“Do not present the blood for my sacrifice with anything leavened. The sacrifice of the Passover Festival must not remain until morning. Bring the best firstfruits of your land to the house of the Lord your God. You must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Everybody worships something. We can’t help it. We were made for it. We are all going to worship something. It may be obvious what you are worshiping, or perhaps not, but it is happening. And, we tend to become like what we worship. That is, we gradually take on the characteristics of whatever or whoever it is. Because of this, it is not merely important that we worship the right things, but that we worship them properly and well. This was a concern God had for Israel. Let’s talk about how that concern is expressed here, and how to get it right ourselves.
For starters, it is worth noting that these two verses are an almost word-for-word repetition of Exodus 23:18-19 which we talked about in some detail here. The only difference is that where v. 25 here refers to the sacrifice of the Passover Festival, the earlier statement uses the word “fat.” Otherwise the two passages are identical. Does that mean we can just ignore these verses? Perhaps, but we’re not going to. God is reaffirming the covenant for Moses. If He felt the need to repeat a portion of it nearly verbatim, we’ll at least take a few minutes to reflect on it again. I’ll try not to repeat myself too much. How about that?
For modern followers of Jesus, these two verses are weird. And, like we did talk about back in May and at various other times along the course of our journey, we are not obligated to keep these commands because they are part of God’s old covenant with the physical nation of Israel that Jesus fulfilled and replaced with the new covenant. We don’t have to worry ourselves about leaven or bringing God the first part of our annual crop if we garden. And we definitely don’t have to worry about boiling a young goat in anything. In fact, violating a rather literal understanding of this command would take quite a lot of effort unless you happen to be a goat owner.
That all being said, the spirit of what God is trying to help the Israelites understand here is something to which we should give some consideration. What God is really talking about here is worshiping properly. He wanted the people to worship Him in ways that were right and true. He still does.
Okay, but does this mean it used to be right and proper to worship God by boiling goats (in something other than their mother’s milk, of course), but now He’s changed His mind and we don’t have to worry about that anymore? In a word, no. But He is concerned about the purity of our hearts and minds when we worship. He does want us totally focused on Him and not to have our minds drifting around to other things. Holiness still matters a great deal to Him because He is holy and we are to be as well (Lev. 19:2 and 1 Peter 1:15-16). He doesn’t want us mixing and confusing our worship of Him with any other sort of worship practices.
For Israel, getting this larger spirit right looked like the kinds of things we see here. Now, we can only guess at exactly why God prohibited or commanded these things, but our guesses are informed by a careful understanding to the best of our ability of the culture both of ancient Israel and of the world around them.
The first command here has to do with holiness and purity. Leaven was a symbol of decay. As far as it existed in the ancient world, it was a bit of spoiled bread. God is holy. He expected the people to be holy as well. Bread with a bit of something spoiled in it was a symbol of unholiness in the people’s hearts and minds, so God told them to keep it totally pure when using it as a worship offering.
The second command deals with receiving all of what God has to give them. The Passover was to be a celebration of the deliverance God gave to the people. He wanted them to receive all of it, and not leave themselves partially bound to the slavery of their past. So, when they made their Passover offering, they were to use all of it and not leave any of it behind.
The third command is all about offering God our best. He is worthy of that. He is the greatest being in existence. That’s part of the definition of what it means to be God and not merely a god. The people were to honor His greatness by bringing Him their best. They were to express their gratitude for the greatness of His provision by bringing Him the best of the first part. This both properly acknowledged who He is and also expressed their trust in Him to continue providing abundantly for them.
The last command is weird, and in at least both of its appearances in Exodus is the final thing mentioned in a section before the focus shifts somewhere else. As we talked about before, nobody is really sure what to make of it. I think the best arguments point to its having to do with the purity of the people’s worship.
As far as we are concerned, making sure that our lives are pure when we go to God in worship is still right and proper for us to do. Instead of worrying about keeping a whole slate of laws or killing an animal in order to have confidence we have reached that goal, we can simply put our trust in Jesus. Jesus was perfectly pure, and when we place our trust in Him, He extends His purity before God to us, so that we can stand before Him in humble confidence. This covers the first and fourth commands.
With the second command in mind, Jesus is once again at the center of things. We have to receive Him and place our full reliance on Him to have the salvation of our God. It doesn’t come from us. Any of it. We’ll only get in the way of the process if we try. So, we need to examine our own hearts. Are we fully dependent on Him, or are we still trying to earn our way there by what we do?
How do you know when you’ve hit that mark? Well, you don’t and can’t fully, but this is where our faith and God’s graciousness intersect. We to the best of our determination commit ourselves to trusting fully in Him, to placing our faith fully in Him, and living in light of that commitment by loving the people around us after the pattern of Jesus’ sacrificial, self-giving love for us. For His part, God is gracious and kind and receives our meager efforts, and makes them more than enough. And, if there are places in our hearts and minds where we aren’t totally surrendered, He will gently let us know when we need to, and He will help us get them right.
With the third command in mind, we always bring God our best. We bring Him our best resources, trusting that He will make what is left more than enough for our needs and to share with others. We bring Him our best time. We direct our attention toward Him all day, but we engage with prayer and with the Scriptures when we are sharpest and not merely when we can squeeze it in. Personally, that’s right when I wake up. It’s 6:06 as I write these words, and I got started at about 5:20 when I woke up. We bring Him our best talents. We do this by using the gifts, passions, and abilities He has given us for the sake of those around us.
All of this is part of worshiping Him properly. Worship is a whole life commitment. It is acknowledging, celebrating, and participating in the character of our God. That last element is what pushes it merely from being something that happens within the four walls of our worship space on Sunday mornings to something that encompasses all of our lives as God intends for it to be.
You are worshiping something. Everyone is. It may only be yourself, in which case you’ve got an awfully small world to live in, but you are acknowledging, celebrating, and participating in the character of something. Make sure it is the right thing because you will become like what you worship. God cared about that for Israel; He still cares about it for us. In Jesus and 3,000 years’ worth of culture later it doesn’t look the same as it did, but the care is still there. Let’s receive it and get it right.
The Nexus 
As an atheist / humanist what do consider I worship?
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I’m going to assume you meant to ask what I consider that you worship and not what I think you consider worship. If you meant the latter, I’m not sure as you have not every told me that. If my assumption is correct, however, my response comes in the form of a question: To what person or thing in your life do you give your highest devotion?
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Sorry, I still make errors using the keypad on my phone.
Yes, the former is correct.
Worship generally refers to a deity.
Devotion does not have the same meaning.
I could be devoted to my children, my wife, my dogs, my garden, ridding the environment of plastic, or devoted to saving the Blue Whale or the White Rhino.
I worship none of the above.
Therefore your answer/ question suggests yet another attempt to put lack of belief on the same level as theistic belief.
Perhaps you should rethink your response?
It would then impact your OP and maybe your overall perspective regarding worship?
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No need for rethinking at all. Giving worship and giving devotion are functionally the same thing. The thing to which we give our highest devotion is the thing we worship whether that’s a technical deity or not. To worship something is to ascribe sufficient worth to it that we are willing to allow it to affect and shape the kinds of decisions we make in other areas of our lives. The thing we allow to do that most is the thing we worship most. I meant just exactly what I said. Worship is not even remotely limited to theistic belief. Everyone worships something. The question is what, not whether.
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No they are not. Once again you are trying to conflate the terms to justify your own actions
You worship a deity for which there is no evidence whatsoever.
Your worship is based on indoctrinated belief and faith. It also includes a carrot and stick ideology.
My family is a tangible entity to which I devote my time and energy.
You worship because you are commanded to do so…. On pain of eternal separation and torture.
This is a similar argument regarding the word/term faith, and can be equally as disingenious depending on the framework in which it is used.
I reckon there is more than a slight difference, don’t you?
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Nope. And you will find me singularly unpersuadable on this point if you want to save yourself some time making a case.
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As I mentioned, you, like so many thrsts, have this apparent desoarate need to bring everything you claim
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Oops….
As I mentioned before, you like so many apologists, seem to have this desperate need to bring non believers down to the level of those whose worldview is dependant on the supernatural and will co-opt whatever terms or words to try to justify your position.
There is a marked difference to suggest a person is devoted to another rather than saying that person worshipped the ground she/he walked on, for example.
Although it could be asserted that such worship borders on fanatical and is decidedly unhealthy.
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Rest assured, there’s no desperation on my part. I’m merely describing the world as it is.
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What is the difference between worship and devotion? Worship is the effect and devotion is the cause, just like mother feeds her children whenever they are hungry (effect) due to her love (cause). But not all the people worship out of true devotion, they may worship with a desire to achieve some materialastic benefits.
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Sure, I agree with that.
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So… not the same.
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No, I meant I agree with the last part. Some people worship out of ulterior motives. That’s definitely true. But everybody still worships something. You haven’t yet budged me from that point.
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And as I asked in the initial reply, what do you consider I worship? Not devoted to.
In fact it would be more instructive if you you were to offer an example of something aside from your god, Yahweh that a non believer worships?
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People worship all sorts of things. Money, sex, power, drugs, self-image, celebrities, certain habits or hobbies, their kids, political parties, and so on and so forth. The list here runs rather long.
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Aah… So you are abusing the word to fit your theistic definition thus create materialistic gods.
Or, worshipping idols. Is this what you are getting at?
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I mean, if you want to use the word “idol,” that’s fine, but that’s not where my mind had gone. People give those and other similar things their chief devotion all the time. They allow those kinds of things to become the thing that chiefly defines their life. They become the lens through which they view and understand their life and the lives of the people around them. They let them become the thing that most influences the kinds of decisions they make on a day-to-day basis. That’s worship.
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And what is the problem with being devoted to one’s wife and children, for example?
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Not a single thing. That’s as it should be. But when that devotion becomes worship, things get problematic quickly.
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So you do recognize there is a difference between devotion and worship?
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Of course. But it’s a thin line that can be easily crossed, such that trying to split hairs between one and the other as decisively as you tried to do before in order to avoid or otherwise dispute the point I made isn’t a winning argument.
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The Oxford dictionary defines worship as
Adoration or devotion comparable to religious homage shown toward a person or principle.
Perhaps that will help
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That does, yes, but perhaps not in the way you intended. Read that definition carefully. It is comparable to a religious homage, but not solely the provenance of such. Religious people definitely worship, but it is not limited to us. There should actually be a comma after “homage,” which clarifies the definition. The word comes from the Old English word “weorthscipe” which means simply to ascribe to or acknowledge the worth of something or someone, but not necessarily in an exclusively religious sense. So, just like I said, everyone worships something. It’s only a question of what.
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Wait, no, that helps exactly in the way you intend 🙂
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Hello. I found your article very informative and read it through with great interest. I only recently discovered this blog and I am glad I did. I like your approach and writing style. I will certainly read more articles. Congratulations on the blog and best wishes!
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Thanks for that! I really appreciate your note. I’ll be glad to have you reading along with me. Blessings to you too!
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