Logos Pro Summer Training: What Can We Learn about Mary from an Old Testament Law?

Each week this summer the Logos Pros will teach you how to master the tools and resources of Logos Bible Software. You’ll get some pointers and some study questions. 

The Passover is an Israelite celebration with tremendous significance across both testaments. Today the Passover echoes through Christian churches every time the Lord’s Supper is celebrated—because the original Lord’s Supper was itself a Passover meal (see Luke 22:7–22).

It was no accident that Christ established his New Covenant—“this is the new covenant in my blood”—during the celebration of a Jewish feast. There are rich connections between Yahweh’s deliverance of his enslaved people at the exodus from Egypt and Yahweh’s deliverance of his people from much more persistent chains, chains of sin, in the New Covenant. The slaughtering of a lamb is, obviously, a resonant image from the beginning to the end of Scripture.

To discover all the connections God intended between the Passover and the Lord’s Table requires study of Jewish feasts and sacrifices more generally. Logos Bible Software now includes a tool facilitating this study: the Israelite Feasts and Sacrifices interactive.

In this week’s video, we will look at a second example of an Old Testament sacrifice in the New Testament and discuss how it helps us understand an episode in the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Recommended Resources

• The New International Commentary on the Old Testament: The Book of Leviticus
• IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
• Mobile Ed: NT311 The World of Jesus and the Gospels

Study Questions

1. How many passages in Scripture refer to animals being sacrificed for the purpose of atonement?
2. What is the most “purpose” for sacrifices in Scripture? You may be surprised to find out.