Praying All of Scripture: Leviticus
Author: Daniel Owens, PhD
August 21, 2025
Third in a series.
Leviticus 1:1–3
1The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, 2“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock. 3If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.”
Leviticus 5:17–19
17“If anyone sins, doing any of the things that by the Lord’s commandments ought not to be done, though he did not know it, then realizes his guilt, he shall bear his iniquity. 18He shall bring to the priest a ram without blemish out of the flock, or its equivalent, for a guilt offering, and the priest shall make atonement for him for the mistake that he made unintentionally, and he shall be forgiven. 19It is a guilt offering; he has indeed incurred guilt before the Lord.”
Leviticus 9:22–24
22Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. 23And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. 24And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.
Leviticus 16:20–22
20“And when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. 21And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. 22The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.”
Leviticus 19:1–2
1And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2“Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”
***
My wife is fond of saying, “I’d like to do that [some unpleasant thing] about as much as I like to eat my eyeballs.” Is that the way you feel about Leviticus? For many of us, it’s where good intentions to read the whole Bible go to die. But Leviticus reminds me of airline safety demonstrations. For seasoned travelers, paying attention to the flight attendants as they show you how to buckle your seatbelt and put on a mask is also one of those experiences we tend to bypass, burying our noses in a book or closing our eyes to enjoy music.
And yet, I am reminded that in the event of a “water landing,” as in 2009 when Captain “Sully” Sullenberger landed US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River, I’d better know where my nearest exit is and what kind of flotation device is under my seat. Safety is critical, and it is kind of the airlines to keep telling us about it. The Book of Leviticus is the same—it was a gracious gift of God to biblical Israel. In it, he made plain to them how they could have fellowship with him and live out their calling to be a holy people (Exod. 19:6).
Coming on the heels of God’s glory filling the tabernacle at the end of the Book of Exodus, the Book of Leviticus is God’s instruction in holiness just in time to prepare for God’s presence among them. It begins with instructions for worship. As a reality check, Leviticus 10:1–3 underscores the life-and-death seriousness of holiness. In that brief account, Aaron’s sons are consumed by God’s wrath after they “offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them.”
From the beginning of the book, we see that sacrifices had to be offered God’s way so that worshipers would be accepted before God (Lev. 1:1–3). When they were burned, they were “a pleasing aroma to the Lord” (Lev. 1:9, 13, 17; 3:5; etc.). They were the smell of hospitality, the foundation upon which friendship is built. They were also the escape hatch from the guilt of sin, the means of forgiveness (Lev. 4:26, 31, 35, etc.). In addition, various offerings were God’s way to provide food for the priests (Lev. 2:3, 10; etc.), who were consecrated for service in worship (Leviticus 8–9). God’s instructions include guidance about various matters of ritual purity. Although in the New Covenant we do not follow these instructions, they serve as bright neon lights about how God cares about holiness.
The centerpiece of the book is the Day of Atonement, the festival during which the priests made atonement for themselves, their families, and the tabernacle itself (Lev. 16:6, 16). In a moving ceremony, following offerings of a bull and a goat, the sins of the people are confessed and placed on the head of the scapegoat, which is released into the wild (Lev. 16:20–22).
The rest of the book includes various instructions for holiness. These instructions touch on many everyday issues, from sexual behavior to idolatry to relationships with parents and neighbors. The basic theme is encapsulated in Leviticus 19:2: “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” This is coupled with the famous command that Jesus amplifies as one of two summary commands in the law: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18; see Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31).
In the New Covenant, we do not practice all that God commands in Leviticus because Jesus is the once-for-all sacrifice who purifies our consciences and brings us near to God, showing us that he fulfills the instructions in Leviticus, which were copies and pointers to the heavenly reality embodied in his high priestly ministry for us (Heb. 7:26–28; 9:11–28). And yet, we have much to learn about the seriousness of sin and the holiness of God, which should drive us to Jesus for forgiveness and wisdom to live in ways that reflect God’s character, since he remains as holy now as he did on the day that Aaron’s sons were consumed.
And so we can pray,
O Holy God, we thank you for giving instruction to your people Israel about your holiness and the way they could come near to you. We thank you for the pointers to Jesus that these instructions represent, and we thank you for the moral clarity that they continue to give us today. Forgive our sins for the sake of Jesus’ blood shed for us. Help us to be holy, as you are holy. By your Holy Spirit, transform us into a community that flees from idolatry, fears you, and loves our neighbor that you may be glorified in the church and in Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.
Daniel Owens is NCC’s Pastor of Discipleship. Earlier chapters in this series will be found in the NCC Blog.
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