February 6 A READ LEVITICUS 18–20
A Holy People Uniquely His
OVERVIEW
In addition to the regulations governing national holiness, God provides Israel with laws governing personal conduct and purity in matters pertaining to the family, community, and society in general. Because of the central importance of obedience, God requires that violators be punished promptly and in a manner appropriate to the crime committed. God’s strict guidelines for living reflect his desire that his people be holy and uniquely his.
MY DAILY WALK
The chapters you read today are not pleasant, for in them you will discover the depths to which fallen human nature has always been capable of sinking: incest, child sacrifice, prostitution, bestiality, homosexuality. More than fourteen hundred years later, Paul would describe human nature in similar, dismaying terms (Romans 1:18-31). And these lists still appear in today’s headlines, for human nature has not changed.
With so many ways for God’s children to go astray, is it any wonder that God must lay down so many rules for them to follow? God desires that his people be transformed by their relationships with him—not conformed to their world.
How about you? Are you transformed by godliness or conformed to worldliness? (Or are you deformed by trying to be both?) Take a strip of paper and write down those areas of your life in which you may be too much of a conformist (dress, activities, personal life, speech). Use it as a bookmark in your Bible to remind you that living what you read is the transformation God desires.
A CHRISTIAN’S SPIRITUAL HEALTH IS EXACTLY PROPORTIONAL TO HIS OR HER DEVOTION TO GOD.
INSIGHT
Do Like Me to Be Like Me | Lev. 19:2
To be holy means to be sanctified or set apart (19:2). It involves limits and borders from the culture at large. Nearly thirty times in chapters 18–22 we read God’s words: “I am the LORD,” and “Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.” God’s holiness is the all-compelling reason for his children to live holy lives.
INSIGHT
Familiar Commandments in an Unfamiliar Place | Lev. 19:1-37
Last month you read Exodus 20:1-17, the passage containing the familiar Ten Commandments. But did you know most of the ten are also contained in Leviticus 19? Go prospecting through the chapter to see how many you can find.
Forbidden Sexual Practices
1Then the LORD said to Moses, 2“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. I am the LORD your God. 3So do not act like the people in Egypt, where you used to live, or like the people of Canaan, where I am taking you. You must not imitate their way of life. 4You must obey all my regulations and be careful to obey my decrees, for I am the LORD your God. 5If you obey my decrees and my regulations, you will find life through them. I am the LORD.
6“You must never have sexual relations with a close relative, for I am the LORD.
7“Do not violate your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; you must not have sexual relations with her.
8“Do not have sexual relations with any of your father’s wives, for this would violate your father.
9“Do not have sexual relations with your sister or half sister, whether she is your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born into your household or someone else’s.
10“Do not have sexual relations with your granddaughter, whether she is your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, for this would violate yourself.
11“Do not have sexual relations with your stepsister, the daughter of any of your father’s wives, for she is your sister.
12“Do not have sexual relations with your father’s sister, for she is your father’s close relative.
13“Do not have sexual relations with your mother’s sister, for she is your mother’s close relative.
14“Do not violate your uncle, your father’s brother, by having sexual relations with his wife, for she is your aunt.
15“Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law; she is your son’s wife, so you must not have sexual relations with her.
16“Do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife, for this would violate your brother.
17“Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. And do not take* her granddaughter, whether her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter, and have sexual relations with her. They are close relatives, and this would be a wicked act.
18“While your wife is living, do not marry her sister and have sexual relations with her, for they would be rivals.
19“Do not have sexual relations with a woman during her period of menstrual impurity.
20“Do not defile yourself by having sexual intercourse with your neighbor’s wife.
21“Do not permit any of your children to be offered as a sacrifice to Molech, for you must not bring shame on the name of your God. I am the LORD.
22“Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin.
23“A man must not defile himself by having sex with an animal. And a woman must not offer herself to a male animal to have intercourse with it. This is a perverse act.
24“Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, for the people I am driving out before you have defiled themselves in all these ways. 25Because the entire land has become defiled, I am punishing the people who live there. I will cause the land to vomit them out. 26You must obey all my decrees and regulations. You must not commit any of these detestable sins. This applies both to native-born Israelites and to the foreigners living among you.
27“All these detestable activities are practiced by the people of the land where I am taking you, and this is how the land has become defiled. 28So do not defile the land and give it a reason to vomit you out, as it will vomit out the people who live there now. 29Whoever commits any of these detestable sins will be cut off from the community of Israel. 30So obey my instructions, and do not defile yourselves by committing any of these detestable practices that were committed by the people who lived in the land before you. I am the LORD your God.”