When something is repeated, it’s often for the purpose of emphasis.
In Leviticus 6:18, there is the emphasis of Aaron and his sons / descendants, and their eating what is left of the offering burned in fire.
What are key points?
- In short and taking things in a simplistic way, those called as priest, minister, elder, pastor etc. will dedicate their time fully in ministering the needs of people.
- These people should not concern themselves about their livelihood, rather. they are supported by their community.
What to make of this passage and verse?
While Jesus has fulfilled the law of the Old Testament including this passage, the “spirit” (or aim) of the passage remains.
Is the aim of the passage about any or all of the following?
- Food or offering to be burnt in fire
- Such offering handed over to the priest
- Priests would not engage with other duties beyond sacrificial offering on behalf of the community
- Priests eat cooked meat
Another way to look at this passage / verse is the context and language: is it ritualistic, theological, theocentric, legalistic, procedural, practical, ethical, or something else?
To generalise this, we can ask ourselves, for example, an action is:
- performed to demonstrate our own holiness
- example: the burning of the offering
- carried out to maintain practical needs and social cohesion
- example: the leftover has to be that of the burned offering, it cannot be offering that was first set aside for Aaron and his descendants before it was burned.
We are so far detached from the world of Aaron, and Leviticus, that we are accustomed to churches and fellowships with pastors, priests, ministers etc. who are full-time, part-time, on salary, on some other form of support or none, who might serve a particular community of their church, or might also serve in some other capacity in wider church and faith networks. We cannot pretend that we need modern-day Aaron in the description in Leviticus, carrying out modern-day equivalent of sacrificial actions on behalf of the community, and to eat cooked meat and only the leftover from the burned offering.
To take it another way, if these instructions come to us from God today, it would have a completely different details. For a start, it might say much more about health and safety provision if fire is used. For a range of health needs, offering might be in many other forms rather than animals. The idea that Aaron and his male descendants will not have spare time other than their church duties could well be maintained today, but their physical needs such as food might be provided in terms of food vouchers, and shelter and dwelling provided by their own house.
Some of these details did not appear in Leviticus does not mean it was not important or relevant, it was not something that needed spelling out.
To ask ourselves, then, about what is the essence of passages such as these, and what does God expects of me in cultivating a holy life, pleasing in his sight?
Here, we can’t ponder on “rules”. Leviticus require text that convey such rules given the time and place of when it was written, and for whom.
Rather, this should be about acknowleding God as God in our lives, and that it is a conscious-laden relationship. God is not only in our subconscious mind. In the way we give gifts to people we love and enjoy time together, they don’t need such gifts; we don’t gain anything from them in giving them gifts. We want to acknowledge the relationship. That’s the heart of it all.
