Reading
SAA Notes
In such chapters as this you find where our Church gets its teaching about the regulative principle of worship – do what is commanded! This principle gives an entirely different worship service than the commonly followed principle: do what is not forbidden. Eating of meat is given the thumbs up in verse 20.
SJA Notes
* Faithful God, You guide us with Your counsel, and after You will receive us into glory.
“There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock.”
This passage was a command for Israel on how they were to worship their God.
They were not to worship as the people of the world around them did for their own gods.
Instead Israel were called to a different worship – To the one and only TRUE GOD, to give of their best (first-fruits) when they met with Him.
As with Israel, so with us.
This passage is a command for us today, a word that can be hard for our ears.
We too must give of our best when we come to worship the Lord together as His people.
In our offerings, our sacrifices, our tithes and contributions – in what we give back to the Lord from what He has already given to us.
We have seen throughout the old testament thus far that Jesus brings about a deeper, fuller understanding of what God has for us, of what His laws are about.
Hebrews speaks of the law of Moses as being a copy of the heavenly things.
In Jesus we now have the heavenly things. This is part of what He did, bringing the real to earth (where there was only copy).
The copies were modelled from the true (the true being primary and first).
God commanded Israel to bring to Him the first-fruits of their flocks and herds, their crops and gardens.
God commands us to bring to Him the first-fruits of our time and energy, that He would grow His word in us, that we would be good soil and bear much fruit.
Let us wrestle with what it means to bring to God our best when we come together in corporate new-sabbath-day worship.
* Father God,
Thank You for Your word, the old and the new testaments.
Thank You for this passage today – We trust You that it contains much wisdom for us.
Please break open our hearts to hear Your word to us today.
Amen.