“With what should I approach the Lord
and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
with year-old calves?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?” – Micah 6:6-7 (CEB)
Chapter six is built like a courtroom, and here a worshiper stands up to ask what it would take.
Watch the offers escalate. Burnt offerings. Year-old calves, the expensive ones. Then thousands of rams. Then torrents of oil. Each bid larger than the last, and each one still a quantity.
Then the final offer, and it stops the room. Should I give my oldest child?
The worshiper is not a monster. He is following his own logic to the end, and the logic was that the answer is a number. More, better, costlier. Run that far enough and you arrive somewhere unspeakable. The text lets him get there on purpose, so we can see the assumption was wrong from the first question. Where are you still treating faith as a matter of giving God more?
God, I keep trying to pay you. Stop me before I turn my faith into a bidding war, and tell me plainly what you want. Amen.