sacrifice, offering

Definition

In the Bible, the terms “sacrifice” and “offering” refer to special gifts given to God as an act of worshiping him. People also offered sacrifices to false gods.

sacrifice

• Sacrifices to God often involved the killing of an animal.
• Only the sacrifice of Jesus, God’s perfect sinless Son, can completely cleanse people from sin; animal sacrifices could never do that.

offering

• The word “offering” generally refers to anything that is offered or given. The term “sacrifice” refers to something that is given or done at great cost to the giver.
• Offerings to God were specific things that he commanded the Israelites to give in order to express devotion and obedience to him.
• The names of the different offerings, such as “burnt offering” and “peace offering,” indicated what kind of offering was being given.

Translation Suggestions

• The term “offering” could also be translated as “a gift to God” or “something given to God” or “something valuable that is presented to God.”
• Depending on the context, the term “sacrifice” could also be translated as “something valuable given in worship” or “a special animal killed and presented to God.”
• The action to “sacrifice” could be translated as to “give up something valuable” or to “kill an animal and give it to God.”
• Another way to translate “present yourself as a living sacrifice” could be “as you live your life, offer yourself to God as completely as an animal is offered on an altar.”

(See also: altar, burnt offering, drink offering, false god, fellowship offering, freewill offering peace offering, priest, sin offering, worship)

Bible References

• 2 Timothy 4:6
• Acts 7:42
• Acts 21:25
• Genesis 4:3-5
• James 2:21-24
• Mark 1:43-44
• Mark 14:12
• Matthew 5:23

Examples from the Bible stories

• __3:14 After Noah got off the boat, he built an altar and sacrificed some of each kind of animal which could be used for a sacrifice. God was happy with the sacrifice__ and blessed Noah and his family.
• __5:6 “Take Isaac, your only son, and kill him as a sacrifice to me.” Again Abraham obeyed God and prepared to sacrifice__ his son.
• __5:9 God had provided the ram to be the sacrifice__ instead of Isaac.
• __13:9 Anyone who disobeyed God’s law could bring an animal to the Tent of Meeting as a sacrifice to God. A priest would kill the animal and burn it on the altar. The blood of the animal that was sacrificed__ covered the person’s sin and made that person clean in God’s sight.
• __17:6 David wanted to build a temple where all the Israelites could worship God and offer him sacrifices__.
• __48:6 Jesus is the Great High Priest. Unlike other priests, he offered himself as the only sacrifice__ that could to take away the sin of all the people in the world.
• __48:8 But God provided Jesus, the Lamb of God, as a sacrifice__ to die in our place.
• __49:11 Because Jesus sacrificed__ himself, God can forgive any sin, even terrible sins.

Word Data

• Strong’s: H0801, H0817, H0819, H1685, H1890, H1974, H2076, H2077, H2281, H2282, H2398, H2401, H2402, H2403, H2409, H3632, H4394, H4503, H4504, H5066, H5068, H5071, H5257, H5258, H5261, H5262, H5927, H5928, H5930, H6453, H6944, H6999, H7133, H7311, H8002, H8426, H8548, H8573, H8641, G02660, G03340, G10490, G14350, G14940, G23780, G23800, G36460, G43760, G54850