Year 7, Day 126: Numbers 11

Theological Commentary: Click Here

This is an incredibly rich theological chapter.  We’ll start with the fact that the people grumble.  They are unhappy, and unhappiness breeds more unhappiness.  They aren’t content eating what the Lord gives them for free.  They want something other than the provision of the Lord.

Furthermore, do you hear their complaints?  They paint Egypt as if it was a garden of plenty where they were happy.  How quickly they have forgotten that Moses was sent by God because of their complaining about their own oppression.  Human beings have a tendency to see the present with worry and the past with happiness because the present is unknown and the past is already behind us and known.

Second, we see Moses’ power divided up among seventy-two people.  At first, this seems like a bad thing.  Moses loses power as he gives it up to others.  Moses’ power is diminished.  Moses power is diminished because of the people’s grumbling, even!  However, I am not so sure that this is as bad of a thing as it first appears.  One man should not think they could lead a whole nation alone.  Everyone needs help.  Everyone needs people to assist in governing.  What appears as a punishment is actually a blessing to Moses in the long run.

Third, we see the plague of quail.  The people get what they want.  They get all the meat they can possibly stand.  However, the meat rots as they are eating it.  While this is a very vivid description, it has a deep spiritual teaching as well.  The fruit of our sin often poisons us at the moment that we get what we desire.  In other words, when we start off in sin, we so often only discover the negative results after they are attained.  What seems like such a good and pleasing thought so often turns out to be a bad idea in reality.

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Year 7, Day 125: Numbers 10

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Communication and order are a good thing.  Both of these attributes allow people to work together and get along.  Both of these things allow businesses to function properly.

When communication and order break down, chaos naturally ensues.  In relationships, when communication ceases the people involved in the relationship typically stop getting along.  When communication stops in business, employees end up doing their own thing and the company flounders from a lack of unifying direction.  The same is true for order.

God knows this, and he desires to teach this lesson to the people of Israel.  If they are going to be His successful people and take over the Promised Land, then they are going to need to be able to receive and follow directions.  If they are going to forge a nation together and have a national identity that unifies them, they will have to learn to communicate.  This is why God tells Moses about the trumpets.

God gives Moses orders to make trumpets and then tells them what the trumpets will signify.  If they are blown one way, then the leaders need to gather.  If they are blown another way, then it is a sign that the camp is to set out in motion.  If they are blown a different way, then it is to signify the start of one of their days of celebration.  The trumpets bring order.  The trumpets communicate.

It might seem like a strange chapter to have in the Bible.  After all, why do modern people need to hear about trumpets and trumpets blowing?  The reality is that we do not need to hear about the trumpets.  What we need is to understand our communal need for communication to help society stay organized and functioning well.  Every society needs a means to communicate.

Furthermore, we can break this idea back down into small units.  While society needs communication and order, so do communities.  Churches need the same thing.  Companies need the same thing.  Friends need the same thing. Families need the same thing.  Every level of human organization can benefit from communication and order.

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Year 7, Day 124: Numbers 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

It may sound strange, but Numbers 9 is one of my favorite chapters in the Old Testament.  Yes, I do have a number of favorite chapters.  However, this one is special from my perspective.

What I love about this chapter is that it shows the dialogue between mankind and God.  Moses is told to celebrate the Passover with the people.  Moses begins the process.  As Moses does this, however, life intervenes.  He discovers that there are some people who cannot celebrate the Passover because they are ritually unclean.  Moses has the best of intentions to keep God’s Law with the people, but circumstance rears its ugly head.

This is reality.  I’ve often heard it said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  While that is true, and I understand the moral behind the saying, I think that this chapter says that sometimes we can do our best to succeed, have life intervene to foil our plans, and still be okay with God.

Let’s follow the story.  Moses returns to God and informs God that there is an issue.  God makes a provision.  God makes a way so that the people who miss out because life intervened will have a second chance in the month to come.  This is an awesome point.  God doesn’t get on His proverbial high horse and tell Moses that it’s just too bad and those people will have to suffer.  No.  God tells Moses that if those people had every intention to follow God but life intervened, then it is perfectly okay.

I really like this perspective.  I think this is why I love this chapter.  God understands that life happens.  God knows that sometimes all we can offer up is our good intentions.  God still loves us.  God even realizes that when this happens, there isn’t even really a need for apology and forgiveness.  Sometimes the road to God is actually paved with good intentions.

Having said this, though, you will notice that this only applies to people who are genuinely trying and life is intervening.  The truly disobedient people will bear their guilt.  The people who do not desire to do right will absolutely be held accountable by God.  This chapter isn’t permission to live as we want to live.  This chapter is about making allowance for people who desire to do right but the world conspires against them and makes it impossible.

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Year 7, Day 123: Numbers 8

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Today we the separation of the Levites.  We shouldn’t get this confused with the separation of the priests.  The priests were a special subset of Levites.  They served God directly, whereas the Levites served God by serving among the people.  Another difference is that the priests didn’t start serving until 30 whereas the Levites begin their experience at 25.

All of the differences aside, we can be clear on one very consistent message.  As God is claiming His people and separating them from the secular world, one of the most important things to God is the Levites and priests.  Again and again we hear about their consecration, sacrifices, and their separation.

Why should we pay attention to this?  As time has passed, things are absolutely no different today than way back then.  God wants people to serve Him.  God wants people to serve Him personally; He also wants people who will serve Him by serving among the people.  Our Father is quite serious about desiring people to serve Him.  I would be willing to bet that as far as the Law is concerned, there is more space dedicated to the work and sanctification of His priests and Levites than any other topic, even.

Therefore, we must as ourselves a question.  Where am I serving?  How do I serve in the presence of God?  How do I serve God in the world, declaring His presence to the world as I go through my life?  If these are the things that are important to God, they should be important to me.

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Year 7, Day 122: Numbers 7

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I was reminded of a teaching I learned a while back.  Ritual leads to religion; discipline leads to discipleship.  I also have another saying that I like.  Religion is mankind’s attempt to work our way up to God; Christianity is God’s way of coming down to us.  Both sayings stem from the same thought.  Our rituals, if meaningless, are nothing.

I find this a meaningful place to contemplate as we go through this chapter.  I hope you realized how you read 12 nearly identical paragraphs in this chapter.  It doesn’t make for the most interesting of reading.  I wonder how exciting the giving of the gifts was by day 8 or 9, too.  I wasn’t there.  I can’t say for certain.  But again, our ritual is meaningless if it is only ritual.  I wonder if by day 8 or 9 this was ritual for the people involved.  If it was ritual, to what did it lead?

As I said, I can’ lay any kind of judgment upon those Hebrew people so many thousands of years ago.  It may have been deeply meaningful.  It may have been ritual.  I can’t say.

I can, however, look into my own life.  Where is my ritual leading me to religion instead of relationship with the Father?  Where is my ritual taking the place of genuine spirituality?  Where is God calling me out of human ritual and into divine spirituality?

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Year 7, Day 121: Numbers 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Today we get to read about the Nazarite vow.  Here we have the case of a person who makes a vow to the Lord to serve Him.  The vow wasn’t necessarily for one’s whole life; it was usually for a period of time.  This was usually from a person who wanted to commit himself or herself specifically to the work of the Lord for a time in their life.

What always strikes me about this time is the level of commitment required.  Even if a person’s immediate family dies, their vow to God is more important than burying their own family!  That’s dedication right there.

I’m left wondering how many people in the time of Moses took this vow.  We aren’t told of many people in the Bible who did.  Even more deeply, the two in the Old Testament about whom we are told didn’t enter under their own choice.  Both Samson and Samuel’s mothers entered them into the Nazarite vow because they were barren and promised that if God would give them a child they would dedicate the child to the Lord.  In the New Testament, it may be that Paul had taken the Nazarite vow before heading to Jerusalem and then eventually to Rome.

The truth is, however, that we aren’t told of many people in the Bible who take the vow.  Amos the prophet condemns his contemporaries because they do not respect the vow.  I’m not entirely sure what this means.  Do we take from this that most human beings either do not have the courage or the need to devote themselves to God in a very strict sense?  If this is simply a case of authors not writing about the vow, why did the authors themselves find it so unimportant?

What can we take from this?  First of all, God does want us to draw close to Him.  He would not provide the means if He did not desire it.  Second, we need to take our relationship with God seriously.  There is no relationship that we can have that is more meaningful than our relationship with God.  Third, if we make a promise with God, then we need to keep it.

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Year 7, Day 120: Numbers 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Numbers 5 always seems like a mystical chapter for me – especially with the case to test adultery in it.  It feels so superstitious to have a person come, drink some water, and then let fate take its course.  In today’s modern culture with modern investigative techniques, it feels odd to read a chapter like this where judgment and truth is left to seeing what happens to the woman.

While there is some good in modern investigative techniques, these things often cause us to lose our true focus.  After all, who is the best judge of us?  Who is the one who can truly know our sin and our guilt?  In whose hands should we commend our spirit and the spirits of those around us?

Our human methods can try their best to find temporal answers and temporal justice.  When we find a person guilty in today’s day and age, there is a punishment for this life.  That’s exactly the point, though.  God can judge a person now and forever.

Because of our perspective, we read this chapter and feel like we are reading some sort of superstitious application of ancient religion.  Yet in many ways, their perspective was far more honest.  They allowed judgment to rest in God’s hands.  They allowed God to bring good and bad, both in this life and the life to come.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m glad that we have police, crime scene units, and evidence technicians.  I think people who are guilty of committing crimes should be held accountable for the crimes that they commit.  But my faith shouldn’t rest in the science and the people.  My faith should always rest in God, who may work through those people and through the science.  For me, that’s the true learning we can get when we face chapters like this.

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Year 7, Day 119: Numbers 4

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Yesterday I had a fascinating discussion with a number of students.  They wanted to know why it is that private school students have to wear uniforms.  After all, if jeans and a t-shirt are okay for public school teenagers, why are they not acceptable for private school students?  What’s so wrong with jeans and a t-shirt?

My answer, of course, was to redirect their focus.  The answer isn’t found by wondering what is wrong with jeans and a t-shirt.  The answer is found by asking a different question.  When you look kids in jeans and t-shirts, does the message “Spend tens of thousands of dollars here at our school” come across?  Once the students had their perspective changed, they understood.  They still didn’t like it, but they understood.

In case anyone is curious, we had the same conversation about why they can’t dye their hair non-natural colors and why neither they nor teachers can have an exposed tattoo.  In all cases, the answer was the same.  It’s not about right/wrong, it’s about the message.

After this discussion, I had a bunch of my teens says things like: “When I’m an adult, I’m going to be a fun parent who lets their kids do whatever they want.”  I think every adult thought that way as a kid.  The good parents grew up and realized how bad that perspective is as an adult.  Yes, we want our kids to enjoy being alive.  good parenting, however, is not about letting your kids do whatever they want.  Good parenting involves a mature perspective of wisdom that comes with age and experience.

That’s where we really are in these chapters where we talk about the Levites.  Do you notice that the Levites need to be 30 to serve?  All the other tribes counted their men from 20 and older.  The Levites, however, don’t count as men until they are 30.  I think the reason is all about maturity.  It takes far less maturity to put a weapon in a person’s hand and train them in military maneuvers that they can execute than it takes to train a person to act in mature ways that do not offend an omniscient and omnipotent God.

There is a deep spiritual message here.  If we want to be living with God, we need to be about seeking a life of maturity.  Our lives have to go beyond, “I am going to do what I want to do.”  If we want a genuine relationship with God, we need to allow our focus to go far deeper than our immediate and temporal desires.

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Year 7, Day 118: Numbers 2-3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

As I was reading through the commentary that I wrote six years back, I found a point that I was really glad to review among all of the other things that seemed common sense from reading the chapter.  Among the people, clearly the Levites were special.  That much is still obvious.

What’s not obvious, and thus we need to remember, is from where these Levites come.  The Levites are from Levi, a son of Jacob born to Leah.  We hear so much about Jacob and Rachel that we often forget about Leah.  But here are these Levites, lifted up from among their brothers into a position of importance!

For the record, if we bring this forward and talk about Christ we have even more unique thought.  Christ is both priest and king.  But from whom do the kings come?  David is a member of the tribe of Judah, who was also a son of Leah.

Here is why I really like this point.  Remember that Jacob didn’t even want Leah.  He wanted Rachel.  Leah was thrust upon him by Laban because Laban didn’t want her, either.  In fact, one might add that it was God that brought Leah and Jacob together.  Yet it is out of this union born from rejection that the seeds are sown for the savior of the world.  That’s a really powerful witness to redemption right there.  God takes the outcast and undesired and ultimately brings forth the savior of the world.  It is amazing what God can do with the outcasts and the rejected.

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Year 7, Day 117: Numbers 1

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As we start Numbers, we find out why it is that the book is called Numbers in the first place.  Moses is told to take a census.  The book opens up with an accounting of the people.

Actually, the book starts with an accounting of almost all of the people.  Do you hear how the Levites are not counted?  They aren’t counted for one simple reason.  The Levites aren’t going out to war.  Their job isn’t to protect the community physically; they are to protect the community spiritually.  They are, to use a word that shouldn’t surprise anyone, different.  They are holy.

Hopefully we don’t miss the literal command of God in Numbers 1:53.  The Levites are to encamp around the tabernacle so that there would be no wrath of God among the people.  In other words, they aren’t just protecting the spirituality of the people figuratively by their teaching.  They are literally protecting the people because they are the ones who are living close to God.  They are the ones whose lives should not be offensive to the Lord.

Naturally, we as Christians can learn from this.  We are god’s priests.  Do you remember where it was that the priests came from?  The priests came from Aaron specifically.  Aaron was a Levite.  The priests are a special group of Levites.  Therefore, as we are God’s priests, we are likewise to dwell in close proximity to God.  We are to do this so that there will be no wrath of God among the people.  We are a people called to draw close to God so that we can protect the people around us.

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Year 7, Day 116: Leviticus 27

Theological Commentary: Click Here

When reading through this chapter, there is a distinct emphasis on holiness.  Things that are offered to the Lord are holy.  We should suspect as much.  If the Lord is holy, then so should His things.  It also makes sense that those things offered up to the Lord would be different, or holy, as well.

In addition to being holy, notice that the value of something given to the Lord increases in value.  If you give something to the Lord and you want it back, it costs more to retrieve it than its actual worth.  Again, this really shouldn’t be surprising to us.  If something is given to the Lord and made holy, then it should be costly to regain possession of it.

In our modern world, though, I wonder if we see it this way?  Do we honor the costly nature of God’s grace or do we abuse God’s grace and take advantage of it?  When we give gifts to God, do we ever designate the way that the gift can be used and in so doing prevent God from truly having control over the gift?  Or worse, as we designate our gifts we try to wrestle control of the gift back out of God’s hand without paying a greater price and in so doing devalue what God has made holy? Do we ever offer ourselves or our time to God and then go back on our promises without considering the price to be paid for reclaiming what we had promised to God?

In the end, today we bring the book of Leviticus to a close.  Within this book we have often taken a look at God’s grace, His holiness, and His righteousness.  I think that it is fitting to end this book with a study and a challenge to consider what we give to God.  We should be considering our promises to God, our vows to His kingdom, and our gifts to His ministry as holy.

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Year 7, Day 115: Leviticus 26

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I love the formulaic approach to chapters like Leviticus 26.  First of all, notice how the list of woes far outweighs the list of blessings.  God is sending a clear message: it is far worse without God than with God.

Second, look at what God promises.  If we walk in His ways, things will go well for us.  The question that I am left to ponder is whether things will go well for us because God will supernaturally force it or if they go well because God’s ways are designed for our wellbeing in the first place.  Certainly the first choice is possible.  The truth in the second choice is undeniable, however.  god’s ways are designed for not just our benefit but for the establishment of a peaceable culture.  When we live according to God’s ways, things will go well because we will treat each other with grace, love, and mercy.

This offers us time to look at the flip-side of this discussion.  When we abandon God and He walks against us, will things go poorly for us because He will supernaturally stack the cards against us or because our self-centered choices will destroy the culture around us?  Again, we cannot deny the possibility of the first choice; God is supremely powerful.  The second choice has much possibility within it as well.  When we abandon the life of God and seek instead the passions of our own hearts, we will break relationships and fragment the culture around us.  It is only natural.  Every culture that has ever existed on the face of the earth has eventually fallen and broken because of its own inner self-centered choices.  This isn’t so much as a prophetic threat as it is a warning against our own nature.

However, we should not forget where this passage ends.  No matter how far we’ve fallen, no matter to whom or to what we’ve enslaved ourselves, no matter the ways that we’ve rejected God we are not too far from His grace.  If we turn and repent, He will embrace us and allow us to return to Him and His ways.  There is always a way back.  That is the grandness of God’s grace.

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Year 7, Day 114: Leviticus 25

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While reading through Leviticus 25, it becomes quite apparent that the concept of redemption is important.  Life happens.  We don’t live perfectly.  Sometimes we get into scrapes that we can’t get out of.  In those moments, we need redemption.

I’d like to talk about the two kinds of redemption that we see in this chapter.  First, there is the redemption that comes at a price.  Suppose a person is poor and they cannot support their family.  They choose to sell themselves into slavery – indentured servitude, more likely.  The person to whom they sell themselves then carries the burden for providing in exchange for the person’s loyal and faithful work as a slave.  But should that person get together enough money to buy their freedom – or should a relative come along who wants to buy their freedom – the person can absolutely fid redemption into freedom.

However, if there is no possibility that the slave can buy their freedom, God sets up a routine called Jubilee.  Every 50 years, that is the year after 7 cycles (or 7 Sabbbaths), everything resets.  Bought land goes back to its original owner.  Slaves are released into freedom.  This happens automatically.  Every fifty years there is a time of guaranteed redemption.

I find that there are some really significant parallels in this chapter to our life.  We are the same the way when it comes to sin.  Let’s explore this idea below.

Sometimes life goes poorly for ourselves and we find ourselves in bondage to sin.  Sometimes it is by choice, sometimes it is honestly by circumstance.  In either case, it is never the way God original desired for us to exist.  Many times we can realize our circumstance and we can work our way out of bondage to the sin.  Mind you, we can never work our way free of the guilt we bear for our sin, that’s why we need Christ.  But we can work on our life and with God’s help we can work free of the bondage.  Sometimes we need a spiritual brother or sister to come along and help us, but the process is essentially the same.  This is akin to the first kind of redemption talked about in this chapter.

However, there is also a fixed point of redemption that God has set.  At some point, God hits the reset button and puts us back into the condition that He intended for us.  That point is Christ.  Christ died for our sins as a guarantee of the coming redemption, or Jubilee.  One day, God will permanently free us from our bondage and we will be remade a new creation to dwell with God eternally.  That is our Jubilee.  That is when all of the gathered sin throughout our years of existence will disappear forever because God has reset and redeemed our life.

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Year 7, Day 113: Leviticus 24

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It is the most basic of all laws: An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.  In other words, whatever you do to others can be done back to you.  It is the more punitive flip-side of the New Testament teaching, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”

I have to wonder how many of us truly consider the scope of this commandment.  When we are driving down the road and we drive in such a way as to anger others, do we really think about this commandment and how we are guilty of angering other people?  When we are having a bad day and we let our bad day rub off on other people and make their day worse, do we think about this law?  When we see someone truly in need and are capable of helping out but choose to walk past, do we think about this law?

So often we apply this law when the sin is grievous.  When there is a case of murder, we use this to justify punishment as I believe we should.  When there is a case of arson, we hold the person responsible for damages.  When there is a case of treason against a government, the punishment is usually quite serious.

However, how ready are we to apply this law to the small sins?  When we tell a little white lie, do we think about how we deserve to be likewise injured through a lie?  When we act out of selfishness and self-centeredness do we consider how we deserve to be impacted by the self-centeredness of others?

This is also why I value the teachings of Christ.  Jesus agrees with this law as good, but He also challenges us to rise above it.  This law is what we deserve.  But Jesus teaches us that the way of God is to turn the other cheek.  When someone takes from us, we should offer even more.  From the perspective of the offender, we need to recognize how we deserve to be punished.  From the perspective of the offended, we need to recognize the opportunity for grace.

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Year 7, Day 112: Leviticus 23

Theological Commentary: Click Here

As I read this chapter, I had one overarching thought.  This chapter is about remembrance.  It is about remembrance on many levels, but it is fundamentally about remembrance.  God desires His people to have feasts – or holy days – because it is important to remember.

One level of remembrance is to make sure that we don’t forget what the Lord has done for us.  Isn’t that a challenging task?  I find that I am all too quick to forget how God has been there for me in the past.  I call on Him when I am in need, and He has always been there!  The next time I am in need I rush to the Lord in a panic, however, completely forgetting how He has been there for me every single time in the past.

A second level of remembrance is to give thanks to Him for what He is currently doing.  This is why we tithe.  This is why the Lord calls us to give of the firstfruits of the harvest.  God has His hand in all that is currently going on, we should remember to thank Him for what is in in the middle of doing.  We should remember not just what He has done for us, but intentionally look for how He continues to bless us.

A third level of remembrance is simply to remember who the Lord is.  We need to remember the character of the Lord.  We need to look for ways to bring His character into our character.  We should be looking to learn from the character of the Lord so that we become more like Him and less like our natural, sinful nature.

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Year 7, Day 111: Leviticus 22

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I think it is time to tackle this issue of the sacrifice without blemish.  When I read through the Law, I often find these passages troublesome.  I think I find them troublesome on several levels.  First, I believe in a God who has made all things clean and who does not judge on external appearances.  Second, I tend to really care about animals and I feel for the ones who aren’t acceptable.  Third, I tend to have an affinity for the members of a group who are outcast or overlooked and therefore I empathize with those animals who are blemished.  When I read through these passages, I can’t help but ask if those animals with a blemish are really all that worse than the perfect and pristine animal.

Naturally, I am missing the point.  These passages aren’t about demonstrating the selectiveness of God.  These passages are not about showing how much God prefers perfect people over real human beings.  These passages are certainly not about God judging us by our external appearances.  All of those conclusions miss the point.

Remember that the point of the Law is to point us to Christ.  In the Law, God is laying the foundation for what He is going to do in Christ.  In some places, the Law exposes our sin and points us to our personal need for Christ.  But other passages, such as this one in particular, literally point us to Christ through the idea of the unblemished sacrifice.

In short, here is what God is saying.  The only real sacrifice that God will accept on our behalf is the perfect unblemished one.  In other words, the only person who can be a perfect sacrifice for our sinfulness is a perfect being who is absolutely sinless and completely without blemish.  The only sacrifice that is acceptable is Christ.

These passages aren’t about the poor animals who aren’t perfect.  These passages are pointing us to Christ as the ultimate fulfillment of the Law.  He is the greatest sacrifice that could be offered on our behalf.  He is the only sacrifice that we need.  After all, who could be better than Him?

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Year 7, Day 110: Leviticus 21

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Leviticus 21 is a very interesting chapter.  In this chapter we have all kinds of rules and regulations for the priests of Israel.  At first glance, it seems like only those who embody perfection and who surround themselves with perfection can be near the Lord.  Just in case you are curious, if you are taking this message away from these verses, it is certainly understandable.  However, I think it is the wrong message to take.

Remember what God has been telling us about Himself in this whole book.  God is holy.  That means God is different.  He is separate.  He is not like the world.

In this light, God doesn’t want His priests to have a worldly mentality, either.  He wants His priests to go through life making choices for the right reason – even for righteous reasons – and not because it’s easy or the expected thing to do.  God wants us to put thought and consideration into our actions and their consequences.  He wants us to be concerned about our purity and our spirituality.

As I read through the commentary that I wrote six years back, I found a challenging thought along these lines.  The thought was this: the greatest evil is the corruption of the greatest good.  Now, I might argue with that and say that all evil is evil and there is no greatest evil.  But that is really an argument of semantics and it misses the real point of what I’m talking about here.

As high priests to God, we need to be careful about what we do and the choices that we make.  As God’s priests, our corruption carries weight and consequence.  As God’s priests, our actions and the consequences that they bring speak to the people around us.  We should take these things into account as we look to make our life available to God to use as He sees fit to use.

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Year 7, Day 109: Leviticus 20

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Leviticus 20 is full of familiar themes about which I have spoken much lately.  We have the very familiar commendation to be holy in the world as the Lord is holy.  We have the very familiar - because it is repeated out of importance – passage about human beings taking their sexuality seriously.  We also have the familiar admonition against pursuing other gods.  In this chapter, it feels like God is largely repeating Himself.

Naturally, I wonder why God would repeat Himself so often.  Remember, throughout most of human history writing was an expensive and laborious process.  Things had to be copied by hand through most of human history.  It took much time to copy documents.  This means that ancient writers typically knew how to be concise without repeating themselves.  This should cause us to be more alert during repeated passages rather than tune the words out.

Why would we get these messages repeated again and again?  Of course, the obvious reason is that they are important to God.  God absolutely takes our worship and our sexuality very seriously.  God cares about from where we are looking for power.  These are topics that are near and dear to His heart.  All parents repeat themselves to their kids; God is no different in this respect.

I think there is more, though.  It is not just that these messages are so important.  It is also that the human condition is so bad at keeping them.  We struggle with keeping our heart devoted to God.  The passion of our hearts changes season after season.  We pursue almost anything that makes a promise towards our goals, whatever they truly are.

I do find it interesting that the things that appear to be most important to God are often the things with which human beings have the most difficult time.  I’m not trying to say that we are doomed to fail.  What I am trying to say is that this lifts up the holiness of God.  God is indeed separate and different from us because we have difficulty rising up to the things that are most important to Him!  There is a reason that holiness is so much work.  It is so much work because it is foreign enough to us that we must change to be like Him.

In the end, this is a great lesson to learn when we hit one of these chapters where it feels like God is repeating Himself so often.  Those chapters are a reminder to us to be holy.  They are a reminder to us to take notice of the holiness of God and ponder why it is necessary for us to hear these same messages again and again.

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Year 7, Day 108: Leviticus 19

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Leviticus 19 feels like a random chapter with a bunch of random catch-all laws.  There are even some repeat laws, such as eating flesh with blood in it.  While I think it is true that this is a reasonably random chapter in effect, I think there is actually a binding thought in purpose.  We need to go back to the thoughts around the word holy.

I’ve discussed often in Leviticus that the word holy means separate or different.  Leviticus 19:2 gives us the binding thought for this chapter.  “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”  This chapter is a reminder that the laws here are meant to demonstrate that God’s people are different than the world around them.

What I love about this chapter is that there is a such a focus on righteous behavior.  It’s almost like a slap in the face to the rest of humanity.  How is it that we know that God’s people are different than the rest of the world?  We know because they are fair and treat each other with respect!  If you think about that for a little while, you’ll see what I’m saying.  Human beings are naturally self-centered and seeking the desires of their own hearts.  Fairness is often the furthest thing from our mind unless we are the ones feeling the unjustness.  To be holy, all we need to do is live a live that thinks about other people!  That really is a scathing remark about the human race.

Look at some of the examples that we read about in this passage. 

• We are to use fair scales in the market.  In other words, human beings like to cheat when it comes to economics.
• We are to look upon the sojourner with love.  In other words, human beings tend to be cliquish and treat our own kind with preference. 
• We are to honor our parents and elders.  In other words, young people typically don’t value those in power above them until they become old themselves.
• We are not to turn to mediums or false gods; we are to worship God alone.  In other words, human beings are superstitious people who will follow just about anything that promises to work in the moment.
• We are to be concerned about the sexuality of others, especially those in positions of less power than ourselves.  In other words, we often use our positions of power to get what we want from a sexual perspective.

Do you see what I’m saying?  When reading down that list, any normal person would say that this is a rather sane list and the world would be a better place if we followed these rules and rules like them.  These rules just make sense from the perspective of society.

The question, then, is why do we need them printed?  If they make sense, why does God need to tell us these rules?  The answer is short.  While these rules make sense philosophically, we don’t instinctually practice them.  In most of our lives, if we live off of our instinct we are always looking out for ourselves.  The only time that we follow these rules and rules like them is when we make a concerted effort to do so.

That says something about us as human beings.  It is why the laws for any country are thick and numerous.  Human beings need governance.  We need laws to affect our natural behavior.  We need laws and rules to tame the self-centered person within and make us capable of living in society.  The point of this chapter is that God wants to take it one step further.  God doesn’t just want us living in society, He wants us living in a righteous society.  That’s the point of this chapter.

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Year 7, Day 107: Leviticus 18

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I think that there is a key to understanding this chapter, and that key is to be found in Leviticus 18:24-25.  The things that are listed in this chapter are an abomination to God.  For these actions, God is kicking out the Canaanites.  For these actions, God is replacing the Canaanites with the Hebrew people.  God finds these actions so abominable that he literally uses the word vomit to describe what the land is going to do to these people.

What are the detestable actions?  The first group deals with people having sex with their immediate family.  However, these aren’t the only ones that God lists.  Notice that God says we should have sex with people in the same family – even if it is not our own family.  Then God says that we shouldn’t have sex with a man as we have sex with a woman.  In other words, God is talking about homosexuality.  Then, God says that we shouldn’t have sex with animals.  In other words, bestiality.

God absolutely cares what we think about sex.  He absolutely cares about our sexual partners.  God goes so far as to kick the Canaanites out of the land because of their sexual practices!  That’s how much God cares about our sexual partnerships.

Often, I wonder if God cares about our sexual partners more than we do.  We live in a day and an age where “friends with benefits” seems to be the norm.  We live in an age where it is practically accepted that people will have multiple sexual partners throughout their life – and I’m not talking about multiple marriages after one spouse dies.  We live in a culture that has a growing interest in homosexuality.  In fact, I think there is even more growing interest in promoting homosexuality. 

Sometimes, I honestly think that we don’t care about our sexual partners at all.  We simply want to have sex and it doesn’t matter how we meet that end.  We give no thought to the long-term or communal dangers involved in the pursuit of our sexual needs.

In the end, I do believe that God cares about our sexuality for more than we do.  He cares about how it happens; we simply care that it happens.  Unfortunately, I think we are walking on a dangerous precipice.  How a society treats sexuality has much to say with how the rest of society functions.  To be honest, I am not impressed at all with the modern perspective on human sexuality.

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Year 7, Day 106: Leviticus 17

Theological Commentary: Click Here

“The life is in the blood,” God says.  Therefore, we are not to eat it.  Again, let’s look at what God might be saying through the words.

I think there are at least two things going on here.  The first is that the blood is for atonement.  There is a purpose for blood, and it is not for eating.  The purpose of blood is atonement.  The purpose of blood is to remind us of our sinfulness, our need for forgiveness, and God’s ability to forgive.  God doesn’t want us trivializing that which is of such great significance.

Second, do you hear the comments scattered throughout the passage about offering sacrifices to other gods?  Occasionally we hear things like, “If you kill outside the camp and don’t bring it to the tent of meeting,” or “This is to end … that the sacrifice in the open field” or even the clearer “That they may no longer sacrifice to goat demons.”  This chapter has a great deal to do not just with sacrifices, but with keeping God as our only God.

In a sense, this chapter hearkens our minds back to the first few commands in the 10 Commandments.  He is God.  We shall have no other.  We will not make idols or graven images.  God wants our focus to be on Him.  God wants us to be devoted to Him.

The danger with the goat sacrifices – or any idolatry in general -  is at least twofold.  First, when we worship idols we place our trust in things that cannot satisfy.  Idolatry leads us further and further away from God as we grasp for power and control. 

Second, and perhaps more dangerous, is that idolatry often confuses us until we put ourselves in the place of God.  In the many cultures, eating the blood was connected with assuming the power and strength of that which we eat.  Often the worship of other gods involved the eating of blood to increase our strength and make us more like a god.  God doesn’t want His people thinking this way.  No amount of eating blood will make us like God, so why bother doing it at all?

This chapter isn’t about the eating of blood as much as it is about idolatry and our relationship with God.  We are the creation; He is the creator.  We are mundane; He is holy.  We cannot become like Him through our own power.  Therefore, we need to worship Him.  That’s His point.

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Year 7, Day 105: Leviticus 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Do you ever wonder why there is all of this focus on sacrificing in the book of Leviticus?  I do.  I wonder it just about every chapter that I read.  I think I wonder it because verses like Hosea 6:6 and Psalm 51:15-17 are some of my favorite verses in the Old Testament.  Why would a God who detests our sacrifices so often spend all of this time telling us to make sacrifices?

I truly think that all of this focus on sacrifice is actually an attempt to get us to see Christ.  After all, let’s look at one really important detail of this chapter.  A sacrifice is made for the sinfulness of the high priest.  Let’s see where that point of sacrifice leads us.

The high priest is sinful.  Don’t forget that in Christ, we are all God’s high priests.  So we can put ourselves in the place of this high priest.  We are sinful.  We therefore need a sacrifice for our sinfulness.  Christ is the sacrifice for all of His high priests.

What this point does is actually turn this passage onto us as well as Christ.  The focus on the sacrificing focuses us on Christ.  That focus inevitably should lead back to us and how Christ’s sacrifice impacts our reality.  So let’s continue to look at what happens to the high priest.

Notice that the high priest is washed.  Some may think of this as a symbol of baptism, and perhaps on one level it is.  However, I think that it is a little more literal than this.  In Christ, we are washed clean.  Christ purifies us.

Then, notice that the high priest puts on his priestly garments.  In Christ, we are given new clothing to wear.  No longer do we need to deal with our filthy sinful rags of this world.  We can replace our filthy unrighteousness with His righteousness that He gives to us.

Then, the priest goes out and works among the people, helping them to deal with their unrighteousness.  Because of the sacrifice of Christ, we can meaningfully participate with Him in work of redemption.  This is part of the point of this chapter – which starts with a sacrifice.

In the end, it is uncomfortable for many of us to read through all of these words about sacrifices.  We often question where it leads and why we should care.  The reality is that we should care because these are the very chapters that lay the foundation for what Christ came to do in us.  When we red these chapters, we know that this is where our salvation began.

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Year 7, Day 104: Leviticus 15

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I think this chapter runs far more deep than it originally appears.  On the surface level, this simply seems to be a chapter talking about male and female emissions and how bad they make us unclean.  It is far too easy to make this chapter about sex and how sex is bad while we completely miss the point of what God is truly saying.

Remember that God created man and woman.  He created us different.  He created us with the intention that humankind would continue through the very act of sex.  If God created humanity with the very intention of having sex, how can we walk away from a passage thinking that this chapter is about how sex makes us unclean?  Perhaps even more importantly, do you notice none of the uncleanliness in this chapter requires a sacrifice to remove the uncleanliness except for the one case where blood is involved?  This tells us that there is something different at work here in this chapter.

While God did create us with sex in mind, He also knows that the act of sex is temptingly dangerous for us.  Yes, sex done outside of marriage can get us into all sorts of trouble.  I think there is still a far deeper point than this, though.  When two human beings conceive life through the act of sex, we are temptingly close to an act of God.  It is quite easy for us to feel like a creator in the act of sex.  I think God’s point in this chapter is to remind us that sex is not an act of creation for us, sex is an act of creation for God.  We conceive the life, but God creates it.  Because we draw so close to the role of God in our human sexuality, God wants us to be mindful of our place and how our role is fundamentally different than His.  I believe that is the deep point in this chapter.

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Year 7, Day 103: Leviticus 14

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I have a few quick and random comments before I get into two deeper reflections.  First, notice that God continues to make provision for the poor.  Second, notice that the role of the priest is still that of the diagnostician.  Third, notice that there is still a sacrifice involved in the purification process.

That being said, let’s go a little deeper in our application of this chapter. Do you hear the bit about the live bird and the dead bird?  One of the birds is offered in sacrifice, while the other bird is to be released and allowed to live.  The bird who is killed does nothing to deserve death.  The bird who is freed does nothing to deserve its freedom.  This is an incredible parallel to us and our salvation.  Jesus did absolutely nothing that deserved His crucifixion.  We did absolutely nothing to deserve our release into freedom from our sin.  Yet, here we find ourselves in this exact same circumstance.

Second, I think we should take seriously the last half of the chapter about a person’s home catching a disease.  In a culture where you use animal hair in the plaster of the home and even used animal hide as coverings for doors and windows, it actually makes sense to think that houses might themselves catch disease.  However, even in our modern homes we have homes that catch disease.  Mold is a prime culprit, but there are other things in the world that can make our home sick and unclean.

Spiritually, though, I think we can make even more out of this.  Our sin can corrupt the space around us.  Our sinful nature can take a legitimate place and turn it into a place that breeds sin and brokenness.  Our sin is not just a danger to ourselves and the people around us.  Our sin affects the whole of creation around us – even the places in which we reside and go.

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