Day 47 – Leviticus 11-13

Talking Points

• God distinguishes between animals which are “clean” and “unclean,” or proper and improper, to eat. The clean and unclean foods served to remind the Israelites of God’s holiness, to set them apart from the pagan practices around them, and to protect their physical health.
• God declares a woman to be unclean for a time after giving birth. Be sure, this is not inferring sinfulness or inferiority. This would have allowed healing and protected the health of the mother during a critical time in her life and the life of her baby. The ritual uncleanliness would have allowed a time to sit out of the routine and required duties of worship. While some could choose to and have used this to degrade women, we actually see God’s wise and gracious care for her and the new life brought into the world.
• God gives very specific guidelines for addressing leprosy. As you read the account, you can see the context being laid for Jesus and His healing of the ten lepers (Luke 17:11-21). With this disease, lepers were hopeless, isolated, and suffering greatly. Jesus cleans them, offering a beautiful picture of salvation!

Thoughts

Is God concerned only with the spiritual parts of life? Is our belief set and knowledge of Him basically dealing with issues of faith and “religion”? Or, does God care about the practical things of life as well?

In this section, we see a pretty tremendous truth. While God does make clear the lines between the clean and the unclean, He also tells us the entirety of our lives, as His people, is to be holy. This means it is totally given to Him, and He cares about the totality of it! There is no separating a life into the “religious” parts and the “normal” parts. Simply, a life is His and He intimately cares about the whole of it.

In these commands God is giving, we see the spiritual aspects of honoring and obeying Him as holy. He wants us to understand sin and the cleansing of sin. He teaches us to revere Him as the Creator God. And, in these commands, we see the practical care for His beloved people. We see His grace and wisdom, as it extends to the day-to-day actions of life. He told them not to eat animals that were likely to carry disease — His grace. He told them not to handle or touch things that were deceased or decaying, to help prevent the spread of sickness — His wisdom. He told them to allow mothers time to heal and have focused time with their babies — His kindness.

And, as we see both of these aspects, the truth unfolds: the spiritual is practical and the practical is spiritual. God is the God of both!

“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
– Romans 12:1