Leviticus chapter 15-17

My sincere apologies. It’s been a rather hectic couple of days so I will catch up here and now before I go to bed.

God’s message to me: It does no good to do all the things a Christian is supposed to do and then, when your away from the church, go back to acting like one who doesn’t know God.

Promises: God promises to turn against those who worship the false gods and who eat blood and involve themselves in the other pagan rituals that glorify false gods and insult The God who created them.

Commands: God has a time and place for things. Aaron’s sons rushed out to offer incense when they weren’t supposed to. In their zeal to act on behalf of the priesthood they ignored God’s timing and died. It is good to serve God and better to desire to serve Him but to do so in a way that isn’t His is to trivialize the act. God called us to teach and to baptize but running around and randomly dunking people in His name is insulting to Him and to everyone who truly desires to know His will.

Timeless principles: Oprah Winfrey did a show about charity work. In one episode a man was sent out to help a family at their home. He saw the garage needed cleaning and he cleaned it. He saw some odd jobs that needed done and did them. What he didn’t do, was ask them what they needed. Because of that, he missed the opportunity to help them with things they truly needed outside help to get done. He lost the task. That is what it’s like to serve God inappropriately. Doing a good thing, in the right spirit does not make it the right thing at the time.

Churches can often be overwhelmed by people volunteering for little projects in their favorite areas but still find themselves unable to find people who will do the things that really need to be done. Volunteering to clean the bathrooms is a wonderful thing but if there are several people willing to do that and none willing to help teach Sunday school to elementary school aged children the church is in trouble. I have known pastors who would gladly spend the week scrubbing the church if someone could take a class of school-age children for lessons while the sermon is being given.

How can I apply what I’ve learned: Pray, search God’s word for direction, seek His will for your life and ask where you can be useful. God doesn’t pick the perfect person for the job. God make the willing person perfect for the job.

more to learn for in-depth study: Chapter 15 can be seen as strange to modern eyes but followed simple and reasonable treatment of bio hazards. The fact is that responsible handling of bodily fluids, particularly when they are associated with potential illness is something we could learn from. The biggest fear of anti-terrorist agents is the bio-weapon. Drop a couple of suicidal terrorists, infected with a deadly virus into a couple of our major population centers to mix and mingle and we could see hundred to thousands dead, ten times that sick and the country shut down. How many people do you know who go to work when their feeling a little ill because there are to many problems associated with staying home?

As for the sacrifices, I refer you back to God’s promise of health to the Israelites for following His commands. I should also note that sacrifices were not involved in the issues natural to marriage but I’m sure that’s one situation where most parties would be glad to call themselves unclean for a day.

tomorrow: Leviticus chapter 18-20