Finance (2 of 2)

Shane Willard

The word Oblation there is the word Terumah, a Hebrew offering, that's supposed to be lifted high and placed in the hands of the Priest.

“You shall also give unto the priest the first of you dough, in order to cause a blessing on the rest of your house”. In other words, if you take care of your priest, the rest of the house takes care of itself. Interesting!

Also Ezekiel 48.10, they had been given a certain portion of land, and even the land had a Terumah portion. God was saying: make sure the priest get a Terumah portion to live in.

This is what is says: “and for these, even for the priest, shall be the holy Terumah (once again - oblation, odd translation) and even for the priest shall be the holy Terumah”.

Say with me: Holy Terumah! Once again Terumah represented the offering of the first fruits, and it was meant to be in the hands of the priest, in order to cause a blessing to be on the house.

Proverbs 3:9 “Honor the lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of your increase…”.

First fruits = Terumah = lifted high and placed into their hands.

“Honour the Lord with the firstfruits of your increase, then your barns will be fill to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.”

Deuteronomy 18:3 - “And this shall be the priest’s due from the people (in other words this is what you owe your priest), from them who offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep; and they shall give unto the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the maw”.

Mmmm! You don’t wanna know. The NIV says it this way: the shoulders, the jowls, and the inner parts. Yum, yum! So the priest does something for you; you owe him a portion of it. Next verse...

“The first fruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece from the shearing of your sheep, you shall give it to him (the priest - first portion of everything belongs in the hands of the priest). For the Lord thy God has chosen him, out of all the tribes, to stand to minister in his name always”.

Skip to verse 7... “Then he shall minister in the name of the Lord his God, as all his brothers the Levites do, who stand there before the Lord. They shall have like portions to eat, besides that which comes from the sale of his patrimony.”

What is up with that translation? It’s saying that a priest that has money from other places is still due the Terumah portion; even if he has money from other places it’s still his. Why? Because Terumah was not about your priest needing money; it’s about you needing to unlock the blessings of God over your life.

Numbers 18 talks about: “this is the share due to the priest; the first fruits of all of their offerings. For this will be an everlasting covenant of salt.”

This will be an everlasting covenant of salt! You guys know what a covenant of salt was? A covenant of salt happened at a wedding: basically the groom would stand on one side, and the bride would stand on the other, and each of them had a baggie of salt; and then the priest had an empty baggie.

So you would take the Groom's bag of salt, and dump in the the empty bag; take the Bride's bag of salt and dump in the bag; then he would hold it like this, and then shake it; and he would say: what God has joined together, let no man tear asunder (separate).

The teaching was that sometimes divorce happens, and you ought to be very gracious with it. Sometimes divorce happens, but whether divorce is right or not, you can never totally separate the salt – it’s too hard to do!

Then they would take the mixed salt, and sprinkle it on their hands; so the Terumah offering acted as a Covenant of Salt between you and your priest. In other words, whatever is on your priest's life, you can have rights to, when you're in a Terumah relationship.

You have a choice: you can stand in an impartation line for the next 20 years; or you can start honouring Terumah, and the very things that are on their lives, will start to come on yours, without you even trying - its Terumah.