Category Archives: Leviticus

19 The Lord also said to Moses, ² “Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

³ “Each of you must show great respect for your mother and father, and you must always observe my Sabbath days of rest. I am the Lord your God.

⁴ “Do not put your trust in idols or make metal images of gods for yourselves. I am the Lord your God.

⁵ “When you sacrifice a peace offering to the Lord, offer it properly so you^[a] will be accepted by God. ⁶ The sacrifice must be eaten on the same day you offer it or on the next day. Whatever is left over until the third day must be completely burned up. ⁷ If any of the sacrifice is eaten on the third day, it will be contaminated, and I will not accept it. ⁸ Anyone who eats it on the third day will be punished for defiling what is holy to the Lord and will be cut off from the community.

⁹ “When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. ¹⁰ It is the same with your grape crop—do not strip every last bunch of grapes from the vines, and do not pick up the grapes that fall to the ground. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.

¹¹ “Do not steal.

“Do not deceive or cheat one another.

¹² “Do not bring shame on the name of your God by using it to swear falsely. I am the Lord.

¹³ “Do not defraud or rob your neighbor.

“Do not make your hired workers wait until the next day to receive their pay.

¹⁴ “Do not insult the deaf or cause the blind to stumble. You must fear your God; I am the Lord.

¹⁵ “Do not twist justice in legal matters by favoring the poor or being partial to the rich and powerful. Always judge people fairly.

¹⁶ “Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people.^[b]

“Do not stand idly by when your neighbor’s life is threatened. I am the Lord.

¹⁷ “Do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your relatives.^[c] Confront people directly so you will not be held guilty for their sin.

¹⁸ “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

¹⁹ “You must obey all my decrees.

“Do not mate two different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two different kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven from two different kinds of thread.

²⁰ “If a man has sex with a slave girl whose freedom has never been purchased but who is committed to become another man’s wife, he must pay full compensation to her master. But since she is not a free woman, neither the man nor the woman will be put to death. ²¹ The man, however, must bring a ram as a guilt offering and present it to the Lord at the entrance of the Tabernacle.^[d] 22 The priest will then purify him^[e] before the Lord with the ram of the guilt offering, and the man’s sin will be forgiven.

²³ “When you enter the land and plant fruit trees, leave the fruit unharvested for the first three years and consider it forbidden.^[f] Do not eat it. ²⁴ In the fourth year the entire crop must be consecrated to the Lord as a celebration of praise. ²⁵ Finally, in the fifth year you may eat the fruit. If you follow this pattern, your harvest will increase. I am the Lord your God.

²⁶ “Do not eat meat that has not been drained of its blood.

“Do not practice fortune-telling or witchcraft.

²⁷ “Do not trim off the hair on your temples or trim your beards.

²⁸ “Do not cut your bodies for the dead, and do not mark your skin with tattoos. I am the Lord.

²⁹ “Do not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will be filled with prostitution and wickedness.

³⁰ “Keep my Sabbath days of rest, and show reverence toward my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

³¹ “Do not defile yourselves by turning to mediums or to those who consult the spirits of the dead. I am the Lord your God.

³² “Stand up in the presence of the elderly, and show respect for the aged. Fear your God. I am the Lord.

³³ “Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land. ³⁴ Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

³⁵ “Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight, or volume. ³⁶ Your scales and weights must be accurate. Your containers for measuring dry materials or liquids must be accurate.^[g] I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

³⁷ “You must be careful to keep all of my decrees and regulations by putting them into practice. I am the Lord.”

Leviticus 19

Dear God, our modern church, and even I as an individual, have a difficult time knowing what to do with the Bible. How do we use it? How am I supposed to use it? Am I supposed to use it as a rule book? A user’s manual for my life? A guide? A way of getting to know you?

There’s so much here in Leviticus that I violate on a regular basis. Just in the last 30 minutes I shaved as I got ready for work. Verse 27 above tells me not to trim my beard. The very next verse says I should not get tattoos. While I personally don’t have any tattoos, I know plenty of people who do, and a lot of them earnestly love, serve, and worship you. Some are pastors. Then there’s the whole thing about sex with the slave girl. Frankly, that one confuses me a little bit because I can’t tell if the person who is having sex with her is the one who owns her or if she is owned by someone else and then betrothed to a third person, but the person being talked to is just the one having sex with her. Anyway, you get my point. What do I do with this stuff?!?

The answer I’ve come to is that I look at this book (meaning the Bible and not just Leviticus) read it while inviting your Holy Spirit to join me in that process, listen to scholars and those who can help me interpret it, and then let it slowly (sometimes it seems painstakingly slowly) mold me into who you want me to be for my sake and for your glory. So what is it you need me to be? You need me to be better at worshipping you. You need me to be more loving of my neighbor. You need me to pursue purity in a way that gives your Holy Spirit room in my heart to grow your fruit in my life. Did the Israelites of the past fall away from you because they broke these rules or because they started letting their idols take your place in their hearts? I think it’s the latter. That is the temptation that will lead to my destruction. If I leave you. And if I am here with you then I think your Holy Spirit will use passages, even weird ones like this, to guide me into your purity and your love for me. And if I can get others to embrace you and encourage them to spend time in scripture along with your Holy Spirit, then they too will find you and let you guide them into who you want them to be.

Father, thank you for the reconciliation I have with you through Jesus. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you for covering for the mistakes I make as well. I made one last night that I regret, and I am sorry. Thank you that nothing bad came from it. And I ask that you especially care for a precious family member who is gravely ill. Care for her daughters and grandchildren. Use this situation to heal hearts, souls, and relationships. Bring peace to everyone, including this precious, good woman who loves you dearly.

I offer all of this to you in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

⁴³ The priest must examine him, and if he finds swelling around the reddish white sore anywhere on the man’s head and it looks like a skin disease, ⁴⁴ the man is indeed infected with a skin disease and is unclean. The priest must pronounce him ceremonially unclean because of the sore on his head.

⁴⁵ “Those who suffer from a serious skin disease must tear their clothing and leave their hair uncombed. They must cover their mouth and call out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ ⁴⁶ As long as the serious disease lasts, they will be ceremonially unclean. They must live in isolation in their place outside the camp.

Leviticus 13:43-46

Dear God, the Bible is a complicated book. Frankly, there is no way, as a lay person, I could ever completely understand what you are saying in each part of it. Even the most educated disagree on what different parts are saying, or misinterpret something out of context. From disagreements on a six-day creation story, to stories of miracles like Jonah being swallowed by a big fish, to Jesus feeding 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, to rapture theory, it’s mostly a hazy mystery to all of us. And I do mean all of us.

This passage is another example. There are certain things that were true 5,000 years ago that are no longer true. We can now ignore much, if not all, of Leviticus 13. It seemingly no longer applies. That’s an easy line to draw that they couldn’t necessarily draw even 100 years ago. But there are other lines that are squishier. And if we allow ourselves to draw one line here, then what do we do with the other parts of books like Leviticus that are heavily debated?

I was listening to some theologians this week discuss Jesus’s second coming/rapture/tribulation theory, and I couldn’t help but hold onto my traditional view of this, which is, “I don’t care.” I simply don’t care about when Jesus is coming back, if there will be a rapture, and if I will be spared from a tribulation. I don’t care. There is so much in the Bible to sift through, and I love all of it–even Leviticus. I love that you share the essence of yourself through all of these flawed people and how they wrote about you. I love that the 66 books I have in my Protestant Bible are not dictated by you, but inspired by you (although, ironically, it seems that passages like the one today are literally dictated by you). But when I look for the bedrock upon which I can build my life, it all breaks down to the idea that Jesus restored me to you through his death and resurrection, and I now have the opportunity to love you with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. And my job now is to continue to do that and then love my neighbor as myself. After that, everything points back to those two things.

So as I try to figure out which things in Leviticus are out of date and which ones should still be enforced (e.g., beastiality should undeniably and uncontroversially still be prohibited), let me first lead with loving you and then loving others. I heard one of the people discussing the end times stuff say something I really believe. If we are just trying to motivate people into discipleship through fear of hell or missing the rapture and suffering the tribulation then we are using the wrong thing to motivate them. That is not what Jesus did to motivate people into relationship with himself. He offered them freedom from their sin. That’s not what the apostles did to motivate people into relationship with you. They offered them freedom from their sin. I guess the word “saved” can mean “from hell,” but it can also mean “from the life your sin will give you on earth and the separation from God you are experiencing in the moment.”

Father, I’m not theologian. Frankly, a good portion of the things I even type into this prayer journal are likely wrong. I confess that. I’m not trying to teach anyone anything. I’m just trying to get to know you better, search what your Holy Spirit might be trying to say to me through scripture, and then inspire others to do the same thing. If I found out that people who read this only read it once, but then started doing some sort of daily worship of you themselves, that would delight me to no end. So use me. Use this blog. Use it in my life. If it’s appropriate, use it in the lives of others so that they might be drawn closer to you and into daily discipleship. Let it be a part of making my life a prayer to you.

I pray to you, Father, in Jesus and with the Holy Spirit,

Amen

“Do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your relatives. Confront people directly so you will not be held guilty for their sin. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”
Leviticus 19:17-18

Dear God, why? There’s always a “why” to what you commanded. Sometimes, I think the modern church misses that. I think we read something in the Bible that we see you say is wrong, and we just run with it and then go out and judge anyone who is doing that thing. But we forget to take the “why” with us. We forget to meet people where they are and start with the “why” as opposed to starting with the “what.”

In this case, I think every one of these things listed in verses 17 and 18 are for our own good. Nursing hatred is poison to my own soul. Confronting people directly instead of just holding on to the judgment or gossiping about them helps me to be in relationship with people and build something positive (if the confrontation is done in the right way. Letting go of revenge and grudges frees up my spirit to simply love. And loving others is what is good for my soul. Loving you and loving others–the two great commandments.

Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I worship you this morning. I turn loose of the grudges of which I am aware and lean into you for my comfort where I am hurt. I turn loose of the people who have hurt me or wish me ill. I turn loose of those who have grudges towards me. Set them free, Lord. But not for my sake–for theirs. I can think of a few people who have grudges against me. Set them free for their sakes, not mine. For them.

I pray all of this through the grace you gave me in Jesus,

Amen

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “If anyone has a swelling or a rash or discolored skin that might develop into a serious skin disease, that person must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons…the man is indeed infected with a skin disease and is unclean. The priest must pronounce him ceremonially unclean because of the sore on his head. “Those who suffer from a serious skin disease must tear their clothing and leave their hair uncombed. They must cover their mouth and call out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as the serious disease lasts, they will be ceremonially unclean. They must live in isolation in their place outside the camp.

Leviticus 13:1-2,44-46

Dear God, this can seem so draconian and barbaric. Really? Move them outside of town? Make them call out, “Unclean!” Isn’t that a bit much?

But there are always reasons behind your edicts. In this case, this was a serious situation that could spread through the population and kill people–not unlike how we’ve been treating COVID-19 in our modern society. Unfortunately for their time, they didn’t have the technology to address their situation. They just had to ride with it. For us, for most, it is a short-lived disease so they don’t have to remain separated more that a few weeks. Of course, it does kills some, and it does leave some permanently damaged, but, at least for those who live, they don’t have to be alone.

I wonder how a Christian who has fought against COVID-19 quarantines and precautions (e.g. face masks) would read this verse. Would they see the modern application? Would they understand the similarities? As Americans, especially, we have come to worship our individual rights as people. “Don’t Tread on Me!” But the mercy for others is supposed to come first. Isn’t that what the second greatest commandment, according to Jesus, is all about?

Father, there is nothing new in the world. Your people have had to deal with reality for as long as you have had relationship with us–and even before. We are humans. We are all in this together. Help us to have the humility we need to both honor and love our neighbors, and to know how to reach out to and minister to them as well.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen