Welcome to our new web site!
To give our readers a chance to experience all that our new website has to offer, we have made all content freely avaiable, through October 1, 2018.
During this time, print and digital subscribers will not need to log in to view our stories or e-editions.
I think Leviticus is still in the Bible. With all the modern translations out there now, it’s a little hard to know for sure. The word, when translated into English, means “Hard to read; impossible to understand.”
At least, it did when I was a child.
That’s why I mostly grew up on the One Hundredth Psalm; David throwing rocks at grownups; Jonah learning to hold his breath underwater; Sampson smiting every Philistine on earth; John the Baptist feasting on honey crusted grasshoppers; and the quiet Nazarene standing before Pontius Pilate with me on his mind…..
There was so much other stuff going on in the Bible I wasn’t interested in some “back-story” in the desert. They didn’t have a chariot race. Nobody’s brother got sold into slavery. They didn’t rebuild any walls. And Moses was getting a little “long in the tooth” for a leading role in this saga.
Besides, there was way too much blood in Leviticus to suit me. It was just chapter after chapter of body parts of dead goats being burned to a crisp over an open fire!
I can tell you how far down the Biblical ladder Leviticus was back then. Mrs. Opal Sasser never included it in any of our Sword Drills! Now, I’m pretty sure none of you are old enough to remember that icon for memorizing the books of the Bible. It was a “spelling bee” of sorts, only you didn’t spell nothing.
Miss Opal lined us up across the Sunday School room with our Bibles at our sides. She would announce, “Draw Swords;” we’d pull our Bible up in front of us with both hands at the ready. She would call out “Matthew 17:10” wait an appropriate second for us to mentally locate the verse and then gave the order to “Charge.”
We’d rip those Bibles open and the first to find the selected passage got to read it aloud. It was better than having to memorize a whole Psalm. And it was effective in making us more familiar with the Bible. Except, of course, for the book of Leviticus……
Sword Drills have gone the way of double breasted suits, Brummitt Funeral Home fans, women’s hats with fishnet veils and hour and a half sermons.
Mother would test us over our Sunday chicken on how well we paid attention to that day’s message. Leon would mumble through a mouthful of candied yams something about Jesus being kind. Now, Leon had mostly rolled up little pieces of the bulletin and tossed them into Charlotte Wells’ wide brimmed hat two rows over. But with an hour and a half sermon, he figured surely Bro. Hatcher got Jesus in there somewhere!
In all of Leon’s wild guessing over the years, not one time ever did he offer up Aaron as chief priest and head goat cooker as a possible answer!