In Sydney ministers do not tend to be referred to as “Priests” largely out of a concern to distinguish very clearly the difference between the nature of Jesus’ priestly service and those who oversee church communities. To explore the language the New Testament often uses to speak about church leadership click this LINK

However it is not altogether inappropriate to use priestly language in describing those who serve the church. Here are a few points to consider.

• The Levitical High Priest i. mediated between God and his people, exercising an access to God that not all people or even all priests enjoyed. Jesus’ high priesthood fulfils that role now exclusively; he has entered a heavenly sanctuary that no other human has access to.

• The Levitical priesthood also ministered by way of facilitating the people’s worship of God and a teaching/instruction role with respect to God’s word (Lev 10:11). Those ordained as Overseers and Deacons in the Christian Church certainly continue to fulfil these priestly functions.

• The apostle Peter will speak of all believers as a “nation of Priests” meaning that we in a sense mediate/proclaim God to the nations. This “priesthood of all believers” coexists with the particular authority in teaching assigned only for Overseers.

• The apostle Paul will happily refer to his own work as an apostle as his “Priestly duty of proclaiming the Gospel” (Rom 15:16). While Jesus’ offering of himself has uniquely qualified Jesus to mediate "atonement of sin” and the “acceptance of our service to God”, other aspects of the priestly role ARE carried out by apostles/ministers in the church. Paul will also speak of seeking present the church to Jesus as a holy bride - a priestly kind of work that Church overseers are also responsible for.

• However, Jesus alone acts in the role of a HIGH PRIEST - making atonement and mediating God’s forgiveness to us, and our prayers to God.
  
  

Following the birth of a boy or girl, two different rituals reflect the need to consecrate (sanctify, set apart for God) both the child and reproductive process.

For the birth of a boy, it is circumcision. For the birth of a girl, the mother’s own purification period is repeated/doubled.

This is not because a female baby is more spiritually compromising! I think there is good reason to believe that the extended purification period functions as the baby girl’s “equivalent” to the boy’s circumcision.

The difference in ritual form is accounted for by the difference of the sex - “only females discharge menstrual blood, only males discharge semen — these instructions as a whole do not discriminate between the worth of men and women or the susceptibility of their bodies to impurity.”
(Samuel E. Balentine, Leviticus (Interpretation) (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2002), 100.)

The circumcision of the boy symbolised purification from “common” life, and consecration to a “holy” life - a life in which the boy’s procreative efforts are to be set apart in service of God. For examples of where circumcision symbolises being consecrated to God see Exodus 12:43-49 and Joshua 5:2-9. See also Colossians 2:11-12 below.

However, Circumcision is not an appropriate sign of consecration for a girl. Because a female child will herself one day be capable of menstruation and childbirth, the ritual purification period is doubled (in the place of circumcision) - once through to consecrate the mother, and a doubled time for the consecration of the baby girl. This reflects the Levitical categories of bodily discharge (Lev 15) where the purification of menstrual blood is ritually significant. Rabbinic commentators (in the Mishnah) also suggested the doubled time after a girl’s birth accounts for both the mother’s own postpartum bleeding and symbolically anticipates the baby daughter’s own future cycles.

New Testament echos: In the NT both circumcision and blood continue to be associated symbolically with being cleansed and setting apart for God.

Colossians 2:11–12 — Speaks of a circumcision made without hands by Christ, linked with putting off the body of flesh— a vivid “removal of impurity” image.

Hebrews 9:13-14 - 13 — Speaks of blood of the blood of Christ, which cleanses or purifies our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may be consecrated to serve the living God!

It would be a mistake to imagine that this verse represents some horrific judgement that God arbitrarily dreams up as punishment. This horrific foreshadowing is describing the fruit of Israel’s prior choice to “dine/fellowship” with the false god Molech, rather than to “dine/fellowship” with God.

One might say - “you become like the god you worship”. Let’s see how this works out in Leviticus.

1. Child-offering Already Condemned in Leviticus

Leviticus explicitly prohibits offering children to the “god” Molech (18:21; 20:2–5). This is not a hypothetical sin; it is named as a concrete threat for Israel - something that profanes God’s name and desecrates his sanctuary. The parents are warned against feeding their children to a false god in the fire.

2. Consumption/Feeding Language (ʾākal) as a Cultic Category in Leviticus

• In a Positive sense: In Leviticus, priests and worshipers are to “eat” a share of the sacrificial portions they rightly offer to God in worship (ch. 1–7). To eat is to share fellowship with God in all holiness and life.

• In a Negative sense: The same verb “eat” becomes a curse in the context of idolatry. Those who offer their children to the “god” Molech, will end up participating/fellowshipping with him in the same wickedness - You become like the god you worship.
Eating functions as a worship category. Who you fellowship/eat with in worship will ultimately shape who you become.

• When God declares “You shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters” (26:29), he is not dreaming up some terrible arbitrary curse; he is proclaiming that the character of the false god they have chosen to worship will shape their fate.

3. Prophetic development of the same logic

• Jeremiah 19:4–9: Israel burns their children to Baal in worship (vv. 4–5). As consequence, God declares they themselves will eat their children in judgment (v. 9). What they chose freely in the practice of idolatry, becomes the reality they are tormented with in the face of judgement. (See also Ezekiel 5:6–10)

  • The “eating” of children is later described as a horror of city life under the military siege God brings as judgement against his people (Deuteronomy and Lamentations). However, the curse itself is the fruit of Israel’s prior worship of idols. The prophets make explicit what Leviticus already anticipates; what Israel imagined as an act of worship offered to an idol will eventually find expression in their own wickedness.

4. Conclusion

Leviticus 26:29 does not depict God “dreaming up” some arbitrary horror with which to punish Israel. It is the twisted corollary of Israel’s own prior pattern of chosen worship.

• In right worship, offerings are consumed by God and worshipers in holy fellowship with one another.

• In false worship, children are offered to be consumed by Molech in the fire, but it turns out the people are only devouring themselves.