in this earthly existence. Those who’ve experienced say that this earthly life is a shadow world compared to that world.

As I have considered these accounts and descriptions, I have begun, I believe, to understand holiness in a deeper way. Holiness always seemed to me to be defined as some kind of super-powered moral perfection, but the further I get in my spiritual journey, the more I realize that’s not it. The divine reality of God’s presence on the other side of the divide is overwhelming and indescribable Light, Love, Life color, beauty, wholeness, knowledge, and infinity. That’s holy.

What we experience daily on this earthly journey in a realm of sin and death is not holy. Throughout the Great Story, God is trying to reveal the glory of His Kingdom to me, allow me to choose into that Kingdom by faith, and to live my earthly life in this world of sin and death according to the principles of a Kingdom that is not of this world.

Today’s chapter is a major transformation for Aaron and his sons. Yesterday, they were just normal Hebrew dudes like every other Hebrew dude. After the events of today’s chapter and a week of camping out at the entrance to God’s tent temple, they are priests. They have a uniform, a detailed instruction manual, and they’ve been ceremonially cleansed and purified for the role of being priests for the Hebrew people with all the responsibilities that go along with it. Welcome to a whole new reality.

As I meditated on the chapter in the quiet this morning. I pondered what God is doing with these ancient Hebrews in the toddler stages of human development in history. Just the other day our granddaughter Sylvie was with us. She’s at the stage in which she’s having to learn that there are things of Papa and Yaya’s that are special. They aren’t toys to be mindlessly and carelessly played with or discarded. God is doing the same thing with the Hebrews. He’s giving them an earthly sense of a spiritual Life and death realities of God’s Kingdom. The heavenly and the earthly. The holy and the ordinary. The sacred and the profane. These are things they can hardly fathom in the same way Sylvie can hardly fathom why that fragile family heirloom she just grabbed off the table is holy in Papa and Yaya’s kingdom.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself reflecting back on the kids and grandkids visit for a few hours on Sunday. There were colorful light saber fights, playing make believe, running in circles, wrestling on the bed, video games, intense energy, laughter, love, cuddles, sharing challenges, celebration of goodness, food, drink, and did I mention love? Yes, there was a lot of love. It was holy. At least it was a taste, a hint of that ultimate reality on the other side of the divide. How might I reflect and infuse my day with a little of that holiness for those around me?

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Of Fat and Blood

February 25, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“Say to the Israelites: ‘Do not eat any of the fat of cattle, sheep or goats. And wherever you live, you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal.”
Leviticus 7:23-26 (NIV)

Living in Iowa, one is spoiled when it comes to a good steak. The other week while Wendy and I were on a cruise, we treated ourselves to a fancy, upscale dinner at the ship’s onboard steak house restaurant. It was a lovely evening and we enjoyed ourselves very much. The steak I ordered was, however, just okay. The truth is that for one-third the price I could have gotten a much better steak at my local grocery store.

One of the things you learn about steak when you live in farm country is that fat is good. Fat is what helps make the lean meat even tastier. Steak experts talk about “marbling” of the steak and the fat to lean ratio. It’s a whole thing.

We are also spoiled by having fat cows. For the ancient Hebrews living in the desert wilderness, fat was a luxury and a sign of abundance.

One of the things modern readers struggle with in reading Leviticus is understanding some of the rules God put down. They seem so strange to our 21st century lives. This is true even for Biblical scholars and experts. There are certain things in this ancient Hebrew priest manual that are mysteries lost to us in the course of time. Others, however, can be understood when you translate God’s base language of metaphors.

In today’s chapter, God gives instruction that the fat of a sacrificed animal is God’s alone. Some portions of certain sacrifices could be eaten by the priests (it was how the priests and their families were provided for), some might be eaten by the person who brought it, but only God could have the fat. Fat, being a sign of health and abundance was the best. It is part of a recurring theme God is teaching the Hebrews through this entire sacrificial system. Bring God the best: the first fruits of the harvest, animals without defect, and the fat of the animal.

As for blood, it was deeply associated in the Hebrew mind with life itself. When a person was injured or slain and the blood spilled out of them, it was to them a person’s life spilling out. And God makes it abundantly clear throughout the entire Great Story that life is sacred. God even boils down the Great story on multiple occasions to a simple choice of life or death:

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV)

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” – Jesus
John 10:10

To consume the blood of another living being was metaphorically consuming its sacred life.

As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, there were two things that emerged for me.

First, I found my heart and mind returning to the idea of giving God our best. The truth is that for most of my life I feel like I gave God my leftovers. It was only as I matured in my understanding that everything I have is God’s and nothing is really mine that I truly understood generosity. Generosity is not me giving something up, but rather it’s me stewarding and channeling God’s goodness and provision to others.

Second, God is beginning to teach His people about the difference between the sacred and the ordinary. He’s introducing His people to the concept of holiness, and I believe that it was another thing that is easy for humans to twist into something it’s not. I believe it was another thing that Jesus came to reclaim and return to a heart understanding.

But there’s more of that to unpack in the chapters ahead. It is now time for me to engage in the sacred task of my vocation.

Have a great day, my friend!

uote

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Calvinball

February 24, 2025 Tom Vander Well 5 Comments

They must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day they present their guilt offering.
Leviticus 6:5 (NIV)

I miss Calvin and Hobbes. The comic strip about a young boy and his stuffed (yet very real) tiger has always been one of my favorites. One of the recurring themes in the world of Calvin and Hobbes was Calvinball, a game of ever-changing rules based on Calvin’s whims and whatever gives him an edge in winning the game. It’s sort of like our grandson Milo, who loves to have Papa get him past the difficult part of the video game level and then abruptly steals the controller out of my hands. It’s abundantly clear who is making the rules regarding how this works.

I thought of that as I meditated on the chapter this morning. God, having established the five major offerings He wants His people to bring to the altar, now provides some specifics for each one and how they are to be handled by the priests.

It’s hard for me fathom, but the Hebrew people had no formal code of law or order at the time Leviticus was given. Life together was one big game of Calvinball. People could make up their own rules at their own whim based on whatever benefitted them the most. I take for granted that I have never known a world without a formal structure of social law and order. I can’t imagine living without it.

This is one of the things I find most helpful in reading through the book of Leviticus. On a macro level, God is eliminating life as one big game of Calvinball and establishing an ordered system of living life together in community: God, me, and others. What does God establish first and foremost? Voluntary offerings of gratitude, blessing, and devotion (burnt, grain, and fellowship). After that comes the mandatory offerings for sin and guilt based on the sinner realizing his or her responsibility and acting on it. Nowhere in what I’ve read so far in Leviticus do I find a condemning God breathing hell-fire and damnation nor an absent God living in another spiritual reality with little concern for humanity. Rather, I find God initiating and establishing a system by which He and humanity can live together in harmony.

The underlying theme of the five main offerings is my human responsibility to be considerate of God and others, and to take the responsibility for my own actions and make things right. In today’s chapter, God even ups the ante in situations in which I am responsible for stealing, breaking, or losing someone else’s stuff. God through Moses establishes that before the Hebrew perpetrator brings his or her guilt offering to God, first he or she must make restitution in replacing the stolen, broken, or lost item and add twenty-percent of its value in interest. I couldn’t help but hear the echo of Jesus’ own teaching in my soul:

“This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.” Matthew 5:23-24 (MSG)

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about human’s ability to play Calvinball even with our established system of laws and regulations. How can I twist the letter of the law or bend the meaning of that regulation for my own selfish purposes? By the time Jesus arrived on the scene, that’s what His people had done with the laws of Moses that we’re reading about in Leviticus. Jesus was not changing the rules, He was teaching me to get back to the heart of it:

“Don’t suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scriptures—either God’s Law or the Prophets. I’m not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. God’s Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after stars burn out and earth wears out, God’s Law will be alive and working.” Matthew 5:17-18 (NIV)

The heart of what I’ve read so far is about acknowledging both God and others in my life, and doing right by them in relationship. Loving God as He has loved, saved, and provided for me. Being responsible, treating others as I’d want to be treated, and making things right (with others and with God) when I make mistakes.

Seems like a pretty good system to me.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Responsible

February 21, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“‘If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.’”
Leviticus 5:1 (NIV)

Sin is a subject that carries a tremendous amount baggage with it. Along my life journey I’ve observed fundamentalist types who use sin as a tool for social control rather than treating it as the universal spiritual condition that it is. Particular sins get called out and heightened to a heightened level of public and social shame so as to ostracize those commit. Just recently I heard of a young couple who had sex and got pregnant before they were married. They were forced to stand in front of the church and publicly confess their sin and shame. Personally, I think every member of that church’s elder board should submit their tax returns for a thorough audit to see if any of them need to stand before the church and confess their greed. Subsequently, they should have a weigh-in at the next church potluck to see if anyone needs to stand before the church and address the sin of their gluttony and the abuse of God’s temple, their bodies.

As Jesus said to the fundamentalist religious types of His day, “he who is without sin can cast the first stone.”

As Shakespeare put it, “there’s the rub.” Religion loves to make a major deal about certain moral behaviors and particularly public sins, but then completely ignore others wholesale. The result is that the world sees the hypocrisy and dismisses the religion.

That still doesn’t address the problem of sin and the guilt of responsibility.

In today’s chapter God introduces the final of the five prescribed offerings for the ancient Hebrews to bring to His altar. It’s a guilt offering, and the chapter begins by calling out the responsibility one bears for speaking up when you have evidence of wrongdoing, and the guilt of remaining silent.

As I’m reading this, I put myself in Moses’ sandals and imagined him receiving this particular specific instruction. Moses was a murderer. During the old days in Egypt, Moses happened upon a slave driver who was beating one of his fellow Hebrews. Moses murdered the man. All of his fellow Hebrews who were there saw it. Moses was responsible for the act, and they were responsible to tell the truth about what they saw. I have a hard time believing that Moses didn’t feel something inside as God gives him these instructions for a “guilt” offering. That’s the key difference between a fundamentalist use of “sin” as a social control tool, and addressing the very real human need to take responsibility for the things we’ve done.

As I meditated on these things in the quiet this morning, I remembered an event that happened in college. I was driving with my sister late on a winter night. We witnessed a hit and run and I sped to try and get the license plate number of the person who “ran.” We hit a patch of ice, spun out of control, and into on-coming traffic. The young woman we struck was pregnant. Thank God, she and the baby were alive despite her injuries landing her in the hospital. A few days later, my sister visited the woman in the hospital to apologize and express her sorrow for what happened. I, however, didn’t go. The guilt and shame I felt was overwhelming. I was afraid to face her. I was afraid to speak up and be responsible. I still feel it as I remember and write these words.

That is the sin problem God came to address. I look back at my life journey and the road is dotted with things for which I know I am responsible. Not only am I responsible for the mistakes I willfully made and the wrongdoing I willfully committed, but I’m also responsible for the things I should have done and failed to do. How amazing that God not only initiated a way to address the problem for Moses and the ancient Hebrews, but that He ultimately chooses to sacrifice Himself in order that I might be graciously and mercifully forgiven.

The words of a Bob Dylan lyric come to mind:

“Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake.
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.
In the fury of the moment. I can see the Master’s hand,
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Lay Your Hands

February 20, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

The elders of the community are to lay their hands on the bull’s head before the Lord, and the bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord.
Leviticus 4:15 (NIV)

I did not grow up on a farm, but Wendy did. It’s been fun for me over the years to hear the stories of her and her six siblings and the adventures they had. There’s the story of Wendy’s dad having to sell a bull in order to have the money to buy their wedding rings. There are also the stories of her and her siblings raising livestock and showing them at the county fair, a tradition some readers may not realize is still very much alive in rural America. And of course, there are the requisite stories of the siblings first realizing as children that the hamburger they were eating was actually the cow they raised, cared for, and knew by name. That is a reality most of us never experience.

One of the things that modern readers struggle with most is the blood and guts of ancient sacrifices in Leviticus. It is so foreign to both our modern realities as well as sensibilities. In today’s chapter, the fourth of the five main offerings God is introducing to the ancient Hebrews is presented, and it’s a big one. It’s the “sin” offering. As I meditated on today’s chapter, I realized that there’s so much here that I could write a book to delve into all of it. So, I want to stick with two simple concepts.

First of all, the Great Story establishes in the very beginning that when Adam and Eve used their free will to do the one thing that was forbidden to them, it introduced a spiritual problem within humanity called sin. The spiritual problem resulted in a subsequent problem: physical death. The sacrificial system being established for the ancient Hebrews is establishing another spiritual reality: for the sin/death problem to be addressed, a substitutionary sacrifice must be offered. This is why Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection is essential to our faith. The seeds of understanding what Jesus would ultimately do are here in today’s chapter. Without Leviticus and today’s chapter, one’s understanding of Jesus and what He did are incomplete and at risk of being grossly misunderstood.

Second of all, I find it fascinating that with each sacrificial offering, it was required for those making the sacrifice to “lay hands” on the sacrificial animal. I can’t help but think about Wendy and her siblings and the intimacy they experienced in the process of raising, caring for, and knowing the animal who would ultimately be sacrificed to put food on the family table. This was the common human experience throughout human history until the last 150 years. God insisted that there be a human connection, the laying of hands and an intimate touch, between the sinner needing forgiveness and the animal that was about to be sacrificed on his or her behalf.

For modern readers who get squeamish about the notion of animal sacrifice, I’d like to point out that every year here in America there are approximately 35 million cows systemically slaughtered so we can grab a quarter pounder at the McDonalds drive-through on a whim or pick up a wonderfully convenient, prepackaged pound of ground beef at the grocery store. Most of us never see the cows. We never raise them. We don’t care for them from birth, give them a name, feed them as calves, or transport them to their death. And yet 100,000 cows will be sacrificed today on the altar of our modern convenience and blissful human ignorance and arrogance.

If you ask me, there is something that seems innately more real and nobly human when there was an intimate connection between a human and the animal that was sacrificed, whether that be for sin or for the daily sustenance required for survival. Keep in mind that the food from most of the sacrifices in Leviticus ended up putting daily food and nourishment on the table of the entire Hebrew tribe of Levi and their families. For them, the sacrificial system was part of daily survival in the brutal reality they lived in each day.

Which leads me to where my heart and mind ended up in the quiet this morning. I was raised in the church. I learned all the stories of the Bible. I went through the classes and got my membership certificate, but it still wasn’t real for me. Then came an evening when it all became real, and I understood the reality of my own pride and willful, sinful choices. I made the mind, heart, and spirit connection between what Jesus willingly suffered on the cross and the forgiveness of my pride and willful, sinful choices. In a spiritual sense, it wasn’t until I “laid my hands” on Jesus and made that intimate connection between my sin and His sacrifice that I understood His amazing grace and my undeserved salvation.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

God With Us

February 19, 2025 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering, a pleasing aroma. All the fat is the Lord’s.
Leviticus 3:16 (NIV)

I saw an adorable post on social media the other day. A young child had been given the assignment to draw what it means to be “safe.” The child made a rudimentary sketch of himself in bed between his dad and mom. Such a simple childlike understanding. “If I’m with dad and mom, all is right with the world. I’m loved, provided for, and protected.”

The Hebrews had a word for that sense of wholeness, peace, and well-being: Shalom. While the word is literally translated as “peace,” it has a much broader definition that envelopes experiencing that feeling of “God is good. Life is good. I’m good.“

It is difficult for a modern reader to understand how radical the instructions God was giving to Moses and the Hebrew people was at the time it was given. The world in which the Hebrews lived was filled with thousands of gods. Egypt alone had well over a thousand gods in their religious pantheon. The gods were often attached to a place. Every town and city-state had its own god. So when you left that town, you left that god and would go visit the god of the next town. In ancient Mesopotamian religions, the gods inhabited their own spirit world and had little regard for human beings who were lesser than and relatively unimportant to them and their world.

The God of Moses is so very different.

God initiated the relationship with Moses and the Hebrews. He heard their cries from slavery, showed up, and delivered them. He’s led them into the wilderness and now God initiates the establishment of an ongoing daily life and relationship with them. They don’t have a place yet. Thus, God has Moses create a tent temple that they can carry with them. Wherever they camp, they set up God’s tent temple smack-dab in the center of camp. The people set-up camp around it. God isn’t associated with a place, He is associating Himself with a people. He is Immanuel: “God with us.”

This is important in understanding the third of the five different sacrifices God establishes for His people to make on the altar of His tent temple in today’s chapter. It is known as a “fellowship” offering, but also as a “peace” offering because the word used for this offering is rooted in the Hebrew word “shalom.”

What makes the Fellowship offering unique is that it is the only one of the five offerings in which the person or persons bringing it get to participate in consuming the food that is burnt on the altar. All of the other offerings are handed to the priests, the priests then handle the sacrifice and, at that point, everything is between the priest and God. With the “fellowship” offering, everyone is involved in sharing the offering together. It is, in a sense a communal meal together with the individual, the priest, and God. It foreshadows a day when God Himself will come to the table, make Himself the offering, and say to us, “Take this and eat. It’s my body broken for you. Take this and drink it. It’s my blood shed for you. Do this whenever you get together an remember.”

But humanity isn’t there yet. They are just infants and toddlers in their understanding of this One God, this Creator God, who is also a parent. God is providing simple ways to show the ancient children so that they might understand. He is with them. He loves them. He is protecting them. He will provide for them. “I’m right here in the center of your world, your community, and your family. Cuddle in next to me, my child. Be safe. Find shalom.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Uncategorized

“The Good Stuff”

February 18, 2025 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

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.
Leviticus 2:2 (NIV)

This is the first winter in fifteen years that Wendy and I are not making plans for stocking our place at the lake for a summer full of people. Normally, Wendy would be making all of the lists of supplies from toilet paper to condiments and cleaning supplies. March was often the month we would make our first trip to the lake of the season and make a Walmart run to fill the carts with needed supplies for the summer.

I observed a few things about human nature over the years of having the Playhouse. When Wendy and I stocked the house, we always stocked it with the same food and supplies we use at home every day. If something ran out in the course of the summer, I found that it was typically replaced by the cheapest, lowest quality alternative one could be find available at the Dollar Store. By the way, I’m not pointing my finger at anyone here. My own mother was the worst at this, God rest her soul.

A few years ago I had the task of announcing our local gathering of Jesus’ followers annual food offering. Everyone was asked to purchase a couple of food items to contribute to those in need. Remembering my observations at the Lake House, I reminded my fellow Jesus followers that this was an offering, a gift, and an opportunity to show extravagant generosity. What if the people who need and receive these gifts, rather than getting the cheapest, easiest “Best Value” brand item I can find on the shelf at Walmart are instead blessed to receive some of the highest quality, most expensive speciality item at Whole Foods?

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post/podcast, it’s my choice.

Which do I believe Jesus would prefer from me?

Today’s chapter continues the newbie Hebrew priests’ guide to the five types of offerings they will be accepting at the altar of God’s traveling tent temple known as the Tabernacle. Today’s chapter describes “grain” offerings, and there were different options that people had. We have to remember that this nation of Hebrews wandering in the wilderness were an agrarian society. There were no corporate or tech jobs. The people raised their own livestock and grew their own crops to survive. With that came a dependence on and partnership with God to survive and thrive. I believe we’ve lost a sense of that partnership and dependence with God in our modern society. Grain offerings were also called “first fruit” offerings. The first and best of the harvest was brought as a present of gratitude and offered to God as a generous expression of thanks and devotion.

Along my own life journey, I confess that this is a lesson that I’ve had to personally learn. I did not grow up, by nature, a generous person. Quite the opposite, I was both selfish and foolish with my money and resources. Learning to be generous required of me a continuous process of repentance and a conscious change of heart over a period of time. What I’ve observed over time is that Wendy and I have never regretted being generous. We have learned that the more generous we are the more we realize what we don’t need, the more we understand that nothing we have was ever really ours, and the more blessing we personally experience.

The following Sunday as people brought their food offerings to worship, I had a friend pull me aside. Our friend has an adult sister with special needs who had asked her to drive her to the store so she could take some of her own money buy some items for the food offering. As they stood in front of the shelves of food, her sister asked her, “Where’s the good stuff? Tom said we should get the good stuff!”

I couldn’t help but immediately think about Jesus thanking His Father in heaven that the things of God’s Kingdom are lost on the “wise and learned” of this world while being perfectly clear to little children and the least imaginable individuals.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself once again repentant of the remnants of selfishness and greed that exist in me. I am regretful of taking so long to learn even the simplest Kingdom lessons about gratitude and generosity. I am grateful for having learned the fact that I never regret being generous in my gratitude and gifts to God and others.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Book Summary List, Chapter-a-Day

Leviticus (Feb-Mar 2025)

February 17, 2025 Tom Vander Well 8 Comments

Each photo below corresponds to a chapter-a-day post for the book of Leviticus published by Tom Vander Well in February and March 2025. Click on the photo linked to each chapter to read the post.