Some thoughts on Leviticus

For those of you who have been reading the book of Leviticus with me for the last month or so, I wanted to share a few thoughts:

1. My guess is that if we didn't have some kind of systematic Bible reading plan, we'd probably just skip over Leviticus. It's not easy to read and much of it seems so irrelevant to us in the United States in the 21st century. But there is actually much we can take away from reading this Old Testament book.2
2. My main takeaway is that God is holy and that therefore He wants His people to be holy. Holiness, is not, as we often think of it, just "being good". God is not holy because He is just like us, only "better." To be holy means to be "set apart" or unique. The detailed rules that God set forth in Leviticus were primarily a way for His people to live so that they would be unique and set apart from all the nations around them.
3. The second main takeaway is the seriousness of sin. Because man's sin separates him from God, it takes some radical actions to deal with that sin. Fortunately for us the bloody sacrifices of Leviticus have been replaced by the blood of God's own Son.
4. God gave those laws to Israel for their own good and to protect the dignity of his people in that particular culture at that particular time in history. For instance food regulations were intended to protect against food borne illnesses at a time when there was not refrigeration. The laws concerning slaves did not condone the practice of slavery but protected those who were subject to a practice that existed in that culture.

I think the greatest difficulty most people have is determining exactly how Leviticus and the rest of the Old Testament Law are to be applied in the lives of a disciple of Jesus in the 21st century in America. Several years ago, I addressed that question and developed what I believe to be a practical and Biblical approach to that question. I'll be sharing that with you in my next several posts.