Leviticus Study - 2025-04-09

Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church Podcast.

If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.

Thank you for joining us today.

Welcome everyone to our Wednesday night study and we are creeping up on the end

of Leviticus, not quite there yet, but we're getting there. A few more chapters

and we'll be heading on to the next segment. So we are on Leviticus 22 tonight.

How about if we have a word of prayer to open things up? Ask God's blessing over us.

Lord, we just pause after our day, whatever our day was today,

whether it was work or leisure or around the home or whatever it was, God.

We just pause after that and we give you thanks for this day, Lord,

and we turn our hearts and minds towards you tonight, God.

And we pray for your spirit here among us, Lord, that you would give us wisdom and discernment

in your word, God. Give us a better understanding of you through your word, God.

We pray your Holy Spirit be here with us, God, in our conversation, Lord,

and with us that your presence just settle here amongst us, God.

We pray for those who can be here tonight, Lord.

Those who are at home tonight, we pray, God, your favor and blessing on them.

In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. So Leviticus 22.

And this chapter focuses on, and there's been a lot of this in Leviticus,

which has been exciting to read about, the holiness and purity

required of priests and of the offerings.

So it emphasizes both priests and the offering that they must be free

from defilement or imperfection, just a reflection, really,

of the holiness and purity of God.

And this chapter just continues to build on this theme

throughout Leviticus, of reverence towards God,

the importance of approaching him with that reverence

and the honor and respect that's due, due him.

So what I'm going to do here tonight is I've got this broken down

into three sections.

Let me, before I go any further, let me find Leviticus here.

In my handy Bible.

Should have had that right.

22, here we go.

All right. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read through,

I have four sections of Leviticus that I've identified.

Now I'm just going to read through it and I'm going to go over this highlight.

And then what I'd like to do is I would like to look at this

from two perspectives.

One, I would like to look at it from the Israelites

or the Jewish cultural or traditional perspective,

how they would have seen these various laws.

And then I'd like to take a shot at looking it through the eyes of Jesus,

how he saw that.

So let's start with one through nine.

And this is all about the priestly purity.

So the Lord spoke to Moses,

tell Aaron and his sons that they must deal respectfully

with the holy offerings of the Israelites,

which they consecrate to me,

so that they do not profane my holy name.

I am the Lord.

Say to them throughout your generations,

if any man from all your descendants approaches the holy offerings,

which the Israelites consecrate to the Lord while he is impure,

that person must be cut off from before me.

I am the Lord.

No man from the descendants of Aaron who is diseased

or has a discharge may eat the holy offerings until they become clean.

The one who touches anything made unclean by contact with a dead person

or a man who has a seminal emission

or a man who touches the swarming thing by which he becomes unclean

or touches a person by which he becomes unclean.

Whatever that person's impurity,

the person who touches any of these will be unclean until evening

and must not eat from the holy offerings unless he has bathed his body in water.

When the sun goes down, he will be clean,

and afterward he may eat from the holy offerings because they are his food.

He must not eat an animal that has died of natural causes

or an animal that has been torn by beast, thus become unclean,

thus become unclean by it.

I am the Lord.

They must keep my charge so that they do not incur sin on account of it

and therefore die because they profane it.

I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

So there were some things in there that we've been talking about

in the previous chapters as to what is unclean

and what is not unclean and how to become pure from these things.

So he's just kind of highlighting them.

We're not going to go into all the detail of that again.

But this section is basically about priestly purity

and the priests are cautions not to handle sacred offerings

if they are ceremony unclean.

So doing so it says you will profane God's holy name,

reinforcing the idea that we must serve

in this spiritual purity.

He gets into these specifics.

So that section is all about cautioning the priests

of what they're doing.

The next section, 10-16, talks about restrictions

on who may actually eat these offerings.

So starting at 10, no lay person may eat anything holy.

Neither a priest's lodger nor a hired laborer

may eat anything holy,

but if a priest buys a person with his own money,

that person may eat the holy offerings

and those born in the priest's own house may eat his food.

If a priest's daughter marries a lay person,

she may not eat the holy contribution offerings,

but if a priest's daughter is a widow or divorced

and has no children so that she returns to live

in her father's house, as in her youth,

she may eat from her father's food,

but no lay person may eat it.

If a man eats a holy offering by mistake,

he must add a fifth to it

and give the holy offering to the priests.

They must not profane the holy offerings

which the Israelites contribute to the Lord,

and so calls them to incur a penalty for guilt

when they eat their holy offerings

for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

So it really comes down to only the priests

and their household could eat from these sacred offerings.

So no outsiders that came in could eat.

There was all kinds of exclusions in there

and they really kind of underscored this idea

of the sacredness of what is given over to God.

And it doesn't really get into this,

but it talks about this in some areas.

Some of these offerings that came in

really kind of worked as part of the compensation

for the priests, providing for them

and the food for their household.

So God's being very, very specific here.

So let's move on real quick.

I'm going to move through this first section

relatively quick because we've got a lot to cover

under these things.

So 17 through 30 talks about the unblemished offering.

So the Lord spoke to Moses,

speak to Aaron, his sons, and all the Israelites

and tell them when any man from the house of Israel

or from the foreigners in Israel present

presents his offerings for any of the votive

or free will offerings which they present to the Lord

as burnt offerings, if it is to be acceptable

for your benefit, it must be flawless,

a flawless male from the cattle, sheep, or goats.

You must not present anything that has a flaw

because it will not be acceptable for your benefit.

If a man presents a peace offering sacrifice

to the Lord for a special vote of offering

or for a free will offering from the herd

or the flock, it must be flawless to be acceptable.

It must have no flaw.

Double emphasis there.

You must not present to the Lord

something blind or with a broken bone

or mutilated or with a running sore

or with festering eruption or with feverish rash.

You must not give any of these as a gift

on the altar to the Lord.

As for an ox or a sheep with a limb too long

or stunted, you may present it as a free will offering

but it will not be acceptable for a votive offering.

You must not present to the Lord

something with testicles that are bruised,

crushed, torn, or cut off.

You must not do this in your land.

Even from the foreigner, you must not present

the food of your God from such animals as these

for they are ruined and flawed.

They will not be acceptable for your benefit.

The Lord spoke to Moses

when an ox, lamb, or goat is born.

It must be under the care of its mother seven days

but from the eighth day onward

it will be acceptable as an offering gift to the Lord.

You must not slaughter an ox or a sheep

and it's young on the same day.

When you sacrifice a Thanksgiving offering to the Lord

you must sacrifice it so that it is acceptable

for your benefit.

On the very day it must be eaten

you must not leave any parts of it over until morning.

I am the Lord.

So basically God is commanding that these offerings

have to be perfect.

So you're not going and picking out the ones

that are kind of lame and not serving your purpose

but you're getting the best.

It reflects God's holiness

and this idea of the standard of giving the best

and giving the first fruits

which the Bible has talked about.

So no leftovers,

no, okay well this animal served its purpose

or this one is this, it's got to be the best

and that's a mindset that was just born into the Israelites

and I think it's something too for us to think about

and keep near to our hearts in our lives

that first fruit, that best of best

whether it's our time, our talent or our treasure.

So let's wrap this up here.

This last section 31 to 33

talks about reverence for God's name.

You must be sure to do my commandments.

I am the Lord.

You must not profane my holy name

and I will be sanctified in the midst of the Israelites.

I am the Lord who sanctifies you,

the one who brought you out of the land of Egypt

to be your God.

I am the Lord.

So the chapter really concludes with

this call to obey God's commands,

not to profane his name

and a reminder to the Israelites

this is where I brought you from

and the God's identity is just tied

and intermittent with this holiness,

this worship, this obedience

and the fact that the Israelites

are set apart

and this is something that has stayed

with the Jewish culture to this day

that they are set apart for God

that they are different

and God is just continually reminding of that.

So now that's the whole chapter.

So let's take a look at this

from the Israelite cultural

or Jewish traditional perspective

as to how they would have viewed this.

There are some really, really deep insights

into the Israelite's worship tradition

and their theological mindset

when it comes to the reverence of God.

In the broader context of Torah

which we're still in

this chapter really emphasizes

that holiness

and we've read about this before

holiness is not just a personal thing

to the Israelites or to the Jews.

Chris and I were just talking a little bit about this

yesterday, but it's a communal thing.

It really is about

their community,

even the whole of Israel

like the things that they did

and didn't do

impacted the community

not just the individual

and they really saw it that way

and that was kind of a weight

that they carried with them.

It's not just me.

We're kind of all in this together.

So the first thing is

holiness to the Jews

is contagious.

So when you're holy

and you're just kind of living that life

for them it was something that

everyone kind of participated in

and called on, but so is

defilement or sin.

They're both contagious

in their own ways.

When you're with a group of people

that are just following hard

after God, it's like,

man, we are in this together.

And it's just awesome

and we're doing this thing

but I've seen the same thing

happen with sin.

So in ancient Israel,

holiness was not something

that was taken for granted.

It was protected and preserved

and it was approached with

this intentionality.

As you can see how we've read through

Exodus and Leviticus,

this attention to detail

and the things and the systems

that were in place

that was such intentionality behind it.

And this chapter just sets

these very clear boundaries

and identifies very clearly

the risk that's associated with it.

Bringing guilt not just

upon themselves but upon

the community as a whole.

So they took this approach to God

like super serious

and the word of God

and everything was just,

it was ingrained in their kids

from when they were so small,

kind of growing up,

they were taught all of this stuff.

I remember reading a story

about the Jews when they were

in captivity.

So if you think,

this Leviticus was coming

forth about 1400 years

before the time of Jesus

and they came into captivity

with Babylon

at around 586 BC.

And I was listening to this

rabbi teacher talk

and he said,

this was most of their laws

and how they wrote

and the scriptures

and all these things.

Most of it was oral tradition.

And these rabbis

as they were in captivity,

they said,

we got away from God

and His holiness

and we got away from

the word of God

and we can never let that happen again

and that's when they started

having the scribes

kind of write all of this stuff down

and they kind of went into this idea

we have to get back

to this teaching

and we have to really take this holiness

like super serious

like we used to

because that's why we're here now

because we got away from it.

So all of those years

this idea of this holiness

was like super, super serious to them

and they had it in their hearts.

Worship wasn't a casual thing.

Sometimes I approach worship

kind of just flippantly

just come in

and just kind of start worship

and I don't prepare my heart

and I don't think deeply about it

but when you think about being

in the presence of God

the way Leviticus presents it

it's a holy thing.

Now we have differences

we're cleansed by the blood Jesus

a little bit of a difference thing

but the reverence of that to me

is something that really, really caught me.

Second thing, only the worthy

may serve and partake

ones that were set apart

specifically the priests.

So God sets limits on

who can eat the offering

the priests and their household

not the ass.

This preserved the sanctity

of the sacrifices

and reinforces this idea.

Hey, the priests are in this special role

and their role is to guide us

and this idea of access

to God through the temple

through what the priests are sustaining.

It was something when you think about

it's easy to

I've said this many times as we're going through these

it's easy to look at these things

and say, wow, this is just too much.

It's just too much.

All this process

and all of this sacrifice

and all this I can do this

and I can't do that.

But at the end of the day

worship has to cost us something, doesn't it?

Even us today,

worship has to cost us something

or we're not really giving up

our full worship to God

and that's how the Jews looked at this.

And you talked to some,

I've talked to Orthodox Jews

present-day friends

and I said, man, isn't it?

Don't you hate doing this

and not eating this and not doing that?

And he said this, his name was milk wine stock

and he said, no, no I don't.

This is my offering to God.

This is what I give him.

I don't look at it as, you know,

hurdle for me or something that's,

you know, I gotta do this again.

He said, I look at it with joy in my heart

to say I can give this thing to God.

That really touched me when he said that.

So, number three,

God deserves the best, not the leftovers.

So the animals offered,

they had to be perfect.

God demands excellence

in worship and perfection.

So in Jewish mindset,

there's this word called Kavad,

which means honor.

You know, and God is worthy of the finest

to honor God, just like you would honor

anyone of royalty or any of that.

You know, you look up to someone and say,

wow, look at them and the space that they're in,

but God is so much beyond us.

This idea of Kavad and honoring them

was something that was sacred to them.

Not what's convenient,

not what's expendable,

not what there's excess of,

but the first, the finest.

So sad sacrifices were this expression,

you know, to God of purity.

Number four, the priests were guardians

of the sacred order.

So the priests were not just

these ritual performers.

I mean, they weren't just, you know,

the people around the temple

that were here to just execute these things.

They were mediators of holiness,

and they were guides to this access

to God that he was providing.

Because remember, this is all about God

wanting to be with his people

and providing access.

And the priest's role was to guide

the people through this.

And this was a weighty role for the priests.

It was not something that they took lightly.

So the role of leadership and worship

was not about status,

but responsibility to preserve

this spiritual integrity as a nation.

Now, later, we're going to read

that it eventually did become about status,

but we're not there yet.

So, and last, worship was a whole community.

It was a covenant-based act,

and we talked just a little bit about this,

but the entire community or nation

really benefited or suffered

on how faithful this system was upheld.

So improper offerings or mishandling

of these rituals could defile

the entire sacrificial process

and bring shame on the person and the community.

So worship to them, to the early Jews,

it was not just this vertical thing

between the individual and God,

but a deeply communal, covenantal thing.

So everything that Israel did

reflected the character of God.

So that's kind of looking at this chapter

and this grouping of scripture

from a Jewish cultural perspective

and how they would have seen it.

So let's take a look at how Jesus looked at this.

So by the time Jesus, you know,

it was time it would have been

roughly 1400 years later, you know.

And the religious leaders,

particularly the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin,

had developed this new system over the years,

which really just emptied out,

you know, what God was doing here in Leviticus.

It just hollowed out the principles

of sacrifice and purity and holiness

and just turned it into this mess.

And we're going to talk about that.

So external ritual took precedence

over the internal reality

in the time Jesus was there.

So the religious rulers,

they were known,

they were known for their strict observance to the law.

They had added over the years

thousands and thousands and thousands

and thousands of laws

around what God had done in the beginning.

I forget the numbers, but it's like somewhere,

I think there's somewhere around

600 and some odd laws in Torah.

I'm not that right,

it can somewhere 600,

613 laws in Torah.

So think about this.

These were the laws.

This is what they were following.

So what the Jews did over time,

this didn't happen right away in Leviticus.

I mean, this happened over, you know,

hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

They built fences around that.

1,000 more laws,

1,000 more, 1,000 more,

grouping of like 3,000 laws.

And then another grouping of 2,

3,000 more laws.

So they had upwards of 5 to 6,000

additional laws

that surrounded this 613

laws in Torah.

So they had built this structure

that God never intended for it to be there.

I always say this, I say, you know,

God gives us a good thing

and then man has just this way of rowing it.

You know, it's just like this, you know,

it's just what we do.

I hate to say it, but, you know,

man just has this way of

taking these good things and just doing it.

So they had added these layers and layers of law

and oral tradition

that became in their minds

and what they were teaching to the people

equal or even above the laws

that were in Scripture and in practice.

They emphasized ceremonial purity

like washing of hands

and avoiding contact with sinners

while neglecting the heart,

the heart of the command.

And that's what Jesus was constantly

correcting the people on

is you are missing the heart of this.

Matthew 23, 25, he says,

you clean the outside of the dish

but the inside, but they are full of greed

and self-indulgence.

23, 27, you are like whitewashed tombs

which look beautiful on the outside

but the inside are full of bones

and of the dead.

That would have been a crushing insult

to the Sadducees and Pharisees and the Sanhedrin.

I mean, the thought of touching,

you know, something dead

was just like, oh, you know, can't do that

because of all this just nonsense.

So he calls them basically

your whitewashed tombs inside.

You're dead and defiled but on the outside

you look just real nice, nice and clean

is basically what he was saying.

So they turned God's call for holiness

and reverence into performance-based religion

focusing on the appearance

rather than the transformation of the hearts.

Next, corrupting the sacrificial system for profit.

So the Sadducees who controlled the temple

and the priesthood were largely this elite class

and they collaborated closely with the Roman authorities.

There's a lot you could read about

the histories of the Sadducees.

They really, throughout years of captivity,

they were just indoctrinated with this

Hellenistic culture and mindset

and what they did is they took this Hellenism

which they liked because of the stuff

that goes along with Hellenism

and they merged it with their Jewish faith

and they brought it together into this mishmash

of things that just don't work together.

But in their hearts they were Hellenistic.

Make no mistake about it.

There's a lot you could research and read there

and it's super interesting to do.

But the temple system had become commercialized.

So people were forced to buy approved animals

at inflated prices and exchange their money

at unfair rates.

So this was just like a system that they developed

to profit themselves.

So we all know the story of Jesus coming in

cleansing the temple, clearing the temple

and he said my house will be called a house of prayer

for all nations but you have made it a den of robbers.

So instead of guarding the sanctity of sacrifices

and leading the people to God,

they turned worship into a business,

exploiting people by it.

My little sidebar is

are we that different as a culture?

It's just that it's no work.

What's that?

It's just that it's no work.

We have monetized every aspect of Christianity.

Monetized it.

We are not that different than this

and it's something we have to guard.

Guard our hearts against

and really try to press through to that purity

and that devotional aspect that God calls us to.

Legalism replaced mercy and justice.

So in their zeal to obey the law,

all of these rules and regulations that they had put

around it, these leaders missed the heart of God.

Jesus said in Matthew 23, 23,

woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees,

you hypocrites.

You give a tenth of your spices,

mint, dill and cumin,

but you have neglected the more important matters of law.

Justice, mercy and faithfulness.

You should have practiced the latter

without neglecting the former.

So in other words, they had weaponized the law

using it to condemn, exclude and shame

rather than to lead people towards restoration.

And I can tell you, I used to do that all the time.

I used to weaponize scripture in a way

that it would just cut people

and just criticize people and say,

you shouldn't be doing it this way.

You should be doing it this way because of this

and just putting it and using it kind of as a weapon

instead of a venue of love

and instead of drawing people in with it,

I would use it to kind of, really kind of divide in a way.

And it was something that God really,

really delivered me from years and years

and years and years ago.

But they had weaponized the law.

Matthew 9, 13 says,

go and learn what this means.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

So they had forgotten the purpose of purity and sacrifice.

It was to bring people into relationship with God.

It was to draw people in to God,

not create barriers through social and spiritual hierarchies.

That's not what it was about

and that's not what it's about today.

God wants us to use his word

and to be impacted by the spirit to draw people in,

not create these barriers.

Pride and hypocrisy had replaced humility.

These religious leaders loved the recognition

and the titles and the public displays of righteousness

while ignoring the humility and fear of God

that Leviticus called us to.

Remember we read about Aaron?

They were humbled to be in the position

where they weren't touting that above and saying,

look at me, look at me.

Matthew 23, 5, everything they do is done

for people to see.

They make their philocrities wide

and their tassels on their garments long.

The philocrities with the scriptures that they had

in the boxes that they carried around with them.

Matthew 23, 6, they love the place of honor

at the banquets and the most important seats

in the synagogues.

They loved that, that people would see that

instead of that place of humility.

Holiness that God is talking about in Leviticus

is about this reverence towards God.

And in Jesus' day with the Pharisees

and with the leaders and the religious leaders,

it had become this stage of self-promotion, basically.

So the principles here in Leviticus 22,

honor, holiness, sacrifice and purity

were meant to point the Israelites

to a deep covenantal relationship with God.

But it had gotten twisted into a system of control

and profit and status in the generations to come.

So Jesus never rejected the law.

He participated in all of these festivals.

He said he came to fulfill the law.

What he rejected was this distortion and this intent

and this perversion that the people had brought into the law.

His ministry was all about this radical return

to the true heart of God, the true heart of worship,

mercy, humility, authentic relationship with God.

This chapter, again, like so many chapters in Leviticus

just reminded me about this idea of approaching God

with reverence, intentionality, integrity, humility.

So we don't live under this burden of these,

I shouldn't call it a burden because some of the Jews

didn't call it a burden, but we don't live under that system.

But God still deserves our best, right?

He still deserves the sacrifice that we should bring

from worship and our hearts should honor him

with that purity and that gratitude.

So that's 22.

You guys have your handouts.

I think we probably have enough here

for why don't we break down into two groups

and kind of have that wrestle through some of this stuff.

Sound good?

All right.

Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church

as we praise God and discuss His Word.

Don't forget to join us for Worship Live Sunday mornings

at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.

Be blessed and have a great day.