SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 17
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. After 400 years exposed to a variety of Egyptian religious practices, the Israelites must now radically reform their own practices. Common to the religions of the day included regular sacrifices anywhere and everywhere to the multitudes of gods all around them, cultic sexual practices as well as blood drinking. The people are warned not to participate in these practices.

2. An interesting reference to offering sacrifices to goat idols. The root word ‘saiyr’ is related to the Greek and Roman Satyr (half man, half goat) which were associated with sexual immorality. The goat is still associated with Satanism and the demonic today. The people are warned against prostituting themselves with the goat idols.

3. Hmm, blood drinking. I would not think this was relevant today, but apparently it still is. Check this link out for tips on finding and drinking blood. Here we have God making it clear that they are not to participate in these demonic religious practices. Continue reading one with Jesus

SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 16
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. Between the people and God there was a curtain. Once a year the priest was to go behind that curtain with blood, to cover the sin of the priest and the people. The message was plain: we do not and should not have the confidence or arrogance to assume that we can come to God just as we are. We are sinners, we must pay the death penalty (symbolized by blood). God graciously allows for the people, through the priest, to come before Him once a year.

2. And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. [Matthew 27:50-51]. Jesus changes all this. His blood is sufficient to cover our guilt once and for all. It is finished. With His death, the curtain separating us from God is torn, the barrier is removed. Continue reading its curtains for the curtain!

SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 15
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. Another day of cleansing laws. Verse 31 seems to summarize the point. ‘You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.’ The plain sense of these words is that our being unclean defiles God, Who symbolically lives among them in His tent.

2. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. [Matthew 10:28] It seems that the deeper lesson behind these purity laws was how the people approached God. They were to go out of their way to make sure that they were washed and clean and prepared and serious about their encounters with God. God is no trivial matter, we are talking about the Ultimate Reality. Continue reading taking God seriously

SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 14
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. OK, I admit it, I am getting tired of these readings. What an elaborate system of dealing with the disease, and of getting clean. I get that the disease were dangerous, but so much ritual and sacrifice to be declared clean – with guilt offerings, sin offerings, burnt and grain offerings.

2. Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ [Matthew 8:3-4] Here Jesus goes beyond the role of priest (who could only check to see if the person was healed), and actually heals. Jesus touches the leper, and becomes unclean. Yet both become clean. Continue reading I just don’t get these laws!!!

SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 13
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. This chapter addresses very practical hygiene and health issues for that time. The practice of quarantine was the best treatment for these otherwise community-devastating diseases. Communicable diseases (like measles, smallpox, scarlet fever) are in mind here. And mildew would be a health concern in damp climates and seasons. No other ancient law code addressed these important concerns.

2. I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. [John 15:1-3]. Changing the analogy, there is a connection between what Jesus says here, and Leviticus 13 – the ideas of “cutting off” and being declared “clean” by the priests’ word. Continue reading spiritual mildew

SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 12
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. [Luke 8:43-44] According to the reading from Leviticus [see also Leviticus 15:25-33], this woman would have been unclean for twelve years. In addition, by touching Jesus, He too would be unclean. Continue reading reaching out to Jesus

SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 11
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. ‘Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”) [Mark 7:18-19] Why does God declare some foods unclean? Why does Jesus change this, declaring all foods clean?

2. Notes on this passage in Leviticus suggest that there were spiritual and hygienic reasons for this laws. It is suggested that the things designated unclean posed health risks. These laws protected Israel from bad diet, dangerous vermin, and communicable diseases. The spiritual meaning was symbolic, to clarify the distinction between good and bad, moral and immoral, holy and unholy. Because God was holy (set apart from, pure, perfect), the people were to set themselves apart by these clean and unclean distinctions. Continue reading feelin dirty?

These notes are taken from the New International Version Bible Commentary:

Leviticus 11:1 – 15:33
The Levitical laws of cleanness symbolized spiritual cleansing and set Israel apart from the surrounding nations. The spiritual and the hygienic reasons for the laws are remarkably valuable in the area of public health. In general they protected Israel from bad diet, dangerous vermin, and communicable diseases. Only recently have better laws of health been possible with the advance of medicine. These were rule-of-thumb laws that God gave in his wisdom to a people who could not know the reason for the provision. Continue reading laws of cleanness

SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 10
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village. [Luke 9:54-56] James and John are upset because the Samaritans did not welcome Jesus. But Jesus is upset with James and John because they want to unleash the fire of judgment against the Samaritans. Unholy fire. Continue reading unholy fire

SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 9
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
1. I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! [Luke 12:49-50] In Leviticus 9, the people saw fire come from heaven, and they fell facedown and shouted for joy. Jesus speaks about this fire but is distressed about His role in it.

2. Fire represents purifying judgment. The sacrificial animals that are burned are taking the judgment in the peoples’ place. Jesus knows that He is about to be sacrificed through a baptism of fire, so that we can be forgiven. Continue reading fire from heaven