These two chapters give instructions on a number of specific types of offering. There is the offering for “any of the things that one may do and incur guilt thereby” (Leviticus 6:7) – the examples include defrauding or robbing a neighbor, or finding a lost object and lying about it, so the main focus is about property rights, but the application is very broad: “any of the various things that one may do and sin thereby” (6:3).

Beyond that, there are specific rituals for “the burnt offering” (6:8-13), “the grain offering” (6:14-18), the offering for priests on the day they are anointed (6:19-23), “the sin offering” (6:24-30), “the guilt offering” (7:1-6), and “the offering of well-being” (7:11-18). Each of these have specific details: some of these details are paralleled in other offerings, while some are unique.

In the midst of this we come across the detail that the priest-du-jour had the responsibility to disposing of the ashes every day, and tending the sacrificial fire. “The fire on the altar shall be kept burning; it shall not go out. Every morning the priest shall add wood to it. … A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar; it shall not go out” (6:12-13). Since wood sometimes burns faster or slower, this would require diligence: you could not sleep in, but would need to rise before dawn to rekindle the coals while they were still hot.

This forms a useful parable for us. People sometimes lament that their love seems to have grown cold, as if they imagined that the fire would just keep burning without any attention on their part. Yet the fire on the altar will need attentive feeding day by day; and the fire in our hearts will be the same.

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O Lord God! Let the flame of your love burn continually in our hearts, and may we feel the warmth and sureness of your presence! And may we never forget the duty of stoking the fire each morning, and offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to you.