Daily Offerings

Thought I'd post a few holiday reflections while I have the chance.

I was sitting in Starbucks the other day - "What's new?" you might be asking - when one of their promotions caught my eye: "Daily Offerings: Strawberries and Creme". Initially it was the strawberries and creme (I think that is the same as "cream" but the French spelling creates a more exotic impression) that captured my imagination. However, the vision of this particular daily offering was interrupted by the thought that a daily offering had some kind of biblical resonance.

And indeed it has. Numbers 29.6 talks about a daily burnt offering (NIV and KJV). Paul calls us to live sacrificially for Christ in Romans 12.2 in language that echoes that applied to burnt offerings:

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship."

And here's the rub. We're trying to live sacrificially for Christ and teach others to do so in a culture that uses the language of sacrifice to flog strawberries and cream - sorry creme!

I'm not sure Starbucks set out to use a biblical allusion to promote their product. I can't imagine that they did. Though somehow, more broadly, deliberately or otherwise the value of sacrifice has been displaced in Western culture by the sale of indulgence.

ps. came across a Bible study site I hadn't seen before while checking my scriptures. Check it out here