Pastor Steve’s Weekly Letter For Thursday, February 4, 2009

The best-laid plans to read through the Bible often run into trouble in the book of Leviticus! Many readers find it tedious. But Leviticus stirred my heart when I read through it recently as part of a plan to read through the Bible in ninety days. Yes, I had to work hard to concentrate, and I found my mind drifting several times as I labored through the regulations about offerings, priests’ clothing, unclean foods, and skin diseases! Yet Leviticus gives us some profound insights about the God we worship.

The message of Leviticus is that Yahweh is holy and requires his people to be holy (see Leviticus 11:44-45). To be holy is to be set apart. As one of the classic hymns puts it, God is “perfect in power and love and purity.” Now we cannot be perfect in power quite like God is! But, we can pursue holiness in love and in purity. Of course, as new covenant believers in Jesus, we are not bound to the details of Leviticus like God’s people living before Jesus were bound to them. But, we can still learn a lot about God’s holiness. In fact, what we learn will prepare us for the language we will encounter this Sunday in Romans 12:1 where Paul urges us to “offer” our bodies as “living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.”

So, here is a brief summary of what I learned or re-learned as I read through Leviticus. The lengthy section on offerings (chapters 1-7) reminds me that we can approach God and his holy presence only under the right conditions. In fact, the Hebrew term for “offering” comes from the term “draw near, approach”! The regulations for sin offerings, burnt offerings, and guilt offerings teach us that we cannot approach God unless the offense of our sin has been removed. I notice, too, that God intends for holiness to extend to every area of His peoples’ lives. God wants His people to reflect his holiness in their diet, their sexuality, their agriculture, their clothing, and their treatment of other people. Let me make one more observation: the precise performance of rituals is not an end in itself. God is looking for the right heart response. This comes through in a curious story in Leviticus 10 about four of Aaron’s sons. God strikes down the first two when they violate the procedures priests are supposed to follow. But later in the chapter, two more sons violate a command given by their father Aaron, the high priest. Yet they are absolved of their guilt because of their motives were right.

After reading Leviticus, I have a greater sense of wonder that I can experience the presence of God at any time! Christ has provided the once-for-all sacrifice to give me constant access to the presence of God. Like a more recent song says, “This is the air I breath, your holy presence, living in me!” Then, when I come into God’s presence, I bring a much different kind of sacrifice! We’ll discuss this on Sunday as we start working through the final section of Romans – chapters 12-16. This Sunday, February 7, the sermon will be from Romans 12:1-8 on “Give Your Life Away to Someone Who Can Use It.”

While we are on the topic of Scripture, let me answer a question which I am frequently asked: “What is the best way to memorize Scripture?” This is an easy one to answer, and I can do it in one word! The word is “meditation.” Recently, I meditated for about four weeks on Colossians 3:1-4. I simply read it over and over and over and over again. That’s what it means to meditate! By the end of the four weeks, I had the passage memorized, even though I really didn’t try to memorize it. Whether it is your phone number or the theme song to the Brady Bunch (thanks, Rick, for that image!), memorization happens when you are exposed to something over and over and over again!

On the family front, we’re looking forward to a trip to Milwaukee this Saturday. The Libertyville High varsity basketball team – including our son, Luke, and Brandon Fowkes – will play Maine South in the Bradley Center right before the Milwaukee Bucks take the court for an NBA game. I’m trying to decide whether we’ll have time to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum prior to the game. I’ll say more about this exhibit another time. I’ll see you on Sunday!

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