Leviticus, for some, is a difficult book. I’ve heard it described, I think by Tim Challies, as the book where Bible reading plans go to die. People start the year with enthusiasm and the desire to read the Bible in a year. Starting at Genesis things go well until Leviticus where it gets complicated. The book is full of talk about animal sacrifices, different kind of offerings and laws for the worship of the Old Covenant nation of Israel. But Leviticus is glorious! It’s not a book I’ve preached from much, but one I plan to preach from soon, Lord willing. But how exactly can you teach a book like Leviticus?
In comes Christian Focus with their series on ‘from text to message’ and the new edition on ‘Teaching Leviticus‘. These books are quite helpful, they aren’t commentaries really, they don’t go through a text verse by verse and try to explain the passage. Instead they are like a guide, for preachers, on how to navigate the books of the Bible.
This edition is written by Geoffrey Harper, here’s what he explains about Leviticus in the beginning of the book…
“Here, we can see that a central purpose of Leviticus is to transform individuals and community in conformity with the likeness of Yahweh. Even more broadly, Leviticus aims to transform time and space (think of all the holy times and places prescribed in the book) and thereby begin to reorder and restore a world fractured by human sin and impurity.”
Harper begins by helping the reader find their feet in Leviticus, explaining the context a little bit and its wider place within the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible), a general structure of the book and some of the key reasons why Pastors should consider preaching Leviticus. These first few chapters are very helpful.
Harper then outlines different ideas of how to preach Leviticus in a sermon series with varying lengths (18, 10 or 5 part series, then throwing in an 11 part thematic series for fun). The book them goes on to look at the book of Leviticus using the 18 part series as the template, each chapter takes on what would be a sermon text.
Each chapter follows the same basic structure;
- Introduction
- Listening to the text
Context and structure
Working through the text - From text to message
Theme and aim
Way in
Ideas for application - Suggestions for preaching
- Questions to help understand the passage
This structure means that you spend a lot of time thinking about the text of Leviticus and wrestling with what it meant to the original readers and the impact that it would have had on their lives. Personally, I find the structure helpful as a general introduction to Leviticus. This isn’t a book that I would recommend you use as a main commentary on Leviticus, but more an an introduction to the book which gives you a good overview of the main themes and gets you into the text in a structured way.
One of the things that this book could have done with a little bit more of, in my opinion, is a bit more interacting with the New Testament at points to help the preacher makes the connections to Christ better and to help the preacher know how to apply the text more. There was some of that, but I think it would have benefitted from more.
If you’re thinking of preaching through Leviticus, this will be a helpful tool for you and I’m sure your church would benefit from your reading of it. Get your copy here and enjoying diving into Leviticus with an easy to read introduction to the book.
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