Leviticus 20
I just spent an hour and a half with five other pastors studying Leviticus (we covered chapter 20, by the way). It's a good study and I always come away from it with something useful and helpful. It's just really difficult for me sometimes. We cover a chapter full of all kinds of sin and invariably talk about only one or two of them (today it was witchcraft and how one of the pastors in the study believes that anybody who is dominerring or intimidating is practicing witchcraft... and I couldn't help but see the whole Monty Python "how do you know she's a witch" play out, you know if she weighs the same as a duck, she's a witch...so if a person is intimidating, they're a witch...um, I just don't follow that logic...). Anyway, at least we didn't beat up gay people again today (which was also in that chapter). But we danced around it.
So I asked what do we do with this chapter? What do we do with "If a man commits adultery with another man's wife...both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death." (Leviticus 20:10, NIV) Kill the adulterers? Along with: the person who curses their father or mother, the man who sleeps with his father's wife (and the woman), the man who sleeps with his daughter-in-law (and the woman), the man who sleeps with a man (and the man), the man who marries a woman and her mother (and the women, and they are to be burned...), the man who sleeps with an animal (and the animal), the woman who sleeps with an animal (and the animal), and, finally, the mediums (not the extra-larges...heh) and the spiritists. Do we take the "Kill 'em all and let God sort them out" stance? I don't think so...
I realize that sin is serious business, and that's what we ultimately talked about this morning. But I'm still not certain what to do with these things. You see, Verse 25 talks about clean and unclean animals. "Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground -- those which I have set apart as unclean for you." Okay, but what about Peter's dream? And why are animals declared acceptable but not other things? And what about the council at Jerusalem which decreed to the Gentiles, "You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things." (Acts 15:29 NIV)
I'm not suggesting "anything goes." Paul deals with that attitude:
What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? (Romans 6:1-2 NRSV)
Conclusions? None. Working out my salvation with fear and trembling...
So I asked what do we do with this chapter? What do we do with "If a man commits adultery with another man's wife...both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death." (Leviticus 20:10, NIV) Kill the adulterers? Along with: the person who curses their father or mother, the man who sleeps with his father's wife (and the woman), the man who sleeps with his daughter-in-law (and the woman), the man who sleeps with a man (and the man), the man who marries a woman and her mother (and the women, and they are to be burned...), the man who sleeps with an animal (and the animal), the woman who sleeps with an animal (and the animal), and, finally, the mediums (not the extra-larges...heh) and the spiritists. Do we take the "Kill 'em all and let God sort them out" stance? I don't think so...
I realize that sin is serious business, and that's what we ultimately talked about this morning. But I'm still not certain what to do with these things. You see, Verse 25 talks about clean and unclean animals. "Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground -- those which I have set apart as unclean for you." Okay, but what about Peter's dream? And why are animals declared acceptable but not other things? And what about the council at Jerusalem which decreed to the Gentiles, "You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things." (Acts 15:29 NIV)
I'm not suggesting "anything goes." Paul deals with that attitude:
What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? (Romans 6:1-2 NRSV)
Conclusions? None. Working out my salvation with fear and trembling...
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