If anyone making the vow is too poor to pay the specified amount, the person being dedicated is to be presented to the priest, who will set the value according to what the one making the vow can afford. – Leviticus 27:8

Today's Scripture Reading (November 24, 2021): Leviticus 27

In 1960, William F. Claxton directed a movie entitled "I'll Give My Life." The story follows a father and his son, John and Jim Bradford. John expects Jim to join him in the engineering firm that John Bradford had built when he was old enough. But instead, Jim decides to attend seminary and is then assigned to a mission in New Guinea. It is a decision that John struggles to understand.

Jim is in love with Alice, John's secretary, and after he proposes marriage, she agrees to join him in New Guinea. Jim and Alice expand their little family with the birth of their two children, and everything is going well in the Jim Bradford family until Jim contracts a life-threatening illness. When John finds out that his son is ill, he flies to New Guinea because he wants to be with him as Jim's life enters its final phase. And while John is there, he discovers his son's journals. As John shares the end of his son's life, he journeys through Jim's journals, trying to understand the meaning and purpose to which Jim has dedicated his life, the thing to which Jim had given his life.

We often flippantly declare that we will give our lives to some purpose, but we don't really mean it. The words are often a simple declaration of what we believe to be important and what we want to spend our time doing as we journey through this life. But, unlike Jim and a few others in this world, we don't actually give all that we have toward that intended purpose. We don't really intend to give our life. The phrase is more aspirational than it is literal.

In Israel, people could vow that they would give their lives to pursue the things of God. But the Law recognized that pledging something is one thing; following through on that vow is completely different. And so, the person who vowed his life was allowed to purchase that life back. It was a way of dedicating a life to God yet continuing to live life in a more secular way. Every life was assigned a price, and the vowed life could be purchased back or redeemed by paying that price back to God.

But if the person was too poor to pay the assigned price, the priest could decide on a lower price that was more in keeping with the financial reality of the worshipper. The idea was that anyone could dedicate their lives to God, regardless of their financial position. Pastor David Guzik sums it up this way. "Everyone can give their life to the LORD; there are none who are too small, or too insignificant, or too useless. God wants to use each and every one (David Guzik – italics his).

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Numbers 1