Well, this is the last chapter of Leviticus, and it was not nearly as painful as I thought it would be. There were actually a number of things that were quite interesting. It gives me some hope for the rest of my reading.
This last part of Leviticus deals with vows. And one thing that it shows is how seriously God takes them.
God never requires vows from us, but it’s very clear from this passage that if we make them, he expects us to fulfill them.
There was some grace given in the fulfillment of the vows in the form of redemption.
If for example, a person vowed to give his son or daughter to the Lord’s service (as was in the case of Samuel), but the parent then wanted to have their child back, they could pay a redemption price for the child.
In that way, the vow was considered fulfilled.
And different laws were given here for redeeming whatever was originally offered to God as a vow, whether it was a person, an animal, a house, land, or whatever it was.
But when a vow was given to God, it had to be fulfilled, and not just in anyway the person wanted to fulfill it. It had to be fulfilled in the way that God prescribed.
Once you made a vow, you couldn’t just change your mind.
What does this mean for us? I think we need to be very careful about the words that we speak before God.
I remember when I was in a Christian camp, one of our teachers talked about how he never sang the song, “I surrender all.” (Or some other song like that — I don’t remember the exact title).
The reason was he felt that he was in effect praying those words and making a promise to God. So while he wanted to say those words, he didn’t feel he could keep them.
What was very amusing was later that day, our camp leader then led us in singing that very song, and all of us campers felt very uncomfortable singing that song because of what we’d just heard.
After the song was over, our camp leader wondered out loud if most of us had never heard the song before. (I’m sure our teacher and the camp leader had a good laugh about it later).
At any rate, I suppose I take a modified view of it.
Whenever I sing these types of songs with such strong words, I’m often praying in my mind, “Lord, help me to keep these words. I’m weak. I often fail. But this is my heart’s desire. That I would surrender all to you.”
What promises do you make to God? Do you keep them? If you don’t, you’re better off not making them at all. In fact, Jesus said,
“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’
But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.
And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black.
Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. (Matthew 5:33-37)
What if you’ve already made your vow and you find you can’t keep it?
Then I would suggest you go to Jesus, your high priest, and ask him what you should do.
When a person wanted to redeem his child or someone else he had dedicated, but couldn’t afford the price, he was able to go to the priest, and the priest could change the price to something the person could afford.
I believe it’s the same with us. God will give us grace. He will help us find a way to keep our vows to him.
But quite frankly, it’s best to just keep your yeses, yeses, and your nos, nos.
Moment to Moment (Bible blog) 