another book bites the dust

The whole reading through the Bible has been a pretty long process, but it has been quite a blessing in many ways. Books that I had previously written off as boring, too long, or irrelevant, have been completed one by one. The latest book to be polished off?

Leviticus.


I guess I have always avoided this book because to me, it was just a book of old Jewish laws that are no longer relevant because of what Christ did on the cross in the New Testament. However, when I read through this time round, it was actually quite interesting. However, some parts got be a bit perplexed - like why some laws are said to be kept for all future generations (or something like that), yet we don't seem to be following them today.

So I phone a friend. Well, actually, I emailed Pastor Ed. And he gave me a pretty good explanation.

As far as the laws in Leviticus are concerned, there are basically three kinds of laws: civil laws, ceremonial laws, and moral laws. The civil laws deal with the government of the nation Israel back then and are not applicable for us today. The ceremonial laws you already commented on in your email -- "I understand that this has to do with it no longer being required because of Christ's work at Calvary in the NT". That's correct. The last group are the moral laws, such as the ten commandments; they are repeated in the NT and are still applicable to us today.

The other thing I asked him about was the issue of food (you can stop your sarcastic looks of shock now). What's the deal with the whole clean and unclean animal thing? The answer was pretty simple...

Consuming blood, eating pork or beef, etc. are controversial issues due to Christians cultural and national backgrounds and interpretation. For instance, some Chinese Christians will not eat beef and some Korean Christians will not eat pork. A good guideline to follow is Romans 14:21 -- "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." In other words, if it causes a fellow believer to stumble, don't do it.

All in all, Leviticus turned out to be a pretty good read. Very interesting to see all the laws that the Jews are supposed to follow (must be really difficult to be Jewish!). It's a shame that they don't see that they don't need to do these things any more because of Calvary!