Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Why Christians Still Need Leviticus | Torah | Leviticus 11-15

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Why study the Torah or specifically Leviticus? Should the modern world care about all of the Old Testament's rules and rituals? In today's episode, Patrick uses Leviticus 11-15 to discuss why Leviticus is still important to modern Christians. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Leviticus 11-15

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Why in the world is 10-minute Bible talks doing devotions on Leviticus? I'm sure more than a few of you have asked that exact question. But in January of 2022, we set out to do the entire Torah. That's the first five books of the Bible. That was for a really simple reason. The Torah was the central text of Jesus' own Bible. To understand In Jesus in the Gospels, we need to appreciate Jesus' Bible. But it's also our Bible, too. That means there's something for modern people like you and me who are following Jesus today.

There's something for us in this book. Now, I know a lot of people who have set out to read the Bible in a year, and they've foundered on the book of Leviticus. That's where the whole thing goes awry, especially when they get to today's section. Leviticus chapter 11 through 15. That's the section about clean and unclean things. You know, don't eat shellfish, don't eat pork, don't sit on the same spot as a menstruating woman, all of that. And we wonder why this matters.

And we wonder rightfully because Jesus did declare all unclean foods and animals clean. Later, in the book of Acts, God reiterates this point to Peter by giving him a repeated vision of a feast of unclean food descending from heaven before him. So maybe we should just skip Leviticus, or at least skip these chapters about clean and unclean things. That was then, this is now. Well, not so fast. This was Jesus's Bible, and it's also your Bible. So there's something in here for your faith that you need to walk with him. I'll circle back to unclean foods at the end,

but I want to tackle the broader question of why Christians still need Leviticus in the modern era. This really became apparent to me when I was in seminary. My Torah professor, a guy named J. Sklar, wrote a commentary on the book of Leviticus. people actually do that. And he offered all of us an extra credit assignment. He said that we could live levittically for a whole week and journal on our experience. This meant we had to spend a week keeping Sabbath and giving Sabbath rest to the animals that we own. My dog loved that. We couldn't wear mixed fibers. We couldn't eat pork or shellfish. Now, I'm the kind of weirdo who has to do everything. So I think I was one of only two students who actually took him up on this offer.

But man, I am so thankful I did. Because I learned so. so much about Jesus during that short week of living Levitically. I want to tell you three things I learned during that week that I think God wants you to consider as we go through Leviticus. Here's the first thing. The Holy King wants to live with you. You'll remember that at the end of Exodus, the tabernacle is built and God's glory fills it. Now this tent, the tabernacle, it was smack in the middle of Israel's camp. And so it was like God was moving into the neighborhood. And this is God's vision for all of creation. He wants to move into the neighborhood of earth and live with all of his creatures so that all of them can enjoy his holiness. God wants to move into the neighborhood with you,

too. But you know the problem. God is a transcendent holy key. And his holiness, his perfect holiness, threatens to destroy anyone and anything polluted by sin and evil. So while it's amazing that God wants to move into the neighborhood, it's also kind of terrifying. How can sinful people come before him. What do they do if they want to eat a meal with God, to give thanks to God, to make things right with God when they fail? If you're going to live with a holy king, you need answers to those questions. And that's what Leviticus lays out through its sacrificial system, and its description of how the priests could lead Israel in worship. So when we read passages about offerings and sacrifices, we're reading passages about how everyday people could enjoy meals with

God, share in his hospitality, and be made right with him in perfect holiness. All of this guidance and instruction is meant to point us forward to Jesus, whose death and resurrection made it possible for God's own spirit to move into the neighborhood of your heart, of my heart, and more broadly into our churches, because collectively we are the new temple of God. Jesus' sacrificial death is ultimately what cleanses a world polluted by evil. it's what brings heaven to earth so that a new creation can begin. Our heart's deepest longing is to be close to God, to live with your holy king. And Leviticus shows us how devastating our sin is to that longing.

And yet what a gift it is that Jesus made it away for us to actually live with God. Here's the second thing I learned. It shows us the power of habits and rituals. Most modern people think about rituals as empty practices. They don't have any real influence or purpose. But I think that Leviticus gives us a more robust understanding of the power of rituals in our life. They have the power to make new realities. Let me give you a local example.

I live in Columbia, Missouri, which is a college town. And the University of Missouri is an SEC school, which means that football is a big deal. Football games are highly ritualized. People have tailgate rituals. They're always in the same spot. They set up the same tent. They hang with the same people. The game is ritualized.

There's opening ceremonies, the singing of the national anthem. And we have musical rituals and chanting rituals that we all do collectively. At our school, we sing a song called the Missouri Waltz, and then the entire stadium chants, M-I-Z-Z-O-U. That's because Missou, if you didn't know it, is a special name that we give to our college. And so we're chanting it back and forth to each other. Now, what do all of these rituals do? Will they make a football game a football game? And not just any football game.

They make it a Mazoo football game. A disinterested observer could make fun of us and say, you're jumping around and singing weird songs and chanting bizarre chants and yelling and eating and drinking. And why are you guys so emotional about this? Why do you lose your voice by the end of the game? Why do you high-five people you don't even know and sometimes even give them hugs? And why do you spend all this money to do it?

I mean, don't you realize that none of this is real? It's just an imaginary game. The whole thing is totally made up. Don't you realize that you're just standing in a big concrete bowl? It's just a game. It's make-believe. Well, we probably laugh at that person because they just don't get it. All of the rituals create a new social reality.

The football game is real. The experience is real. And what makes it real is all of those rituals working together to make a Mizzou football game. If you think the only real things out there are the material universe, then you've missed out on how big God's universe is. Humans, just like God in Genesis 1, make new social realities as co-creators with him. And if this is true in football, how much more true is it in worship? God is real, after all, and he wants us to live out that realness in our life together. Rituals play a huge role in that. In Leviticus, God gives people habits and rituals

not as a path to salvation, but as a gracious gift that reminds them of the reality of his presence in all of life. Collectively, their rituals made them into the people of God. Just think about yourself for a second. You have a set of daily habits and rituals. You brush your teeth, drink your coffee, check Twitter or Instagram. You go to work. You check emails.

You follow your kid's nap schedule. You get the idea. It's different for all of us. Now, these habits are all rituals that influence the way that we see the world. They're daily practices that shape what you love and what you long for. And so here's a question. do your habits actually help you walk with Jesus? Or are they keeping you too busy to spend time with God?

Asked a different way, what's disciplining you right now? What are the habits and rituals that are changing who you are? Is it your phone? Is it your email? Is it keeping up with a family down the street? God gave Israel rituals to shape what they love and how they see the world. He gave them rituals not to take them out of reality, but to deepen their perception of reality.

Even the New Testament prescribes certain habits and rituals. In Hebrews, we are commanded to gather together and worship regularly. Jesus himself gave us communion and baptism as part of our collective life to define what is most true about reality. And here's what's crazy. These aren't just symbolic acts. Something spiritual is happening when you take communion. You are brought up into the throne room of heaven alongside the rest of the church to be in the presence of Jesus.

But beyond that, we also know that the disciples of Jesus had all kinds of habits and rituals and practices. For example, in the book of Acts, we see that Peter and John did prayers every three hours during the day. We know that Paul sometimes participated in Jewish rituals as a part of his walk with Jesus. We know that the early Christians still valued habits in their faith. So what habits have you built into your life? What social realities are those habits and practices shaping? How is God using those practices, habits, and rituals to make his presence evident to you? Leviticus challenges you to think through these questions.

Here's the third thing, and it finally brings us back to where we started. Leviticus shows us that Jesus cares about everything. This finally takes us, like I said, back to Leviticus chapter 11 to 15, the rules about cleanliness. Now, I had to focus a lot on these cleanliness rules during my extra credit assignment. It was kind of crazy. pay attention to my clothes, were they made of mixed fibers? You'd be shocked how many of your clothes are made of mixed fibers? I had to pay attention to my food. I love pork. I love shrimp, but nope, none of those for a week. I had to change my schedule to fit in Sabbath. I could keep going on,

but here's my point. I had to think about God all of the time because I was trying to follow the Levitical rules in totally ordinary parts of life. I had to think about God when I was getting dressed. I had to think about God when I was eating food. I had to think about God when I was scheduling my weekend. God was always on my mind. All of the rituals underlined one fact. Jesus is in everything. Jesus cares about everything. Jesus owns every aspect of my life, and that's a good thing. I so easily forget all of that. I'm tempted to keep Jesus on Sunday morning, but Leviticus reminds us that we live our whole lives before the face of God. The rules about eating and food remind us that God does actually care about what you eat.

The rules about clothing remind us that God does actually care about what you wear. The rules about time remind you that God really does actually care about how you spend your time. In the modern era, we love the idea of freedom and self-expression. And of course, God does give us lots of freedom. But if the king is moving into the neighborhood and he is perfectly holy, and you want to live your whole life before his face, Well, doesn't that change how you live in every dimension of your life? Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter.

Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that's going to help you beat that midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.