The Gift of Firstfruits
If you are familiar with gardening, growing fruit trees, or farming, you know that wonderful feeling when you discover fruit beginning to form. Each time you plant, you wait for that day when your flowers, fruit, vegetables, or grain first sprout, then bud, and are finally ready to harvest.
You scan the harvest for that one, perfect example of your crop. You taste ripe berries, you savor the heat of your peppers, and enjoy that firm, juicy tomato. It makes your mouth water just to think of it! Those firstfruits are the freshest, finally arriving after a cold winter season and a long spring. You have been waiting for this moment a while.
Giving a gift is often similar—we want to ensure it is a perfect example of our love for the receiver. We select gifts with careful attention to ensure we picked a good one.
Today many companies sell amazingly large and fresh fruit in gift packages that take the idea to the extreme. Some of their gift baskets offer pears the size of a softball and oranges that exude their fresh fragrance.
Experiencing the Fullness of the Feast
It was no different in ancient times. The people of Israel knew how special that first crop was as they brought it to the temple for the priests, in obedience to Levitical requirements. The firstfruits were the freshest and most desirable. The longer fruits hung on the vine, the more they were exposed to the elements and could become damaged by winds, sun, rain, or drought.
By presenting firstfruits, the faithful demonstrated the esteem they held for God. They established the Feast of Firstfruits to be a lasting ordinance for generations to come.
Our society is less agrarian, with many people far removed from producing a consumable harvest. While food production remains a large industry, our jobs now include engineering, building, financial management, and information processing. Our harvests are more likely to come to us in the form of paychecks and direct deposits instead of pears and plums.
God Deserves Our Finest
So as Christians, are we subject to this Old Testament law of firstfruits? Sometimes we have a convenient disconnect with old covenant law because, well, bacon and shellfish can be tasty. Then we conveniently invoke the rules when they serve to support our viewpoints. We are a complicated people! Of course, God gave us laws to protect us, but He also gave us the new covenant because He knew it was impossible for us to follow a myriad of laws expanded over hundreds of years.
Though it is not a matter of law, we recognize that God deserves our first and finest. After all, does it not all belong to Him anyway? Through our lifestyle of giving, we joyfully participate in the needs of favorite ministries, our church fellowship, friends, family, and our communities.
So let us gladly offer Him our firstfruits, in whatever form we are blessed. Surely as we give, so shall we receive.
