Today's passage: Leviticus 25

I am personally not a big fan of rules and regulations. This is probably one of the main reasons I did not choose the military route when going to college. The Army spent some effort trying to recruit me because I was considered a scholar-athlete. I am not trying to brag because I wasn’t really that great at either but they did seem to want me to join. My parents knew my personality and told me that the Army probably was not the place for me. Now that I am older, I am positive it would not have ended well. As I have also learned, when God has a plan for our lives you sometimes end up being able to handle things you don’t think possible. Even though I am averse to regulations, my job requires I carry about 10 pounds of regulatory documentation wherever I go. Surprisingly, that has worked out just fine. I am an airline pilot and I couldn’t help but think of how much Leviticus reads very much like our union contract. Granted, the subject matter is different, but a girl can dream of a sabbatical year right?

The words in Leviticus seem to be carefully chosen, and I suspect this is so it would not be misunderstood. It seemed that it was extremely important to handle the affairs in the way that was pleasing to the Lord. I love that God demands that we should sell to the poor but not make a profit. He doesn’t tell us to give it to them. He tells us to help them get back on their feet. He also wants us to treat people who are not from our clans with respect. And we are told to share our land with others (foreigners).

I can’t tell you what all of the information about the Sabbath or the 7th year means. I personally would love to have every 7th year off. I think it would be good for my soul and I would be ready to come back to work with a renewed interest. I am 41 years old and I think it would be great to spend year 50 adopting some of the tenets of the Year of Jubilee. That seems like a great way to start my 50’s if I am blessed enough to live that long.

Leviticus has been a challenge for me. I enjoy the content but find it difficult to write about. It probably comes down to my general aversion to rules. I am completely thankful that Jesus died for our sins. He changed the rules so that the only thing that I would have to do is accept Him as my personal savior. That is such a comfort to me. 

Today's Passage: Leviticus 23

In today's passage we find a list of appointed festivals that God tells Moses that the Israelites are to observe.  You probably recognize some of them by their names.  Here is the list again with their modern Jewish name and what they commemorate:

• The Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread - Passover: Is observed in remembrance of the Exodus of God's people lead by Moses out of Egypt.
• The Festival of Weeks and the Offering the Firstfruits - Shavuot: Is observed as a harvest festival but also commemorates God's giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai.
• The Festival of Trumpets - Rosh Hashanah: Is the celebration of the Jewish new year.  If you're confused why the new year is celebrated in the 7th month it's because the Israelites observed two calendars.  One the sacred calendar was based around the instructions given to Moses by God, and two a civil calendar that was in line with the surrounding civilizations calendars.
• The Day of Atonement - Yom Kippur: Is observed as the day that all the people of Israel made their atonement sacrifice and realigned themselves with God.  This is still an exceptionally Holy Day for Jews.  For Christians our last day of atonement was the day Jesus died on the cross, for He was the final atoning sacrifice for believers.
• The Festival of Tabernacles - Sukkot: Is observed by building dwellings with plant leaves as the roofs to remind the Israelites of the simple dwellings that God's people lived in during the 40 years in the desert.

All of these festivals are still observed by the people of the Jewish faith today.  Even some Christian denominations celebrate some of them in their own unique ways.  However there is one I didn't mention.  Yes the Sabbath!  It's interesting that a day that we often see as just another day of the week was listen among the rest of these festivals.  The Sabbath isn't listed here by chance or accident but to communicate that we on one out of every seven days should take the time to rest and take part in "sacred assembly" with God.

All of these events were given to God's people to remind us of who it is we serve.  To remind us that we have a beautiful creator and that He desires so much for us to know Him in the same way He knows us.  Most of these festivals were done away with in the Christian church because they had become rituals of the law instead of reminders of who God is.

Where do you stand on the last festival we celebrate?  Are Sundays just another day to get house work done or schedule our kids ball games?  Or are they something different?  What do you think are God's thoughts on how we observe the sabbath?

Today's Passage: Leviticus 22

If you walk like a duck, quack like a duck, and swim like a duck, you may be spending too much time with ducks. The point here? We are affected by what we see, hear and experience, even unintentionally. This affects our intimacy with the Lord, either for the good or the bad.

Today's chapter continues the regulations for the priesthood, helping the Israelites understand how to keep the integrity of the offerings and the priests right standing before God. To be a priest in the Aaronic line, sanctification was not an option. The profane had to be avoided and atoned for. By doing so, the priests enjoyed the blessings of the holy life in Him.

While we today have been forgiven our sins, we would be foolish to think we can continue to live as we did previously and still enjoy the blessings of the Most High. Do you wonder why we don't see more people being healed miraculously or delivered from demons... or even accepting the Gospel He has entrusted us with?

It is because we are too comfortable with the profane. "Profane" is the opposite of holy. It means common... so common as to be those things we avoid doing in good company. It also means our attitude when it is more influenced by our flesh than by His Holy Spirit. When we are focused on Him, we notice the profane as a stark contrast to where we want to be, and are repulsed by it. We desire to seek consecration unto Him, that we may draw close again to His presence as quickly as possible.  For much of the profane that we have accepted, we don't even notice anymore.  Or we allow it because we fear we will become irrelevant to our culture.

May He consecrate you today and draw you close; may any profane thing (even if it has been part of your life for a long time) suddenly become repulsive to you today, and may you throw it down in favor of His holiness.

Today's Passage: Leviticus 21

It would be great if we would all operate fully in the Holy Spirit every moment we are alive. But its very possible (if not probable) that you started reading today's verses "in the flesh".  And from the flesh's point of view, the perspective of these verses shows the Lord a hard task master, only accepting the perfect specimen of humanity in His presence. (Which is true... if taken in the appropriate light.)

Today's chapter, as well as chapter 22, are the regulations for the Aaronic priesthood. It may make more sense to look at these verses and examine how NOT to interpret them. You can do this by going to the New Testament and reading about the interactions between Jesus and the Pharisees. Like so much the Lord reveals to humanity, the priesthood was subject to corruption left in the hands of mere man. The Pharisees had taken the rules and made themselves elitists, as though they were the only ones capable of being holy.

What relevance do these verses have to the New Testament believer? More than we'd like to think. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus says He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.

And He did just that on the cross, being both the perfect High Priest without blemish or sin and therefore able to come boldly into the Father's presence, and the perfect sacrifice, that man, once and for all time, might partake in that same presence though we are but sinners. 

As redeemed believers we are not better than those still lost, and we have no cause to feel superior. However, we are now set apart for holy things and destined to inherit eternal life.   The priesthood of the Old Testament was a visible tangible expression of things to come through Christ Jesus. We as believers are the visible tangible expression of what Christ has done. That is, if we are operating in His Holy Spirit and not in our flesh.

Today's Passage: Leviticus 20

You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.

Sin did, does, and will always have consequences. All consequences come down to the same thing: separation from God. That's why it says in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, BUT the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Although the Old and New Testaments seem to be so vastly different on the surface, at the core one truth remains: Salvation can only be found in God.

Today's Passage:  Leviticus 19

There's a card game we like to play at our house called "Mallard."  You play it just like Uno, where you can play a suit on a suit or a number on a number with the goal to go out first.  What makes Mallard fun is that you also create a crazy rule for certain cards each round.  Sometimes we make people say something funny or run around the room.  If you forget the rule (and a few other crazy rules we throw in at the start), then you have to take more cards.  There is no winner...you just keep playing and keep adding more rules.

There are some people that absolutely hate this game.  They don't like not fully understanding the rules, and they certainly don't like being punished for breaking them.  Since there is no winner, the game becomes pointless, and the frustration builds until they just quit and walk away.

It might be easy to think that the rules in Leviticus are a lot like Mallard...that somehow God was just making things up to test, punish, or confuse the Israelites.  When you get to a chapter like this one where the rules come in a rapid-fire fashion, it's even more likely to cause confusion or to think, "I would never be able to remember all these things!" 

But verse 1 of this chapter gives us the clue as to why God made these rules...and why He also calls us, as New Testament believers, to follow the example of Christ.  God says, "Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy."  He was setting guidelines for holiness for a people that didn't understand it at all.   That's why these rules, from the basic like "Do not steal" to the specific, like "Do not wear clothing made of two kinds of material", were all given...to help them be more like God.  We have a hard time understanding why they worked sometimes, but God was certainly working overtime to help them be holy. 

We, then, should be working overtime to be more like Christ.  Being like Him drives us to holiness, and that is still very important to God.  We may not live under the law, but the goal of holiness remains God's desire for our lives.

Today's passage: Leviticus 18

So far in Leviticus, we have read about some laws that seem a bit alien to a contemporary Christian.  Examples of these include laws regarding foods and their preparation.  In Leviticus 18, we read something that seems odd for the opposite reason.  As I read the various unlawful sexual relations described therein, I wondered why many of them had to be decreed at all.  Most of them just seemed to be fundamental tenets of morality.  Most seemed to be as universal as the laws of gravity.

Quite by coincidence, today I read in the USAToday about an isolated Peruvian tribe of Indians (the Mashco-Piro) who have recently been blamed for killing their one contact to the rest of the world, Shaco Flores.  Shaco spoke similar dialects, so he was able to converse with the Mashco-Piro.  It may have been a rogue "bad" Indian that killed Shaco, or it may have been something demanded of their social code for some offense Shaco had committed.  Given they are an isolated culture and they killed their only contact with the outside world, all I or anyone else can do is guess why.  The Mashco-Piro seem to have views well outside the norm on certain actions.  For example, kidnapping women and children from other tribes is reportedly acceptable.  As I was thinking about this blog, the two readings (Leviticus and the Peruvian article) kind of merged to form some basic questions: of the 15 "uncontacted" tribes in Peru, how many of them have the same basic tenets of morality?  How much of what we consider basic morality would they share?

As I looked at Leviticus 18, most of the laws I was reading on sexual morality seemed almost universal.  To me, it seemed that the reason the laws I was reading were fundamental tenets of morality was that these same laws of Leviticus 18 were widely adopted by Western civilization.  I was going to research and write on this, but what I initially found indicated that I had stumbled upon a hornet's nest that I don't particularly want to kick.  A quick google search on the subject matter will reveal that there are many who will argue against my assumption (as well as many who argue for it).  It seems some of the passion involved in these arguments stems from some of the subjects contained within that are controversial in modern times.  To be honest, I do not know enough about the subject to say whether my hunch is supported or rejected by fact.  But I can say this, the vast majority of laws laid out in Leviticus 18 are commonly accepted in most Western societies and Leviticus is the oldest recorded law on such matters of which I am aware.  Even if this is incorrect, I feel safe in saying that the laws of Leviticus 18 became accepted norms for the Christians to follow in years to come (I find it interesting to note that as Christians, they were free from these same laws).  By this criteria alone, the laws of Leviticus 18 are in some ways fundamental to many modern societies and therefore of great historical significance.

As a side note, one thing that was not familiar was "Molek."  In case you were wondering, Molek was apparently a deity worshiped by some middle eastern cultures including Canaanites and Phoenicians.  Apparently children were offered in sacrifice to Molek.

As a second note, if anyone is desirous of kicking some hornet's nests with Leviticus 18 as your ammo to prove some point or another, do as you wish, but I suggest a quick stop by Romans 6:14.  There you will find: "For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace."