“When anyone brings a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour.” – Leviticus 2:1
When I first read this verse, I wasn’t sure if “fine flour” was a reference to the flour’s size or to its quality. Did it mean finely ground flour or really high quality flour? Well, apparently the answer is “yes.” The highest quality flour is actually the finest in size. This is because of the process that wheat goes through to make grain. In those days, flour was not something that you bought in pre-packaged bags at the store. It was something that went through an incredibly time intensive process to get to your pantry. The wheat had to be sown, watered, grown, bathed in sun, and then reaped, threshed, sifted, and ground over and over in a mill. All of this made fine flour a very valuable commodity and a wonderful offering.
Here in this obscure passage in Leviticus we read about an offering of flour and it may seem a bit random, but it is important to remember that this was the most human of offerings. This was the type of offering that humans were created to give before sin brought death into the world and led to the sacrifice of animals. We were meant to give a fine offering.
The first words of the creation story that begins in Genesis 2:5 are, “Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground.” Did you catch what was missing? The creation was good, but there was no one to work the ground. You see, this is what we were created to do. We were created to work the ground and live off of it. We were created to cultivate the plants and to make fine flour. This would have been the perfect offering to God. That is, until sin entered in. Once we sinned, it brought about death and death brought the need for our offering to change. Instead of offering to God the works of our hand, we needed to offer the life of another living being. We needed to offer blood. This was not the original design.
However, there is good news. Because of Jesus, we have the opportunity to once again offer a bloodless offering to God. We can now offer a fine offering of something made with our hands because Jesus was our once-and-for-always-sacrifice! No more blood is needed. Now we are called to become a living sacrifice. It is no less costly, and no less meaningful, but it is most definitely fine. So the only question is… What is the fine offering that God has designed you to give today?
I pray God gives you the answer.
Josh Rose
Discipleship Pastor