PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

It seems like God only wants the perfect and the unblemished to serve him as priest according to this Scripture in Leviticus.  I am perfectly comfortable in pastor’s being held to a higher standard.  If we are going to be standing in front of people and giving them recommendations on how to live and if we are going to interpret Scripture and give what is our understanding of God’s word for that time and place, then we should be held to the standard, and probably even above that one, that we profess.  I have no problem with that.  I say this not because I am confident that I will live up to expectations, I know I will fall short, but simply because that is what leaders need to do.  They need to be held to higher standards.

What we must be aware of is when you hold people to higher standards then the temptation is to think that this person is better, or for our case as Protestants, that this person has a closer walk with Jesus.  That is not our understanding.  In our thinking where we uplift the priesthood of all believers, we say with confidence that every single person is called to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and no one calling is higher or more important than another.  As a pastor I do not have a more important role to serve  than the teacher in the public school.  You can carry that out as far as you would like.

So this chapter deals with the physical requirements for a priest of the people of Israel and who he is allowed to marry or not marry.  Boy, I’m glad to be a Presbyterian.

A few things of interest here.  Look first at vs. 26  and you will see the purpose of these laws: “You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from the other people to be mine.”  God has separated his people from those around to be a different type of people.  He does not want his people to sacrifice animals to other gods.  He does not want his people to worship other gods.  He does not want his people to act like other people in the world, they are to be different, they are to be pure.

So in order to understand what that looked like, he gives the people of Israel a set of regulations so that: “You shall not follow the practices of the nation that I am driving out before you.”  So these regulations and rules were adopted to serve as a foil for what was happening around them.  Apparently for the Egyptians and the Canaanites incest was not that big of a deal, it was actually practiced pretty regularly.  Well, not so much if you were an Israelite.  This chapter underlines incestual relationships as being an abomination and one that ought to result in the death of the parties involved.  

The next thing that I want you to look at is vs. 27 and see that it is from here that the Salem witch trials took their Scriptural backing.  You can absolutely find anything in Scripture to support a twisted agenda.  I thought you might like this clip since it deals with witches.

I am definitely playing catch up so I am not writing this on June 12, but rather on June 20.  Today is recognized as world refugee day, ironically.  I say ironically because I was wondering if you read vs.33 where it states that we are to love the alien as ourselves.  That would actually be the Scripture to quote as opposed to Romans 13 which was quoted earlier in the week to justify the separation of babies from their parents once they cross the border.  I’m not sure we would do that to our own family.  And yet this verse tells us to love the alien as we would love ourselves.

Scripture is full of statements that raise the bar on hospitality to the stranger.  In fact, the result of being inhospitable was to be stoning.  This was fairly serious.  It was also Jesus who told his disciples that if a town did not accept them and treat them hospitably then they were to shake off the dust from their sandals.  He goes on to say that it would be better for Soddom and Gomorrah than it would be for that town because of their refusal to accept them as strangers.  

I know this is only one of the many commandments found in this chapter, and there are many commandments in this chapter, but it seems to be one that is the most poignant for the times in which we live.  

This is the chapter of the abominations, specifically the sexual abominations.  Much of it is hard to stomach.  I find it interesting that so much of what we define in our culture as love today is much more…, well,… undefined.  Let me tell you a story.  A friend of mine was in his office when an older man and a much younger woman walked in and asked if he would marry them.  They asked in a way which implied something was wrong and something should prevent them from being married.  He was about 50 and she was in her early 30s.  

They spoke for a while and he said they would need to go through premarital counseling.  Had they been married before?  Yes, but both have been since divorced and so now are single.  My friend said he didn’t see a problem in them getting married and he would be willing to do the ceremony if after the premarital counseling things worked out the way they should.  As they were standing up to leave the man said, there is one more thing you should know.  She is my daughter.

Culture would tell us that these prohibitions in chapter 18 are old fashioned and we really just need to follow our heart.  Love can’t be wrong.  If we love someone then that has to be okay.  I’m not sure that is entirely accurate.  I think we do need to have guidelines and I’m still very comfortable with the guidelines that Scripture gives us, at least where we consistently see those guidelines.  Now, we have just read some chapters that are draconian, but this one makes sense in a lot of ways.  It gives you a set a rules which protects at least the vast majority of family members from abuse from those who might have the power to do what they might want to do because of their position over the family.

When we served in Italy we had the opportunity to take part in the yearly slaughter of the pig which took place in the beginning of January, normally the 6th.  Part of the process was to bleed the pig and to gather his blood and make it into blood pudding.  I had an opportunity, without me knowing it, to take part in the eating of that blood pudding.  It was not nearly as tasty as it may sound.  It was pretty nasty.  

But this chapter in Leviticus clearly commands the people of Israel to not eat any of the blood of any animal.  I also like my meat medium rare, and there is naturally some blood in it when you eat it that way, although a good butcher will tell you that it actually isn’t the blood.  I never did quite understand that.  So why the commandment not to eat blood?  We find a clue in vs.7 which talks about prostituting themselves to “goat-demons”.  Wait, what?  Well, it was a common practice to worship many gods back then, even if the Israelites were commanded against it.  The worship and sacrifice of animals to other gods was the normal modus operandi for even some Israelites as they covertly tried to cover their bases by worshiping Yahweh as well as the gods of the area.  As you can imagine, this infuriated God.  Just look at the example of Aaron and the golden calf and you can see the repercussions of that act.

Many of the gods when they were worshiped demanded that blood be imbibed from the animals that were slaughtered.  This is why animals for sacrifice could only be done so by the priest and at the tent of meeting.  You were not allowed to go off and do it by yourself because the temptation would be to throw in some obeisance to that other god who didn’t demand much, just  a little sacrifice.  That was unacceptable.  The prohibition against eating blood stopped this practice in its tracks, as did the prohibition to sacrifice any animal except those that were presented to the priests in the tent.  I’ll still take my meat medium rare. 

If you go back to Leviticus 10 you will see that it is here where we see the story of the death of the two sons of Aaron.  This entire chapter is dedicated to the day of atonement which continues to be a central feature of the Jewish religion.  It is from this act of atonement where one one goat is slaugthered and the other is set out into the wilderness with the sin of all the people, that we get the term scapegoat.  It is the goat which “escapes” into the wilderness which is carrying the sins of all the people.  On a yearly basis the priest had to slaughter one and the other he laid his hands upon it and by doing this he laid the sins of the people upon it.  No, the goat did nothing wrong, but he still carried their sins.

Does that sound familiar?  Who else do we know who had the sins of humanity laid upon him, even though he did nothing wrong?  This is why Jesus is called the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  This entire concept of atonement originates in these chapters and carries forward into our understanding of Jesus’ salvific work upon the cross.  Praise be to God for what God has done for us through His son Jesus Christ.  

Great to be back, by the way.  Sorry for the long silence, nearly two weeks, wow, that is a long time.  Alaska was awesome, Italy is next.  Back to Leviticus.

I hope you get the idea that cleanliness was next to godliness in the eyes of the people of Israel.  Certainly God required it and certain measures were enacted to ensure that the people were clean to the nth degree.  Back in that day without antiseptic someone could die from just a simple cut if it got infected and gangrene set in and then that would be the end of the story.  But what we find in this chapter is simply natural events that happen in life which Scripture here defines as unclean.  

A man who has a discharge, I guess loose bowel would count as that, as well as a discharge of semen was considered unclean.  Likewise a woman who was in her regular monthly period was considered unclean.  We know that neither of these things can create catastrophic health problems, but the people back then didn’t know it.  Anything that came out of the body was considered unclean and so was seen as potentially dangerous.  

Obviously we no longer follow any of these rules by considering anyone unclean and untouchable for a week or longer because of their physical condition.  It is amazing how detailed these laws are, probably way more information than what we would want to know.  

Imagine living in a culture where certain people are considered unclean.  In India and other countries there remains some of this with the caste system and how much certain levels of the caste can interact with others in different castes.  The more things change…

Apparently houses can get leprosy as well.  We get a lot of water in our basement and just over this past year we have put a dehumidifier down there to prevent the mold from creeping up the walls and into our main living area.  It has worked. We no longer have mold downstairs, but I never thought for a moment that it might have been leprosy.  Back in Moses’ day there was no explanation for a lot of things.  If you had leprosy then you must have sinned in some way.  As a result you were required to make sacrifices as sin offerings.  We no longer equate disease and illness with sin.  We don’t say that a person has cancer because they have turned their back on God.  No, we say that a person has cancer because medically they were predisposed to cancer cells reproducing in their bodies.

As we read along in Leviticus it is important to make distinctions between that which the people in that day simply did not know and what was used as an effective tool to draw people closer to God.  There is nothing wrong in asking God to bless your house.  But if you have some mold in your house it is not a result of your family’s sin or do you necessarily have to tear it down brick for brick.  Some things change, but the basic fundamental relationship with our Savior, and His desire for our heart, does not change.

Medical conditions were handled quite differently back in the day than they are today.  If you had leprosy, or some kind of a skin disease, you wouldn’t go to Wiley’s to get a cream, you would be banished from your home for a week or until it went away.  If it got worse over those two weeks then you were required to wear your clothes disheveled, not comb your hair, and go around town covering your mouth yelling out “unclean” as you made your way through town.  In Florida where we served if you were picked up for shoplifting then one of the potential punishments was to stand outside of the courthouse in public with a sign that said: “I stole from a store.”  The purpose was to embarrass and to try to prevent the thief from stealing again.  But the purpose of this diseased person letting people know they have a disease was so that they would not come into contact with other people so that they could pick up the disease.

The laws on purity in the Jewish community were very strict and severe.  It is interesting because we really don’t know what this Hebrew term for leprosy means. We don’t know to what they are referring.  Is it the actual medical leprosy that we understand today, or was it just any generalized skin condition which was puzzling and undefined?  I think it was the latter which provided for a whole lot of potential for calling out your neighbor if you didn’t like them.  Notice that it was the priest who examined and who declared that a person was clean or unclean.  There was quite some power in the priesthood back then.

Some of these Scriptures are interesting in that they reflect some of the information that we have in the New Testament in reference to Jesus.  Go to Luke 2:21-40 and we will see that Jesus is presented in the temple in accordance to what the Levitical laws requires.  Notice that the family is given a choice on what to bring.  If you have wealthy you can bring a lamb, if not then doves and pigeons will suffice.  Do you see what Jesus’ family ends up bringing into the temple?  The least sacrifice, the doves and pigeons and not the lamb.  That should tell us something about the financial welfare of Jesus’ family.  They offered the lowest sacrifice possible to compensate for the purity of Mary after the birth of Jesus.