Well, I’ve finally left the book of Leviticus, after what seemed like chapter after chapter of lists and rules… and the Israelites hadn’t even left Mt. Sanai yet! All my life of reading the bible, I will admit that I often perused over the tops of most of the chapters that only seemed to offer who begot whom, or what not to do if you want to please God. I know what a loving God I belong to, but most of Exodus and Leviticus seemed to be filled with information about a very angry God systematically thumbing the Israelites faces into the dirt. It seemed awfully harsh of God, to drag over a million plus people, raised in bondage for over 400 years, out into the middle of the desert for some hardcore basic training… maybe it was.
Then again, 400 or plus years of bad habits can be hard to undo!
If you remember, I mentioned when I began this read through of the bible, I’d be reading it slower and more thoroughly this time. No more relying on movies or plays that depict what the people of Israel endured in that time. If you didn’t remember… well, now you are reminded. If it says in 2 Timothy 3:16 that ALL scripture is God breathed, then I want to fully read and open myself to the full package!
While I do spend a portion of my study, checking different biblical and educational sites to gather more context, and the like… one actually can find most answers from different places within the Bible, itself. Often times, you will find me reading from multiple places within the word, during a single reading. Don’t get to thinking that I read for some grand number of hours a day, like a monk or something, as that wouldn’t be realistic at all! Truthfully, my bible reading time is usually around an hour, or maybe two at most… and some days I may have circumstances that prevent any reading time, at all. My point is to reflect that I move around a great deal, while reading through the Bible. There is no easy way for me to read about who begot whom, for an hour or two straight… No Way!
As I was reading in the book of Romans the other day, I came across a passage in chapter 7, where Paul was talking about the very thing going through my mind after wrapping up my study of the book of Leviticus. Romans 7:13 says, “Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.” I would really recommend that you read the whole of chapter 7, in order to get a more complete understanding of what Paul was explaining about sin and the law. The answer that formed in my mind, regarding all those rules and regulations God was setting down for the Israelites… you can’t fix a thing if you don’t know it’s broken.
Where do you think the saying, you are like those you associate with, came from? Doing a wrong thing, enough times, will eventually make it not seem so bad. Millions of parents have enlisted the above phrase, while lecturing their offspring of the dangers to hanging with the wrong friends. This makes me think of the hundreds of years that God’s people spent with the Egyptians, even if they were in bondage, allowing wickedness to become commonplace in the eyes of the Israelites. God’s people were slowly and methodically desensitized to all manner of sin… they unfortunately, were becoming like the Egyptians in which they served.
We struggle with this form of desensitization, even today, as it has enmeshed itself within our society, from what we watch on television, what we are taught in schools, and how we are treated in churches, and by our own Government. The world still tries to systematically undo our ability to decide right from wrong. The struggle the Israelites were facing all those years ago, seems to mirror much of the world today. Too easily, we readily compromise our values on a daily basis, seeking to blend in peacefully with those around us. We have found ourselves in a never ending loop of, if you can’t beat em, join em mentality.
As God was preparing the Israelites for the journey ahead of them, He had no time for endless loops of ignorant thinking among His people… the journey was just beginning for them, and it would not be easy. God intended to travel with and dwell among His people along this journey, so it was imperative that the Israelites leave all their internal bondage behind with the external slave mentality. This was not the place for fake it til you make it spirituality!
While that was Old Testament, and we now live in the New Testament times, with Christ Jesus blood to cover our sins, God’s holiness and His laws remain the same. We must guard against using this as an excuse to approach God, in His holiness, while associating and participating in things we aught not to be doing… even down to the tiny things that seem miniscule to our conscience.
The walk, the talk, the living and the breathing… even the reading of who begot whom, as well as, exactly how many cubits high and wide of a thing, should still be valuable and important to the child of God reading. Personally, I am going to glean as much as possible from those scriptures way back then, to sustain and nourish my Christian walk in these modern days that we now live.
God put all that stuff in His word for more reasons than I shall ever fully understand, so I will seek to study as slowly as I must, in an effort to read ALL of it!
Journey With Me! 