The Cost of Holiness:
Sacred Time, Agricultural Risk, and Tested Faith in Leviticus 23 and 25
By Bent Christiansen, MTh · In Review for Publication
Citation Information
Title: The Cost of Holiness: Sacred Time, Agricultural Risk, and Tested Faith in Leviticus 23 and 25
Author: Bent Christiansen, MTh
Status: Submitted / In Review for Publication (2026)
Abstract
This article explores an underdeveloped dimension of Levitical holiness: the role of tested faith. Leviticus scholarship has richly described the book’s theology of holiness in relation to purity, sacrifice, priesthood, social ethics, and ordered life before God. Less attention has been given to the way Israel’s sacred calendar required costly trust. Leviticus 23 commands Israel to commemorate redemption and wilderness provision through practices that leave fields, households, present food supply, and future provision exposed to material risk. In the spring, Passover, Unleavened Bread, the wave-sheaf offering, and the Feast of Weeks required Israel to leave fields, surrender first yield before consumption, and refuse total extraction from the harvest. In the fall, Booths required Israel to rejoice after ingathering while returning to temporary dwellings at the threshold of rain, sowing, and future provision. Exodus 34 confirms that costly worship belongs to covenant restoration after the golden calf, and Leviticus 25 extends the same pattern from sacred days to sacred years through sabbatical rest and Jubilee release. Leviticus therefore presents holiness not only as ordered life before God, but as ordered life learned through dependence on God.
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