Ok ok, that's not what this blog is about at all, I just thought I'd share.
What I really wanted to talk about is reading through my Bible chronologically in one year. I have this great one year Bible that Lindsay Beeman got me a few years ago that goes through the Bible based on when stuff took place. It's awesome, but the flaw is that most one year plans have you read a little of the Old Testament, a little of the Psalms and Proverbs, and a little of the New Testament each day. I'm realizing why that is such a good idea. The Old Testament is horrifying in some places, boring in others, and only occasionally interesting.
I'm starting in Leviticus and I hate it. I want to skip through it, but that's not what reading the Bible in one year is about. I'm at the part where it keeps talking about guilt offerings, sin offerings, and fellowship offerings. It talks about what to do if you have knowingly and unknowingly sinned and gives very detailed instructions on how to slaughter the sacrifice: what parts to tear up, how to drizzle the blood, what can and cannot by eaten of what you sacrifice and by whom it can or cannot eaten.
It's gruesome, overly detailed, and boring. My mind tends to wander. I wonder why we have to read this stuff if it's no longer necessary, and then I realized it: all the gruesomeness and technical information on sacrifice should lead me constantly to Christ's death on the cross.
In Old Testament times, dealing with sin was a mindful ritual, an actual killing of another living being before your eyes to make some sort of atonement for your sin. The people in the Old Testament saw what sin causes; it causes death. We, however, don't have to see this kind of death....or do we?
I love animals. I can't stand to think of an animal in pain. Yet my sin doesn't hurt an animal, it is a nail in the body of the very man who exists to save my soul. Every lie, every prideful thought, every lustful action is a nail in Jesus' hands and feet. Who gets a better deal, us or the original Israelites? I'm thinking it's the Israelites.
The Old Testament is important because it forces us to look at the blood, the pain, and the destruction our sin costs. Maybe we don't have to watch the blood flow or hear the being cry out in pain, but we know it happened. My sin is a nail in the cross, just like the blade that slashed the throat of every sacrifice of the ancient Israelites.
I love animals. I can't stand to think of an animal in pain. Yet my sin doesn't hurt an animal, it is a nail in the body of the very man who exists to save my soul. Every lie, every prideful thought, every lustful action is a nail in Jesus' hands and feet. Who gets a better deal, us or the original Israelites? I'm thinking it's the Israelites.
The Old Testament is important because it forces us to look at the blood, the pain, and the destruction our sin costs. Maybe we don't have to watch the blood flow or hear the being cry out in pain, but we know it happened. My sin is a nail in the cross, just like the blade that slashed the throat of every sacrifice of the ancient Israelites.
