This Week In Leviticus

Time
This week's Torah portion starts with a reminder of Aaron's sons that died. Aaron is then warned that he must not go into the sanctuary any time he feels like it. This gives more weight to the possibility that Nadab and Abihu were killed for going in at the wrong time.

There is such a thing as holy time. When God declares something about a day, his declaration is true. Our timing ought to line up with God's timing.

The tenth day of the seventh month is Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement. That day is unique/holy to God. The priests might want to do a good thing, but if they did it at the wrong time it was trouble.

The seventh day of each week is also holy time. Working is a good thing. But not on the Sabbath. God said so.

Misunderstanding
I've heard it taught that the High Priest had bells on the bottom of his robe and when he went into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur they would tie a rope around his foot and if the bells stopped ringing they knew he was dead and would pull him out.

Not true. The High Priest's ephod did have bells along the hem. But the one day that he would remove that ephod was on Yom Kippur. When he went into the Holy of Holies, he wore a plain linen tunic, the standard dress for any priest.

Read Leviticus 16:4,24. Have you heard the rope and bells story before?

Acts 15
This week's torah portion contains the source of the prohibitions in Acts 15.

Lev. 17:1-9 says that sacrifices needed to be brought to the Tabernacle (later the Temple) so that they wouldn't be eating sacrifices to false gods/idols.

Lev. 17:10-14 prohibits eating blood.

Lev. 17:15 prohibits eating animals found dead or killed by another animal (aka strangled, since predators attack the neck).

Lev. 18 defines sexual immorality

Acts 15:20 "Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood."

Enter the Teachings of Man.

Modern day teachers have said that in Romans and Corinthians Paul tells the believers that it's okay to eat food sacrificed to idols. Why would he contradict himself? They use 1 Corinthians 8 to say that it's okay to eat food sacrificed to idols, but in 1 Corinthians 10 Paul explained that idols are linked to demons and we should have nothing to do with demons.

Modern day teachers say it's okay to eat bloody meat. And they would probably say there's nothing immoral about eating roadkill. Where is the Biblical support?

What is sexually immoral? Lev. 18 includes incest, adultery, sex with a woman in her period, homosexuality, and bestiality. How were the Gentiles to know all this unless they studied torah? Their culture approved of all kind of perverted sex.

What is the transition from OT to NT? Do we obey everything from the Old unless it is rejected in the New? Or do we ignore everything from the Old unless it is re-commanded in the New?

The prohibition on sex with a woman in her period is not rejected in the New Testament, yet many Christians think that it's okay.

The prohibition on bestiality is not repeated in the New Testament, yet few Christians would say that it's okay.

It shouldn't be surprising that the term "Homosexual Christian" is becoming more accepted.

Without the foundation of the Torah, the structures of morality in modern day Christianity are built on sand. What a person feels or thinks becomes more important than what the Bible says. Are you building your life on the Spoken, Written and Living Word of God or on the words of men?