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

Every time I read this passage I am struck by the very first of the commands it contains: “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”  Then throughout the rest of the commands concerning the average person some variation of the phrase, “I am the Lord” is repeated.  I believe that the phrase “I am the Lord” is repeated in order to refer us back to that first command.  As I read this passage I see that, for the most part, these commands all serve as instructions on how to be holy as the Lord our God is holy.  In fact many of them are summed up by what Jesus says is the second most important command, “love your neighbor as yourself.”  And while those many other commands can be summed up with “love your neighbor as yourself”, those other commands are a reminder that at least some of us need about what it means to love our neighbors. So, let us seek to be holy even as God is holy…and the first step in doing that is to love our neighbors, even those we think of as unlovable.

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