Israel was commanded to worship and serve God only.

Churches today think nothing of tapping into the forms and practices of pagan worship.

His people must not think that they can accommodate any aspect of pagan worship in their worship and service of God.

The worship of God invites the use of a sanctified imagination,

God is so great, so vast and holy and utterly incomprehensible, that to bind Him to some material form is to deny His infinite character and to impose limitations on Him and on the worship which we owe Him.

 “God is a Spirit, infinite and eternal…” He is not bound by any limits beyond Himself.

Deuteronomy 5.8-10

“‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.’”

1 Corinthians 10.14; 1 John 5.21

God is jealous of the worship and obedience of His people, for He knows that He alone is worthy of these. He is the Lord, and beside Him there is no other. It is futile and foolish to give worship and obedience to anyone or anything besides God. Therefore God expressly forbids the making of any images for the purpose of worship, for reasons which we shall see. He alone is to be worshiped and served.

Worshiping God, bowing before Him to acknowledge His greatness and our dependence on Him, is the primary way of showing God that we love Him.

We also show our love for God by the service we render in His Name. As we carry out His commandments we perform that “reasonable service” which Paul commends in Romans 12.1, 2 and extend the love we have for God to our neighbors as well.

All our devotion and all our works service are due to God only, for His glory, for He is our Creator and Redeemer, and He alone is God. We must not allow anything other than God to receive our humble devotion or to determine what we do in our strength each day. Thus, all our lives and work are subsumed under the headings of worship and service to the living God.

Sign up to receive Crosfigell, our thrice-weekly email devotional, featuring T. M. Moore’s insights to Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition.

Worship must be learned.

Just so the life of faith.

What expectations do you hold out for the future?

Leviticus 27.16-25

“If a man dedicates to the LORD part of the land that is his possession, then the valuation shall be in proportion to its seed. A homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. If he dedicates his field from the year of jubilee, the valuation shall stand, but if he dedicates his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall calculate the price according to the years that remain until the year of jubilee, and a deduction shall be made from the valuation. And if he who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, then he shall add a fifth to its valuation price, and it shall remain his. But if he does not wish to redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore. But the field, when it is released in the jubilee, shall be a holy gift to the LORD, like a field that has been devoted. The priest shall be in possession of it. If he dedicates to the LORD a field that he has bought, which is not a part of his possession, then the priest shall calculate the amount of the valuation for it up to the year of jubilee, and the man shall give the valuation on that day as a holy gift to the LORD. In the year of jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to whom the land belongs as a possession. Every valuation shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall make a shekel.”

2 Samuel 24.18-24

Leviticus 27.26, 27

“But a firstborn of animals, which as a firstborn belongs to the LORD, no man may dedicate; whether ox or sheep, it is the LORD’s. And if it is an unclean animal, then he shall buy it back at the valuation, and add a fifth to it; or, if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at the valuation.”

These special valuation dedications could not be allowed to substitute for the regular offerings. What was owed to the Lord should be given first; special offerings, if desired, were to come after. Land could be offered to the Lord, and we see the guidelines for how that was to be done. But devoted land could not be redeemed – as we’ve seen of devoted things previously – and so, at the Jubilee, rather than return to the owner, it passed into the possession of the priests, to be used permanently to support the Lord’s workers.

It is appropriate that the statutes developing our understanding of the first commandment should end with this broad encouragement about giving. The more people give to the Lord, the more they confirm their love for Him, ensure His blessings on their labors, and are thus encouraged to give more still.

Sign up to receive Crosfigell, our thrice-weekly email devotional, featuring T. M. Moore’s insights to Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition.

Leviticus 27.9-13

“If the vow is an animal that may be offered as an offering to the LORD, all of it that he gives to the LORD is holy. He shall not exchange it or make a substitute for it, good for bad, or bad for good; and if he does in fact substitute one animal for another, then both it and the substitute shall be holy. And if it is any unclean animal that may not be offered as an offering to the LORD, then he shall stand the animal before the priest, and the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall be. But if he wishes to redeem it, he shall add a fifth to the valuation.”

Leviticus 27.14, 15

“When a man dedicates his house as a holy gift to the LORD, the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand. And if the donor wishes to redeem his house, he shall add a fifth to the valuation price, and it shall be his.”

We’re still looking at these special “valuation offerings.” Here we see that the priest could enter into the valuation process when the offering was something exceptional, or perhaps when the value could not be readily determined. If the donor merely wanted to give a monetary gift rather than, say, his house, still, his house could provide a basis for determining how much to give. He would offer the house, then redeem it for the valued price plus one-fifth.

I confess to a certain amount of confusion and uncertain regarding these statutes. At the very least we can say this much: God made it easy for His people to give beyond what was required of them, but, in encouraging them to do so, He protected them against capriciousness in giving, either on their parts or on the parts of greedy priests.

Sign up to receive Crosfigell, our thrice-weekly email devotional, featuring T. M. Moore’s insights to Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition.