Rambling Through Scripture

This chapter can be summed up in verse 2 and verse 37. Verse 2 says, “…Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.” Verse 37 says, “Obey all my laws and all my rules, and live by them. I am the LORD.” In between these two verses are guidelines given by God divided into, Duties of the people towards God, Duties of the people toward each other, and other duties. In the midst of all these duties there is one that I want to focus in on. This is found in verse 17. It says, “Never hate another Israelite. Be sure to correct your neighbor so that you will not be guilty of sinning along with him.” We are not to turn a blind eye to what others have done. We are to be involved in their lives, especially when we know they are Christians. It is kind of like watching a crime take place but not reporting it, or being willing to be a witness to because they don’t want to be involved. When we turn a blind eye to what others are doing we are just as guilty in the sin. Application The appli...

It is interesting how much sex is actually mentioned in scripture both in the positive and the negative. As we go through the Bible we will look at the different aspects concerning sex. Unfortunately society both Christian and secular, has put a negative connotation to sex. Sex was created by God for both enjoyment and procreation. The catch is that sex is meant to be enjoyed within boundaries that are set by God. The Bible teaches that of any sin, sexual sins are the worse because they hurt the body and the spirit. Leviticus 18 lays out some of these guidelines. We see in the first few verses that God tells the Israelites once again that they are unique. They are not to live like the Egyptians where they came from nor the Canaanites where they are going. Verse 5 says, “Live by my standards, and obey my rules. You will have life through them. I am the LORD.” We can simply look at the results of having sex outside God’s standards. HIV, AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, the list goes ...

We have two sections in this chapter. The first deals with people doing individual sacrifices and the other has to do with eating blood. Up to the point of the temple many people were in the habit of doing their own sacrifices. Once the temple had been set up God commanded that this practice was to end. All sacrifices were to be done at the temple. Any one that killed an animal for a sacrifice anywhere but at the temple they were guilty of bloodshed and were to be excluded from the rest of the people. It was almost like murder. The second part of this chapter had to do with eating blood. We understand this even better in light of Jesus’ death upon the cross. People were not to eat blood. Blood is life, as we know it both physically and spiritually. If someone eats blood God will exclude them from the people. The final part of this section has to do with what I will refer to as road kill. God commands that no animal that dies of natural causes or is killed by another animal i...

As I read the beginning of this chapter I am saddened for Aaron and the other Israelites but also realize how blessed we are because of Jesus. Chapter 16 starts off talking about the Aaron’s sons that came into the LORD’s presence and died. Verse 2 we see that God tells Moses to tell Aaron that he cannot go into the holy place whenever he wants. If Aaron does he will die. God then gives guidelines of what he has to do to be able to go into the holy place. Special clothes, a sacrifice and if this is all done correctly he then can go into the holy place. Can you imagine having to put on special clothes and then giving a sacrifice just to enter into God’s presence. We enter into God’s presence weekly, without special clothes and without bringing a sacrifice. I am afraid sometimes we take the fact of entering into the holies of holies too lightly. I am not saying that we have to be all stiff. God ask that we come as we are but many times we come into his presence flippantly. When ...

Today’s devotions is of a sensitive nature and so I recommend caution in sharing this devotion. There are some things in the Bible that causes one to say why do we need to talk about this? Leviticus 15 is one of those that caused me to ask that question. It also caused me to say gross. We find in this chapter a discussion about discharges from male and females. We see that with the male it is dealing with discharges brought about by both disease and that of discharge of semen. For female it is dealing with the normal discharge caused by a period and one of excessive discharge not related to a woman’s period. Obvious care should always be taken when dealing with discharges caused by disease. Modern science gives us reason for discharges from the male. The most common reason for a discharge from a male is because of a sexual transmitted disease. This type of discharge is unclean because of the disease but is also because the most common cause for it is because of it being a sexually tran...

At the end of chapter 14 we find the purpose of chapter 13 and 14 is to help distinguish between what is clean and what is unclean. Chapter 14 is dealing more with the outcome once a person or an item has been declared clean. The first two thirds of the chapter deal with the requirements to be considered clean. What an individual is to bring to the priest for a sacrifice once it has been determined they are clean. In reading this chapter you will see that there is two different requirements concerning an individual found clean of a skin disease. The second requirement is for those that are poor and cannot afford the requirements that were laid out in the first section. The final section of this chapter deals with two things, the requirements once a home is declared clean and what to do if the house is unable to be declared clean. In the case of the house not being able to have the mildew removed the whole house is to be scraped of plaster and removed. Interesting much like one would ha...

Leviticus 13 deals with two issues, skin diseases and mildew on clothing and leather. In both of these we can look from the our position and say no kidding in dealing with the treatment of such things as mildew and skin conditions. We have modern science that tells us that skin conditions can be contagious and that mildew on things is unhealthy. They did not have that luxury back then. They simply were unsure of what to do with those things and so God set out a law to protect the people from things that would harm them or kill them. When you consider mildew there are some mold that for some people just breathing it in let alone touching it can cause such breathing problems that it can kill them. There are skin diseases such as mrsa that is spread easily and can be very deadly. This is not about exclusion as much as it is about staying clean and holy to the Lord, even physically. The Application How do we apply this today. I see two very important applications one being the physical asp...