I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 22-23.

    Today’s passage has instructions about things which would disqualify one of Aaron’s descendants from serving as a priest and instructions concerning the yearly festivals of worship the people of Israel were to conduct. In between, there is a discussion of what was acceptable and unacceptable as an offering to the Lord. They were not to attempt to offer an animal with any defects as a burnt offering or as a peace offering to fulfill a vow. If the animal was for a purely voluntary peace offering it could be one that had one or more legs that were too long, but that was otherwise without defect.

    These instructions should inform us when we make gifts to God today. When we give to God we should give of our best, not our cast offs or half-hearted efforts. It is OK to give our used clothing, or furniture which we will no longer use to those in need, or to charitable organizations which can make use of them (even if that use is to sell them to someone else), but let us not ever think that doing so is making an offering to God. If we are giving something as an offering to God, it should be the best we can afford (note “best” is a subjective term, but “most expensive” should never be confused with “best”). In a way, the same thing applies to monetary offerings. “What I can spare” is not an offering. There is a time and place for giving “what I can spare” to God, but it is not to my credit when I do so. Our offerings to God should be out of the joy of having received His blessings. I do this less than I should…which is how I know that giving “what I can spare” is not a bad thing. When I have felt financially strapped enough that I only gave what I could spare after I have paid my bills has led me to realize that I need better financial discipline so that I can give to the Lord first and pay my bills and expenses with what is left over.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 19-21.

    Today’s passage begins with a series of commands about personal behavior, most of them form the basis for having a civil society. Some of them are obvious:

• “Do not steal.”
• “Do not deceive or cheat one another.”
• Do not rob or defraud your neighbor.”

But some of them we need to take special note:

• “Do not favor the poor, or be partial to the rich, in legal matters”

Notice that it is not enough not to be partial to the rich, we also must not favor the poor over the rich.

• “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s life is threatened.”
• “Do not nurse hatred in your heart.”
• “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge.”

These last two I dropped off the qualifiers which the passage contained based on what Jesus had to say about who is our family and who is our neighbor. There are a couple of these which I do not quite understand: “Do not mate two different kinds of animals,” “Do not plant two different kinds of seed.” However, since I am not a farmer, I do not need to figure out how either of those applies. The key to all of these is that they apply to ourselves, not someone else. The command is not “Do not let your neighbor steal.” it is “Do not steal.”

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 16-18.

    Today’s passage discusses the sacrifices and rituals which Aaron was required to follow before and during entering into God’s presence. In the New Testament this is compared and contrasted with Christ’s death on the Cross. Certainly as a Christian, these sacrifices and rituals can be seen as a foreshadowing of Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself for our sins. One of the contrasts which struck me was that only Aaron was allowed to be in the Tabernacle while he was conducting these sacrifices and rituals. In other words, only Aaron could be in the Tabernacle while God was present there, only Aaron could come into the presence of God. On the other hand, Christ’s sacrifice means that everyone may come into God’s presence.

    The other set of laws which I want to write about is the ones about what constitutes improper sexual relations. My thoughts about this are heavily influenced by an article I read many years ago which suggested that the clear limits on the acceptable expression of sexual desire laid out here provided a framework for keeping people from being distracted by seeking sexual gratification. By creating such a framework, energy which might otherwise have been directed into seeking gratification of sexual desire went into more productive activities. While there is some truth to that, I think a more important aspect of the framework for sexual gratification laid out here is the impact it had on social relationships. Forbidden sexual relations include ones we consider taboos in almost all societies: incest, same sex relations, bestiality, etc.. However, this passage contains much more extensive prohibitions than that. As such, these rules help promote healthy social interaction between people by taking potential sexual interaction off of the table between those who follow these rules. I find one thing interesting. In the middle of rules forbidding various kinds of sexual behavior there is a command to not kill our children as a sacrifice. It seems to me that this placement speaks quite clearly to the issue of abortion.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 14-15.

    I have read through today’s passage several times looking for what I want to write about it. In the end nothing really struck me. However, I found myself fascinated by its understanding of how to deal with public health threats. I noted how they used various time delays to ensure that symptoms did not recur for someone who was apparently healed. In yesterday’s passage there were instructions on how to deal with mildew on various items in a nomadic camp. Today’s passage explains how to apply similar rules to permanent structures. The final thing which I found interesting was the understanding of the health dangers of exposure to someone else’s bodily fluids expressed in this passage.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 10-12.

    Today’s passage begins with the deaths of two of Aaron’s sons. God struck them down because they used the wrong kind of fire to burn incense before Him. This is where reading through the Bible multiple times causes you to realize that God’s commands are not necessarily recorded here in the chronological order in which they were delivered, because we have not yet come to the method by which God commanded the incense to be burned in incense burners. That comes in Leviticus 16. This account occurs here immediately after the ordination of Aaron and his sons in order to communicate to us the solemness and seriousness of the duties of the priesthood. While the passage does not explicitly state that this occurred soon after the ordination, several aspects of the account suggest that it did indeed follow almost immediately. Moses was upset because Aaron’s remaining sons did not eat the priestly portion of the sin offering, thinking that they had misunderstood God’s instructions concerning it being their share. However, when Aaron pointed out that he and his sons had not done so because of the tragedy which had befallen them that day, Moses was pleased with that answer. From this we can conclude that Aaron and his sons had not been conducting the sacrifices long enough to demonstrate that they knew the proper procedures. In other words, this probably happened immediately after their ordination, or at most a few days later.

    I debated writing about the animals which could, and could not, be eaten, but after some thought I decided to make a few comments here. The animals on the unclean list were not just there because of disease issues from improperly storing or preparing the meat. Some of them were on the list because they were potential hosts for diseases which could be transmitted by contact. Another point worth making is that the way animals were categorized does not necessarily mean that everything that falls into the “unclean” category is a health hazard. Rather it is the other way around, everything that falls into the “clean” category is not a health hazard (mad cow disease might seem to show that to be not entirely true, but I would say that is because of feeding practices which are elsewhere in these laws forbidden).

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 8-9.

    Having finished setting up the Tabernacle, Moses began the ordination of Aaron and his sons as priests. When this passage speaks of Moses performing all of the sacrifices of ordination and dedication of the Tabernacle by himself it seems rather challenging but doable. Still, it would have been a long day for Moses. One of things I find interesting is that a fair amount of blood was sprinkled on Aaron, his sons, and their clothes, yet they spent 7 days in the entrance to the Tabernacle wearing those same clothes. It seems unlikely from the description that any of them or their clothes were washed at any time during those 7 days. Furthermore, on the eighth day, Aaron set right to work making the sacrifices himself with no opportunity to clean up first.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 5-7.

    Today’s passage contains a list of sins for which one must make atonement. Among these sins are two of which I want to take special note. First, the passage says that it is sinful to refuse to testify when called to do so about something which you have seen or know about. If we know something regarding a case which is before the courts, or which should be before the courts, we are obligated to testify regarding that case. While the passage only states that we are obligated to testify if we are “called” to do so, I believe that this obligation goes beyond that. I do not want to make this a black-and-white obligation for us to be tattle-tales, but it does mean that we cannot let wrongdoing we are aware of go by just because the authorities do not know to call us to testify. The second sin worth noting is the making of a foolish vow, whether the vow is for good or bad purpose. So, making a foolish commitment is a sin. All of the different ways in which such a commitment might be foolish applies here, whether what we have committed to do is foolish, or if we encourage someone to do something foolish because of what we will do if they do so.