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Necessary But Not Sufficient

Numbers 5:6 says “… if and of the people — men or women — betray the Lord by doing wrong to another person, they are guilty.”

Oftentimes we separate sin out into sin against God and sin against people. But we forget that people are image-bearers of God. He made them. And so when we sin against other people, we betray God. And by betraying God we are guilty of sin. Sin against God AND people! In a way sinning against a fellow image-bearer is actually worse, since it is offending TWO parties.

And unlike sins against God alone which require a sacrifice to cover the iniquity, sins against another person required more. The people had to give back what had been taken/cheated/etc (or its equivalent value) and add 20% on top. PLUS they had to get right with God.

What I’m saying is this: we’re going to mess up and hurt each other. But we need to go above-and-beyond to make it right. “I’m sorry” is necessary but not sufficient. We need to repair, replace, or recover. And then, once we have made it right with our brother or sister, then we can come before God to ask for forgiveness. It’s hard to grant forgiveness to someone who has not made a serious attempt to rectify the wrong.

You’ve gotta make it right before you can make it right.

Feb 28 | Num 4-5 | 059/365

On Leadership

These two chapters of Numbers are all about who is in charge of what and where they are to camp. All of which is in relation to the centrepiece of the nascent Israelite nation, the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is the centre of the camp, it is the centre of the relocation procession, it is the moral, spiritual, social, and even legal centre. The lives of the Israelites were intertwined with the life of the Tabernacle.

And so there were many capable men enlisted to take care of it. One group of thousands of men was tasked with care and transport of the Tabernacle fabrics. Another group of thousands of men was responsible for the structural supports for the Tabernacle. And a final group of thousands of men was tasked with the care and transport of the Tabernacle furnishings.

So then, why do I say today’s devotional is about leadership?

Simple, really. Because at the end of this lengthy passage about who is responsible for what, we are told that Moses (along with his brother Aaron, and Aaron’s sons Eleazar and Ithamar) is in charge of all of the Tabernacle.

No matter how leaders delegate tasks to responsible people, those leaders are still the ones responsible for making sure those tasks are actually completed. A good leader will deal with irresponsible or lazy people over which they are responsible, but a good leader will never blame their workers for the job not being done. A good leader will take responsibility. This is what Biblical Leadership is. It is not about power and authority, but about responsibility and answerability.

What leadership have you been tasked with? Do you take it as seriously as the Lord does?

Feb 27 | Num 2-3 | 058/365

Promises

God was utterly faithful with his covenant promises and he expects the same from us. Which is probably why He is constantly upset with Israel. My father used to tell me that the only things you really have in this life are your family and your word, and the latter is how you’ll be remembered.

When people break trust, it is nearly impossible to repair. And God wants to drive this home, so Leviticus ends with a list of how to re-claim people and possessions that have been dedicated, consecrated to the Lord.

Usually this was the result of a vow. Like when Hannah asks God for a child and she says that in return she will consecrate him to the Lord. Well, once Samuel was born, she essentially turned him over to the priests to serve in the Temple for the rest of his life.

God says no take-sy back-sies, BUT if you wish to reclaim (redeem) this person or thing consecrated (set apart) for the Lord, then there will be renumeration based on age and future earning potential in that day and time. These prices were not trivial, and for animals and inanimate possession there was a 20% surcharge on top of the market value. This was something to take seriously.

In the same way our word, our vow, our promise should be solid and meaningful. If we say we will do a thing, we have an obligation to actually do that thing. And not just because of the legacy that creates, or what people will think of us, but because we are called to be like the Lord. And He is faithful to the end.

Let’s be faithful in all our dealings as the Lord Himself is faithful.

Feb 26 | Lev 27; Num 1 | 057/365

Blessings, Curses, & Unfailing Love

Reading through the blessings and punishments of God in Leviticus 26 is interesting. As modern Christians under the New Covenant with Jesus the “goods” of obediences and “bads” of disobedience seem much more… temporal and terrestrial. Grounded in the things of this earth. Since Jesus has come we tend to think of God’s blessings and cursings more in light of eternity than in light of Tuesday (Word of Faith preachers excluded, of course). So the contrast of this passage struck me as interesting.

What I noticed after looking at the progression God offers here in Leviticus is that God’s punishment is carried out not by His hand in some spectacular, spiritual way, but rather by the progressive withdrawl of His blessings.

First, disease and military defeat will come. Second, the earth and skies will not cooperate with our work, producing little yield. Third, wild animals will attack, steal, and kill. Fourth, their land will be dispossessed. Fifth, they will live in constant fear as foreigners. But the key comes in sixth…

Sixth, the people will finally come back to God and repent. And so God will restore them. God so badly wants to bless us. Even in His anger His desire is not to punish us, but to draw us to Himself. He continues to hold that blessing, eager to bestow it on a people who love Him and are faithful to him. And yes, that blessing may come this side of heaven, but it very well may also come when we are raised in glory.

I hope that you will be blessed and seek his blessing

Feb 25 | Lev 25:24-26:46 | 056/365

Blasphemy & Death

To this point no punishment has yet been handed down for blasphemy despite it’s prohibition (Ex20:7;22:28. It would stand to reason, then, that it is likely to this point that no one HAS blasphemed the Lord.

Along comes this half-Egyptian/half-Hebrew fellow. Who does not simply blaspheme, but blasphemes AND curses! We’ll get to what those mean in a moment, but first it’s noteworthy that this man — whose father is never identified — gets into a fight with an Israelite man. We are never really told why this happens, but from the details we DO have, I think we can make some educated guesses.

Now we know that the man’s mother was from the tribe of Dan. And I suppose it’s likely that this man who chose to come with the Israelites wanted to settle with the tribe of Dan. But it’s also likely that the Danites were not open to this fellow’s inclusion. Remember that lineage came from the father. And this man’s lineage was not Israelite, but rather Egyptian. So it’s entirely possible that the man was not welcomed into the tribe of Dan as he had hoped. This probably was not a new development, but perhaps one that had not been resolved to this point and finally came to blows.

And during the fight, the fateful words spill out. Remember that words uttered in the heat of a moment are not lies, but concealed truths of the heart. And the truth was that this man blasphemed and cursed God.

The word blaspheme means to pierce, puncture, or strike through. And the word curse means to make light of or trifle with. This man had no respect or reverence for God and dissension in this nascent, previously lawless group now known as Israelites could not be tolerated. I know this seems barbaric by today’s standards, but the world was a different place four thousand years ago. Heck, the world was a different place TWO HUNDRED years ago. In 19th century England you could be hanged for stealing as little as a shekel (~$30 today)!

Today’s takeaway is this: the truth will find you out. Take heart in or heed of that as you will.

Feb 24 | Lev 23:1-25:23 | 055/365

Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is

So far in Leviticus and through the back half of Exodus we have gotten a great deal of instruction from God through Moses. We got case law, regulations, best practices, and punishments for crime. Some of it is thick and worth contextualizing and explaining, like why Molech — of all the Mesopotamian “gods” — was singled out, or why ‘dishonouring’ your mother or father requires a death punishment, or even why an animal and it’s mother cannot be killed as an offering on the same day.

But while that all would be genuinely interesting, the thing that most stood out to me from today’s reading was right near the end. Leviticus 22:31 (NLT) says, “You must faithfully keep all my commands by putting them into practice, for I am the LORD.” I love the way the NLT puts this as opposed to other translations, because it underscores something most of us still need to hear today.

It’s not enough to profess that we believe something. If we don’t put it into practice, our actions will betray our words. My kids don’t doubt that I love them, because I put that love into practice. The same is true for my wife. I continue to be gainfully employed because I practice a good work ethic. There a a myriad of examples, you can probably rattle off a few without thinking too deeply about it yourself.

But it is likely because you are confessing or stating something that is true in your heart — in the core, the centre of who you are. That’s why Paul says in Romans 10 that you need to BOTH confess with your mouth AND believe in your heart. You confess “Jesus is Lord” with the conviction of a heart that believes He was raised from the dead.

Word are easy. Actions are hard. Let’s practice what we preach.

Feb 23 | Lev 20-22 | 054/365

The Original Mold Remediator

A lot of what we read in Leviticus can seem bizarre and foreign to us. Which is not surprising since we are separated from those people and their circumstances not only by thousands of miles, but also thousands of years! The way we look at… everything… is so different. The way we look at family, at neighbours, at men, women, and children. How we look at work, religion, and even the difference in our quality and ease of living are so different that it can be tough to genuinely attempt to place ourselves in the shoes of an ancient near eastern Israelite.

But even in spite of some things needing a decent amount of contextualization and translation, others come shining through. The first part of today’s passage is a prime example of just that.

The priests are given instructions on what to do if they find mold or mildew on the wall of a house!

1) Clear everyone out. 2) Examine and quarantine. 3) Examine and clear OR… 4) Remove the mold and scrape down all the walls. 5) Examine and clear OR… 6) Tear down the house because it is beyond help.

God doesn’t want His people to be sick! Maybe you find this mundane, but I find it amazing. And if people in the “Dark Ages” had access to a Bible they would have known to take their… uh… waste… and bury it outside the city instead of throwing it out the window into the street. Europe might have avoided the bubonic plague.

Anyway! Be well today! God loves you.

Feb 21 | Lev 14:33-16:34 | 052/365

Does God Prefer Boys?

Today’s reading has, broadly, two sections. The bulk of it addresses skin diseases, which is an interesting topic unto itself, and its relative size would seem to demand attention, but the relatively minuscule chapter 12 — a mere 8 verses long has stolen the show today.

My wife and I were reading the Bible together last year and upon reading this she wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips and asked why God seems to punish women for having girls — especially given what we now know about genetic donation. It was an interesting question worthy of a deep-dive. And after looking at it last year and refreshing myself this year, I think I can shed some light on these curious regulations.

If a woman gives birth to a boy, she is ceremonially unclean for 7 days, but with a girl it is 14? Explain yourself!

This one is relatively simple, being “ceremonially unclean” meant that one was contagious and would transfer their status to anyone or anything they touched. That means no cooking or cleaning or anything of the like right after childbirth. In this context, cutting it shorter for boys is actually the downside, not the longer term with girls. But why cut it short? So new moms could attend their son’s circumcision!

Okay, but then a woman remains impure for just 33 days with boys, while it’s 66 days for girls! What’s that all about?

This type of impurity was no longer contagious, but it still required that the woman not engage sexually with her husband, and that she refrain from temple duties during that time. There has been much ink spilled over this for centuries! But as we see with the rest of Leviticus, God is amazingly practical. I think in a culture that prized sons so highly, the desire to “try again” after having a girl would have been high in the mind of the father, and this extra duration after having a girl meant that the new mom had nearly 3 months in which to recover first.

Essentially, I don’t think there is any preference in God’s mind. He just wants us to be taken care of.

Feb 20 | Lev 12:1-14:32 | 051/365

God’s Hatred of Yeast

Ever since the Passover we have been reading about unleavened bread. Yeast is not allowed! If you’re like me, you have likely been wondering why God has such an irrational abhorrence toward leaven.

Well, if you Google that you are likely to end up with several folks telling you that it is because of Paul’s teaching in Galations 5:9 that, “a little leaven, leavens the whole lump.” But in the words of Kevin McAllister… I don’t think so. I find it extremely unlikely that God was pointing to leaven as a metaphor for sin without ever explaining that metaphor for hundreds of years… long after these people who started the practice were dead.

Another — better — explanation you will get is that the Egyptians chased them out so quickly that the Israelites didn’t have time to leaven their bread and so the practice points back to the Passover in that way. (cf. Exodus 12:31) And this sounds reasonable, until you realize that just a few verses earlier God told the Israelites that they would need to observe the coming passover with unleavened bread before the Egyptians ever chased them off. So this always seemed unlikely to me.

I was stumped

But as I was talking with my wife about this, she casually suggested that God probably just wanted the bread to be a special symbol. Talk about a lightbulb moment! The bread was set apart!

Think about it. You know that Passover is coming, so you are going to make a special, unleavened loaf. A loaf that was, from its inception, always meant for a sacred purpose. You were not going to grab a loaf off the shelf that was already made for something else and repurpose it! This bread would be set aside for God.

God doesn’t deserve our “sloppy seconds”. He deserves forethought and intentionality. Ponder that thought as you consider what you offer to God in terms of your time, talent, and resources.

Levitius 9-11 | 050/365

A Pleasing Aroma

Just a quick thought today. If you have been reading along you’ll have noticed that the phrase “a pleasing aroma to God” has appeared a great many times in Genesis, Exodus, and especially Leviticus. Depending on what translation you use this phrase pops up some 43 times in the Old Testament.

But what does it mean? We burn a bull or a ram or a sheep or a pigeon and that is a “pleasing aroma” to God? Maybe He just really likes BBQ? He’s a well-done guy I guess… but the same is true when it’s bread being converted to charcoal on the altar as well. And ain’t no one likes charcoaled bread.

So what does it mean? It’s pretty simple, really. It’s not the smoked meat that God is enjoying, it’s the smell of obedience. The scent of demonstrated love. The fragrance of reconciliation. And how can we be sure of this? The Apostle Paul writes the following in Ephesians 5:2 (NLT), “Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.” God wasn’t pleased that Jesus died, but he was pleased that this act of sacrificial obedience opened the floodgates of restoration for a broken people made in the image of their loving creator.

And our daily acts of worship are the same. They are a sweet smell to God. So make sure you spend some time today, and tomorrow, and the day after that creating a pleasing aroma of worship, love, and devotion to the Lord.

Be blessed, my friends.