Leviticus 17-20: The God of Everyday Holiness

The God of Everyday Holiness

I. Overview

Chapter 1-15: Ritual Code - to be ritually clean before worshipping. It something that happens to you and does not make you sinful against the Lord. 

Chapter 16: Day of Atonement

Chapter 17-27: Holiness Code - to be ethical and morally clean. It is how we are related to God, and to be holy. 

Since we are saved by grace, why do we need to still follow the laws to be morally clean? The reason is so that we can continue to "dwell" with God. When we are not morally clean, that is, we hold on to sin, we are damaging our relationship with God, though we are saved. 




II. How To Live Holy Lives

1. Worship our Jealous God (Lev 17)

17:5-9 - speaks about the place for proper worship. You cannot sacrifice in the open field, but only at the entrance of the tent of meeting. You cannot sacrifice to goat demons (v7). This is to remind them that all the idols sacrifice they saw in Egypt are not to be followed. There is only one place to worship, which is at the tabernacle where God dwells. 

17:10-28 - speaks about not to eat any flesh with blood in it. There are two reasons for this: 

(a) The life of flesh is in the blood, and was given to them to make atonement for their souls (v11).  

(b) In Lev 19:26-28, it says again not to eat flesh with blood, in addition to witchcraft such as telling omens and fortunes, not to round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard, not to cut you body for the dead, or tattoo yourselves. It is apparent the eating raw meat is associated to the cultic or idol worship. 

Exodus 34:14 - "For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God."

How do you spell holy (wholly)? To be HOLY, we need to be wHOlLY belong to the Lord. It is our allegiance of our heart to God. 

Lev 20:26 - "You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine."



2. Follow our Wonderful Creator (Lev 18)

Lev 18:1-5 speaks about not to follow their past ways in Egypt and He knows that they will be tempted again in the future in Canaan.  They are to follow God's rules and keep His statutes, and to walk in them. They shall live by God's rules and statutes. 

v6-20 speaks about not to have sexual relationship with close relatives, nor look at the nakedness of your father and mother. 

v21-23 onwards speaks about not to be involved in polygamy, sacrificing your children, homosexuality and sex with animals. 

v24-30 said that these acts defile themselves and defile the land. God will judge those who committed these abomination.

God is teaching them that the things they did before in Egypt for 400 years are defiling to God. (v30 - the last verse)

God created us as sexual beings, but it is only through a covenant between man and women. Our sexual desire is one the most powerful force that can bring us to sin and away from God. 

3. Imitate our Loving King (Lev 19)

v3-4 - To revere his mother and his father; 

v10 - To leave the last batch of grapes from your vineyard to the poor and the sojourner. In other words, we should not hoard our resources but leave some to the poor and visitors such as the helpers, road workers, builders from other countries. 

v18 - To love you neighbor as yourself, and not bear grudges and take vengeance against your own people. This is the verse that is quoted in the New Testament more than any other OT verses. 

v32-34 - To honor the elderly and treat the sojourner as the native among you, and to love him as yourself, for you were strangers in Egypt. You shall fear your God. 

To be holy means to relate with honor with family and strangers and to love them as you love yourselves. God never changes - even Jesus himself said: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40). 

God uses the words "I am the Lord" 15 times in Chapter 19. He was  reminding them that their God also feel the same - to love everyone. When we imitate God, people will know we are His children. 

Leviticus 19 is often regarded as a passage about integrity because it outlines various ethical and moral guidelines that emphasize honesty, fairness, and respect in personal and communal interactions. Here are some key points that highlight its focus on integrity:

Honesty and Fairness: Verses 11-12 specifically instruct against stealing, lying, and deceiving others. They also prohibit swearing falsely by God’s name, underscoring the importance of truthfulness and maintaining one’s word.

Fair Treatment: The chapter includes commands to treat others fairly, such as leaving gleanings from the harvest for the poor and foreigners (verses 9-10), and ensuring just measures and weights in trade (verses 35-36).

Respect and Compassion: It calls for respect towards parents, the elderly, and foreigners, and emphasizes loving one’s neighbor as oneself (verse 18). This promotes a community built on mutual respect and compassion.

Holiness and Purity: The overarching theme is a call to holiness, reflecting God’s purity and setting a standard for ethical conduct in all aspects of life.

These guidelines collectively aim to foster a community where integrity, justice, and compassion are foundational values.

4. Fear our Righteous Judge (Lev 20)

God adds the consequences of disobediences on his rules. 

v2 - Israelites or sojourners who give their children to Molech shall be put to death through stoning. Treason and murder also have capital punishment. Idolatrous worship is related to them because one commits treason to God, and you are killing your child. 

v6 - Persons that turns to mediums and necromancers will be cut off from their people.  

v9 - Anyone the curses his father or mother shall be put to death.

v10 - 21 

a) These people shall be put to death: A person who lies with someone's wife (adulterer and adulteress), or his father's wife, (i.e. including step mother), or daughter-in-law, or same gender sex,  or animal sex, and sex with woman as well as sex with her mother. 

b) These people will be "cut off", ie, excommunicated: A person having sex with sister or step-sister; with a woman during he menstrual period. 

c) These people will be childless: A person having sex with uncles and aunties; or takes his brother's wife. 

Adultery is also a treason to your covenant to your spouse. 

III. Conclusion

There are no unforgivable sin. But God will judge every man. It depends on repentance. We will fail, but if we repent, God will forgive us.  

Pastor Jim Baker, the tele-evangelist, committed sex scandal that brought down the PTL (Praise The Lord) ministry, and was imprisoned for frauds against their viewers and sponsors in 1989. A pastor visited him and asked if he had forgotten the love of Jesus when he was involved in crime. He said he did not forget the love of Christ, but he had lost the fear of God. 

Have we lost our fear of God? 


IV. Postscripts

1. How to Love our Neighbors?  (19:9-18)

a) Our neighbors are: the poor; the sojourner (foreign resident); hired worker; the deaf & the blind (special needs); your people (the church), the sons (the families) of your family and Christian brothers. 

b) The passage talks about Generosity (v9-10), Integrity (v11-12), Compassion (v13-14), Justice (v15-16), and Forgiveness (v17-18)

In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus told a parable about the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan is an enemy of the Jews. However he had mercy and he becomes a neighbor to the injured Jew.  The parable is not about who should be my neighbor, but that we are to be a neighbor to anyone that God introduce to!

2. Foreigners in Our Land (19:33-34)

"When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."

We should not mistreat these foreigners. Even if we only ignore them, we are mistreating them, for we don't do that to our own family and our own natives. 

We may not have any feelings for them, but if God calls us to serve them, we should obey. The love for them will follow when we serve them. 

We cannot just do what we can do. If we do that, then God is not involved. We need to do something that is impossible for us, but everything is possible for God. Only then can God be glorified!

To serve the foreign workers, we need to: (a) Have personal relationship with them, (b) There is no KPI - one soul matters; (c) Authentic love; (d) Do small things consistently. 

Be Authentic, Be Positive, Be Kind, Be Sensitive, Be Proactive, Be Creative

3. What is our Pursuits?

Our pursuits may displace or reduce God.  How do we know whether our pursuits are idols? 











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