Through the Bible in 2012

Readings:

Leviticus 19, 20, 21

Comments:

I've sat down three times to write some thoughts on these chapters from Leviticus and I've become distracted every single time.

So many of these laws may seem foreign to us while others seem to resonate with us. God had a purpose for his people to follow these laws. We try to figure them out - the "why" of the laws. Why could they not eat certain foods but we enjoy them today? Growing up I was taught that they didn't have refrigeration back then. Food would spoil. Surely this was God's reasons for telling the people to not eat certain foods. However, the basic idea, the bottom line really, is that God was calling his people to be DIFFERENT from the other peoples. They were to be "holy" which is to say they were to be "set apart." Certain things were not to be mixed - thus you couldn't wear clothes made of two different kinds of materials. Obviously we DO wear clothing today made of different kinds of materials. Are we breaking God's laws?

Each of us has to decide what God's word means to us today and how we apply it to our lives today. Certainly the New Testament will speak to this issue of the "law."We know, for example, that the food restrictions are abolished in the book of Acts. That may explain why we don't think we are sinning today if we eat bacon. But what of the rest of the law. Some laws are ceremonial. Some laws are about relationships. Some laws are reiterated in other parts of the bible, including the New Testament.

Which laws are the most confusing to you?
Which laws make sense?
Which laws appear to be laws we should follow today?
How do you decide if the law was meant "for then" or "for now" as well?