Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.
Leviticus is the third book of the Bible and reads like a detailed religious handbook for the ancient Israelites — covering worship practices, animal sacrifices, and codes of daily life. At this point in the story, the Israelites have recently escaped slavery in Egypt and are camped in the wilderness. God is speaking to Moses from the tabernacle — a portable tent-sanctuary that served as God's dwelling place among the people — and giving instructions for how the community is to approach him through offerings. An 'offering' here refers to a sacrifice: an animal given to God as an act of worship, gratitude, or seeking forgiveness. What is remarkable in this opening instruction is the phrase 'when any of you brings an offering' — the invitation is not limited to priests, leaders, or the spiritually accomplished. Every single person in the community is explicitly included.
God, thank you that your invitation has never required a résumé. I come to you today not with the right words or the right standing, but simply because you said 'any of you' — and I am learning to believe that has always included me. Receive what I bring. Amen.
Nobody reads Leviticus for fun. It's where Bible-in-a-year plans go quiet around late January — too many regulations, not enough story. But buried in the very first instruction about sacrifice is something quietly revolutionary: 'when any of you brings an offering.' Not when the high priest brings an offering. Not when a person of sufficient rank, purity, or spiritual résumé shows up. Any of you. The farmer. The laborer. The person standing at the edge of the camp wondering if they even belong. In the ancient world, access to the divine was carefully controlled — gods belonged to temples, and temples belonged to the powerful. Ordinary people were spectators, not participants. But here, at the very foundation of how Israel was meant to worship, God throws the door open wide. Whatever you are bringing — gratitude or guilt, a full heart or a grief you haven't found words for — you can come. You don't need to be more qualified, more put-together, or further along than you are. This one small phrase, in one of the most skipped chapters in the Bible, is the seed of something that grows all the way to Jesus saying 'come to me, all who are weary.' You have always been the one the invitation was meant for.
What was the purpose of animal sacrifices in ancient Israelite worship, and why was offering an animal the primary way people approached God during this period of history?
The phrase 'any of you' opens the door to everyone without condition. Are there ways — consciously or not — that you feel like you don't quite qualify to come to God right now? Where does that feeling come from?
If access to God is truly open to everyone, why do so many people still feel spiritually excluded — from church, from faith communities, from any sense of God's presence? Whose responsibility is that gap?
How does the radical openness of 'any of you' challenge the way you welcome others into your faith community — especially people who look, think, or live differently than you expect?
What is one thing you have been hesitant to bring to God — a doubt, a grief, a failure, an ongoing need? What would it look like to bring it to him this week, trusting that the door is genuinely open?
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Romans 12:1
And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
Ephesians 5:2
Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;
Romans 12:6
"Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, 'When any one of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of [domestic] animals from the herd (cattle, oxen) or from the flock (sheep, goats).
AMP
“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock.
ESV
'Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When any man of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of animals from the herd or the flock.
NASB
“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When any of you brings an offering to the Lord, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock.
NIV
“Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When any one of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of the livestock—of the herd and of the flock.
NKJV
“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. When you present an animal as an offering to the LORD, you may take it from your herd of cattle or your flock of sheep and goats.
NLT
"Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When anyone presents an offering to God, present an animal from either the herd or the flock.
MSG