The Christ Church Wednesday Bible Study Group is studying of the Old Testament book of Leviticus. The key to the book of Leviticus is found in verses 45 and 46 of chapter 11.
Leviticus 11:44-45 NIV I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground. I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.
These are the notes to session 15.
Chapters 17-20 which constituted a legal code for the people of Israel, touching on many areas of their personal and public life. The emphasis isn’t simply on justice or civic righteousness, as important as they are, but on holiness. After all, Israel was God’s people and the law was God’s law.
Chapters 17-20 deal with four special areas of life that must be respected and kept holy: the sanctity of blood, or life (chap. 17); the sanctity of sex (chap. 18); the sanctity of the law (chap. 19); and the sanctity of judgment (chap. 20).
This week we will finish our study of chapter 19, the Sanctity of the Law by looking at the laws precepts relating to others and the precepts relating to things.
God Created the Sabbath for You
By Rick Warren
“Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.” Exodus 34:21 (NIV)
The Bible is filled with instructions about rest and recreation. In fact, rest and recreation are so important that God gives them a special name: Sabbath. He even put Sabbath in the Ten Commandments—right up there with “Don’t commit adultery” and “Don’t murder.” God says that on the seventh day of every week, you should take a day off. That’s how important a Sabbath is in your life.
Jesus said in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (NIV). In other words, it’s God’s idea that you take a day off every seven days for rest, recreation, worship, and restoration. He did this for your own benefit—so you don’t burn out.
But in our modern society, many people don’t take a Sabbath. Even on their days off, they’re working. Many people who attend a church service go home afterward and get right back to work, finishing all the things they didn’t get done during their workweek. That’s not a Sabbath!
This is what it means to have a Sabbath: “Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest” (Exodus 34:21 NIV).
Even in your busiest season, God wants you to take a day of rest. You may be a tax accountant, but you still have to take a day off during tax season. You may work in retail, but you still have to take a day off during the Christmas season. Even a farmer must take a day off during the harvest or planting season.
What are you supposed to do on your Sabbath?
Rest your body. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap.
Refocus your spirit. Spend time in worship.
Recharge your emotions. Do something that restores and reenergizes you, like a hobby or a sport.
It doesn’t really matter which day is your Sabbath. It does matter that you are obedient. You may not rest just because your spouse or your boss tells you to take a break. But you must rest when God commands it—and he always knows what’s best for you.
In chapter 19, the Ten Commandments are applied to various areas of life; in chapter 20, the penalties are stated that must be imposed on those who disobey His commandments. Remember the major theme of chapter 20, when we get there is the sanctity of judgement. God expected His people to take His law seriously and to apply the penalties obediently and without favoritism.
The regulations given in chapter 19 aren’t arranged in any specific order, but the one thing that ties them together is their relationship to the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1–17), which is the basis for all Jewish law and should be the basis for all moral law.
The easiest way to classify these laws is to see them in their relationship to God, to others, and to things.
We finished the relationship to God section last week. We said that the Sabbath must be kept holy. The Sabbath was a special “sign” between God and Israel. Worship of idols was prohibited.
Exodus 20:2-6 NIV “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my “ ‘Do not turn to idols or make metal gods for yourselves. I am the Lord your God.
Their worship of Jehovah must be unique. They were not to imitate other pagan worship. In any way.
Leviticus 19:27-28 NIV “‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. “ ‘Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.
The name of the Lord is sacred and must never be used blasphemously or in an oath that the person has no intention of fulfilling.
Leviticus 19:12 NIV “ ‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.
Precepts relating to others
Leviticus 19:3 NIV “ ‘Each of you must respect your mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.
These precepts begin with respect for one’s parents which is the fifth commandment
Exodus 20:12 NIV “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Ephesians 6:1-3 NIV Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
We can also relate this regulation to respect for the seniors among us which include many of us.
Leviticus 19:32 NIV “ ‘Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the Lord.
God is concerned about the elderly, and we should be too.
1 Timothy 5:1-2, 4, 8 NIV Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
1 Peter 5:5 NIV In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
God is also concerned for those with physical handicaps.
Leviticus 19:14 NIV “ ‘Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord.
Jesus healed the blind and the deaf. We can’t do that, but we can help protect them and enable them to live better lives. God is also concerned for strangers in our midst
Leviticus 19:33-34 NIV ‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
Think about this when you think about immigration and immigrants.
He often reminded the Jews that they had been strangers in Egypt .
Exodus 22:21 NIV “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:18-19 NIV He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
God is also concerned for the poor and needy as seen in the “harvest laws”
Leviticus 19:9-10 NIV “ ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.
This is also seen in the regulation about wages. Since workers were paid daily, any delay would cause hardship
Leviticus 19:13 NIV “ ‘Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. “ ‘Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.
Deuteronomy 24:14-15 NIV Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
Employers must never take advantage of their employees.
James 5:4 NIV Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.
Leviticus 19:15 NIV “ ‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.
Rich and poor stand equal before God and the law, and justice must not be partial.
Exodus 23:2-3 NIV “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit.
God hears the cries of the poor when they are oppressed.
Psalms 82:2-4 NIV “How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
Leviticus 19:11 NIV “ ‘Do not steal. “ ‘Do not lie. “ ‘Do not deceive one another.
The eighth commandment says, “You shall not steal”
Exodus 20:15 NIV “You shall not steal.
The ninth commandment warns against lying
Exodus 20:16 NIV “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
Respect for truth and for property is the foundation for a just and orderly society.
Colossians 3:5-10 NIV Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
Leviticus 19:20-22, 29 NIV “ ‘If a man sleeps with a female slave who is promised to another man but who has not been ransomed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. Yet they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed. The man, however, must bring a ram to the entrance to the tent of meeting for a guilt offering to the Lord. With the ram of the guilt offering the priest is to make atonement for him before the Lord for the sin he has committed, and his sin will be forgiven. “ ‘Do not degrade your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will turn to prostitution and be filled with wickedness.
Sexual morality is demanded in these regulations. We talked about the sanctity of sex in Chapter 18.
Both of these laws apply to the seventh commandment.
The phrase “she shall be scourged” is translated “there must be due punishment” in the NIV, which could mean the offender had to pay the woman’s fiancé an amount of money.
It is difficult to understand why a Jewish father would want his daughter to become a prostitute in a pagan temple but nonetheless.
This is a peremptory prohibition, applying to every Jewish maiden, introduced in this place with a primary relation to the sanctification of lust by the dedication of young girls at some heathen temples; but by no means confined in its application to such practices. All legal sanction of the sin of prostitution is forbidden, for whatever purpose it may be given; and the certain result of such sanction is indicated in the final words of the verse, lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness. If a father caused his daughter to become a prostitute, immorality would soon become predominant, and the land (the population of the land) fall away to whoredom.
Exodus 20:14 NIV “You shall not commit adultery.
Everything we have been talking about has to do with our relating to others. Getting along with people, isn’t just a matter of obeying laws but of having love in our hearts
Leviticus 19: 18 NIV “ ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
John 13:34-35 NIV “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
“Love is the fulfilling of the law”
Romans 13:8-10 NIV Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Precepts relating to things
Leviticus 19:19 NIV “ ‘Keep my decrees. “ ‘Do not mate different kinds of animals. “ ‘Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. “ ‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.
This strange regulation seems to prohibit imitating practices related to heathen worship, or, it may simply be a reminder that Israel is a separated people
Let’s look at a possible way to look at this scripture. Someone has translated ‘Do not mate different kinds of animals” as “Do not make your animals fall down with an unequal yoke.”
This would parallel Deuteronomy 22:10.
Deuteronomy 22:10 NIV Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.
It would be cruel to yoke to the same heavy load two animals of unequal stature and strength.
Genesis 1:11-12, 21, 24-25 NIV Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
God has made everything “after its kind”, and has thus established a physical distinction in the order of His creation. For man to bring about a union of dissimilar things is to bring about a dissolution of the Divine laws and to act contrary to the ordinances of Him who is holy, and to whose holiness we are to attain.
Prohibition of improper mixtures. Apparently the precept was based upon the view that each individual, animate or inanimate, had individual qualities assigned by the Creator, and that to mix them was therefore directed against God’s ordinance, and as such involved impurity.
God is concerned about ecology.
Leviticus 19:23-25 NIV “ ‘When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, regard its fruit as forbidden. For three years you are to consider it forbidden; it must not be eaten. In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit. In this way your harvest will be increased. I am the Lord your God.
Fruit, of course, can’t be “circumcised”; the word simply means “forbidden.” By the fourth year, the fruit would be more mature, since it would be the third crop since planting; this belonged to God. Remember the firstfruits should always be His.
Proverbs 3:9-10 NIV Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.
Leviticus 23:10, 14 NIV “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest.
You must not eat any bread, or roasted or new grain, until the very day you bring this offering to your God. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.
These firstfruits were simply the first portion of their much larger harvest. They would withhold that first portion and reserve it for God. The same is true with Jesus. He rose from the dead, but that resurrection was just the beginning. When He returns, all who “belong to him” will also be raised from the dead.
Jesus’ resurrection is described as the “firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep”.
1 Corinthians 15:23-24 NIV But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.
Bible Study Audio
No comments:
Post a Comment