Some Guidelines

I would like to offer a few guidelines for our continuing discussion on Leviticus. As Keith Cuttrell helped us begin to do last Sunday, some of these guidelines address our hang-ups or default modes of interpretation. These hang-ups will hamper our complete understanding of what we are reading (this is especially true of Old Testament texts) and keep us from realizing any truth that does not already fit into our view of the Mosaic Law.

1. We must begin by attempting to understand the Levitical Code as it was when it was handed down by God. In other words, we need to try and get in the mindset of the Hebrews at Mount Sinai when they first received the law and as they tried to carry it out in the following generations.

Obviously, the Hebrew nation interpreted and reinterpreted the law many times trying to live it out in their ever-changing milieu. Their history (as read in the Old Testament) is full of clues as to how they interpreted God's laws. It is also obvious that it is extremely difficult for each of us to think like an ancient Hebrew person. But that does not take us off the hook for trying to do so. Taking us to guideline number two...

2. We should not view the Levitical Code solely or even mostly through the lens of the New Testament. For example, by the time Jesus was born there was a strong movement among the Jews to bring more importance to observance of the law, something many saw lacking in the people. We read how Jesus was constantly dealing with the poisonous legalism of the Pharisees and others. So it would be easy to conclude that legalism was a problem for the Israelites.

A quick glance through the prophets of the Old Testament, however, shows us that legalism was not a problem throughout most of the history of the Hebrews. They actually had a difficult time following the most basic laws of the Ten Commandments, especially the whole you will have no other gods before me part. If we allow our New Testament understanding of the law to overshadow our studies we will have many of these kinds of misunderstandings.

3. It is important to recognize the tendency in many of our churches (churches of Christ) to lean towards a legalistic theology. Some of us grew up in a church where 'being right' trumped everything else and nowhere was this more prominently displayed than in worship. Conducting worship correctly was all that really mattered.

Because of this history, some of us have an aversion to studying law at all. We want grace and truth, not law. We wonder how God could have ever put so many, seemingly meticulous, laws on his people and then linked obedience to the law with righteousness and holiness. This can scare us, anger us, and even hurt us, depending on how legalistic our past churches have been.

Not all of you have this in your past and will not understand completely what I am talking about. That is great! I am glad you do not have the often painful memories that legalistic Christian leaders/teachers have given the rest of us.

For those of us with these memories...should the fact that someone in our past misused, or misunderstood, the word of God keep us from studying that word and exposing that misuse? Of course not. We should reexamine the law and expose the ways in which it has been abused so that we might have a fuller understanding of how God relates to his people, then and now.

4. The first three guidelines having been said, we should come to an understanding of what the Levitical Code means to us today as Christians. There is little point studying Leviticus if we do not answer some important questions about how we relate to it.

Does the old law matter at all to us?

Why do we still follow some laws, but not all?

What does it mean for us to be a priesthood today?

Why would God set up this code of living only to do away with so much of it through Christ?

How does Christ's sacrifice on the cross relate to the sacrifices of the old law?

These are just a few of the many questions that are important to us. Will we answer all of these in our three months of study? No. Actually, more than anything I am hoping to leave you with many more questions than you had when we began. That way hopefully you will continue your study and never stop learning.

In some of our classes I will force us to stay in the text of Leviticus and discuss only it. Once we have done that, then we can move on to what the New Testament says about our text and what it should mean to us today.

5. No question or comment is too pushy, controversial, or stupid. We are a community of love and our assumption is that everything we say is in a spirit of love. Therefore our classes are a safe place to question and comment as we see fit. Sometimes I will say things that are meant to be thought-provoking, though I may not even believe them, just to push us to a new place. I believe we learn more when we are exploring the unfamiliar than when we are merely re-hashing the familiar.

Sometimes I will do what I call 'pushing back' on your comments and questions, but it is only to force you to defend what you say or develop the thought more fully. It is never to argue or put anyone down.

These are the guidelines I feel are most important. I could write many more, but these are the basics and give us somewhere to start, and from which to possibly deviate.

What am I missing? What did I get wrong? What would you add or change?

This is supposed to be a forum for you to express your thoughts.



Stay Holy,

Len