Leviticus 18-20
Guess what these chapters are about?
More rules/laws.
Yes, they keep on coming.
This makes me think the Israelites had to have it all spelled out for them.
You know when you look at your blowdryer and it tells you not to use it in the bathtub. Or the warning on the refrigerator advises to not carry it on your back? You know why those are there? Because somebody did it. Scary huh?
That is what I find myself thinking as I read these chapters.
These laws had to be written because someone had obviously done those things.
Scary but true...
Chapter 18
This whole chapter other than one verse about not sacrificing children all has to do with...well...um...marital relations with people they aren't married to (mainly family). I won't go into much detail. I just noticed that there were a lot of "Not _____(this person) in your family" or "Not ________(that person) in your family" which again tells me that there had probably already been problems and this had to be clarified.
Chapter 19
This chapter has a lot of laws on many different subjects. Several are repeated such as not eating anything with blood in it.
The one part that really stuck out to me in this chapter was in verses 33-34a.
"Do not mistreat foreigners living in your country, but treat them just as you treat your own citizens. Love foreigners as you love yourselves, because you were foreigners one time in Egypt..."
While I know that our need for the law was erased, wiped clean, with the blood of Jesus, I am not so sure these words have to be thrown out completely.
I just think about our country.
We (the "settlers") were and are foreigners in a land that belonged to others. Yet we just came in and took over. Even worse, the whole foreigner thing is one of the most debated topics in our country. Don't believe me? Read the Letters to the Editor sometime. It makes my stomach churn about as much as the sacrifice descriptions do.
I just think we need reminders even today...we need to love others. Does it really matter where they come from?
Chapter 20
More sin talk except this time consequences are laid out.
The one thing repeated in this chapter is to be holy. Be a holy people. Why? Because He is God. He has made them holy.
Even as they entered new lands, the people were to be set apart. They weren't to do as the Romans did, but they were to follow God's laws.
'Nuff said.
Reba
Tomorrow's reading:
Leviticus 21-22
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