Leviticus 23:15-16
The Feast of Weeks
“You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord.
Tag: God Is a God of Patterns
Sometimes when reading the Old Testament, especially a book like Leviticus, we can wonder, “Why?” Why are we supposed to read this book? It is so “yester-year” in regard to how God works. It is a book intended solely for the nation of Israel and, this section in particular, the priest. What profit is it for me? It is important to remember, that reading any book of the Bible is intended for our profit:
2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
But, it should be noted, in the passage from Leviticus, above, that this passage speaks about the pattern God established in the Old Testament. It is a pattern He follows in the New Testament. The “seven full weeks” before they offered the “sheaf of the wave offering” would be 50 days. This is commonly called “Pentecost” for the early church. It was the day that the Holy Spirit came upon the church and over 3,000 souls were saved. The significance of this in correlation with the passage in Leviticus is that the marriage of the Old and the New is one of patterns. God established patterns in the Old Testament that He followed and showed more clearly in the New. The writer of Hebrews calls these patterns in the Old, “shadows,” as in shadows of what would be more visible in the New. God did not just through stuff together. We can learn, from reading the Old Testament, the character of God and what matters to God. The way we approach God NOW is through the one time sacrifice of His Son. But, the pattern is still the same. There must be a sacrifice. The sacrifice must be pure. The sacrifice must be accepted by God (and it was). These patterns are a way for us to see God has a plan and He is completing His plan in every age. God is not a God of chance. He is a God of design. We rejoice in His design.
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