Most Bible reading plans start off with the Torah—the first five books of the Old Testament. If you’re following along with the Summit’s Bible reading plan, you’re squarely in the middle of the book of Leviticus. You can be honest: that’s usually about where the excitement of reading the whole Bible grinds to a halt. Genesis is amazing. Exodus is exciting. But you get to Leviticus, and the litany of laws makes you want to jump ahead to the New Testament.
Leviticus can seem like a strange book, to be sure. It’s got a lot of odd rules that don’t make sense to us. But right in the center of the book, we get a glimpse into the most important ceremony in all of the Old Testament—a day so holy and so crucial that the Jews simply called it, “The Day.”
This ceremony is just as relevant for us, thousands of years later, because it deals with a deep problem that every single one of us has—the problem of guilt and shame. If you’ve ever struggled with feelings of inadequacy, or had a nagging sense of fear that others will “find out” about who you really are, this is the story for you.
