Skip to main content

Leviticus 10:4-7 What were they thinking?

Dear Friends,

Well I am back in the catch up mode.  This is for the reading from 12/6.  In the Christmas season, we like to think of hope, peace and joy.  Yet we are always reminded that God is holy in his love for the world.

Blessings,]

Jeff

This has to be one of the saddest events in Israel's history. At the very beginning of tabernacle worship, divine retribution apparently during the week of ordination.  Nadab (generous) and Abihu (he is my father) were not alone when they cooked up this idea of "strange/profane/unauthorized  fire".  They were with their father and brothers.  Aaron and his surviving sons are unable to remove the bodies because of the requirement to stay in the tabernacle.   So their Levite cousins are called upon.  They are forbidden from mourning for Nadab and Abihu.  Every time Aaron and his sons and their descendants go into the tabernacle to offer incense, they will remember what happened.  When I say "I fear the Lord" do these events come to mind?

Instruction - God is zealous for his own worship (from WSC Q52 - Reasons annexed to second commandment).  I must take worship of the one True God with great seriousness.  I must not think of strange/profane/unauthorized means.

Thanksgiving - The fulfillment of all sacrifices in the sacrifice of the Great High Priest.  I enter God's presence in and through what Jesus did on the cross and nothing else.  It is not my effort and devotion, but what Jesus did that makes it holy and acceptable.

Confession - Thinking that I can add something to worship to make it better.

Petition - Reflect on fate of Nadab and Abihu when I meditate on Your law.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leviticus 18:21 - Partial restoration of creation order

Dear Friends, Some times we forget that Moses wrote Genesis.  Obviously, he did not have first hand knowledge of the events of creation.  But God did and revealed them to Moses.  The "story arc" is clear to Moses despite the millenia of history between Genesis and Leviticus.  The plan for ultimate restoration is hazy, but God is at work repairing some of the damage. Blessings, Jeff What is the prohibition on child sacrifice doing in the list of prohibited sexual relations? Be fruitful and multiply - First commandment in Genesis.  God made the world to be inhabited.   Having children is how this  was to happen.  So child sacrifice was a direct violation of this first command to Adam and Eve. Marriage is one man and one woman is the creation order. Seems simple enough.  I can imagine men thinking, Yeah but God didn't say which woman.  I will do the one woman thing if she is my sister, or aunt or …..  So God gives all these examples of unlawful unions.  To this day, man stil
Post a Comment
Read more

1 Chronicles 24:1-6 How about those Levites! Day 332

Good morning friends, Good foundations are important.  Our author turns to the religious life of the returning exiles. Blessings, Jeff We have seen the emphasis on the Davidic line in the  political life of Israel.  The other area of emphasis is the Aaronic priesthood and Levitical workers. In this passage we have a quick review of the somewhat sanitized picture of the start of Aaron's line.  The returning exiles would have known that Nadab and Abihu did not just "die before their father without children".  They rebelled against God by offering unauthorized fire and were themselves consumed by fire from the Lord. Leviticus 10.  The case of Abiathar  son of Ahitub son of Ahimelech, who was faithful to David, but later rebelled with Adonijah is also not mentioned. But the passage points to the importance of the Aaronic line to the rebuilding of the temple by the exiles.  The history of the northern kingdom which was without the Levites from the beginning could not be repeat
Post a Comment
Read more

Revelation 22:3-5 Final and eternal restoration - Day 365

Dear saints in the Lord, Congratulations!  You made it.  We have been through much turmoil in the last year ('20-'21).  But God is faithful to His promises.  I trust that you have been blessed in your reading and have drawn closer to God.   Since we didn't get the blog up and running at the beginning of the challenge, I am going to go back and post entries to cover that first month or so.   Blessings, Jeff Nothing accursed in the city of God, the new Jerusalem.  The presence of sin will be gone.  I am working on memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism and currently on question 82.  Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God but does daily break them in thought, word and deed. I think our passage today points to the truth of this question.  Do you notice how this answer is not exactly the same as the question. "Any man" becomes "no mere man since the fall
Post a Comment
Read more