Beginning in chapter 17, the emphasis of the book of Leviticus changes from discussing how to properly sacrifice and practice corporate worship to focusing on individual morality. Seven times in Leviticus 17, the Israelites are told not to act like the people who inhabit Canaan. God makes it clear they are different.
Borrowing terminology from Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, the Israelites are to be resident aliens. Of course, they will continue to live in the same neighborhoods as the Canaanites, but they are not to act like them. Their citizenship is in another kingdom—God’s kingdom.
Being citizens in God’s kingdom means living by his statutes. This week’s lesson passage is about God’s people avoiding the ungodly practices of the culture around them. This lesson encourages adults today to take a bold stand against sinful practices.
God delivered Israel from captivity and granted them a new land. He desired to produce in them a way of living worthy of followers of a holy God. What specifically is involved in the new life God called Israel to live?
This section of Scripture outlines some of the unacceptable practices. For example, in Egyptian culture, particularly among the royal family, it was common practice for brothers to marry their sisters. God told Israel, “Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere” (Leviticus 18:9).
In the past, Israelites may have adopted the customs of the surrounding culture. After all, Abraham and Sarah were half-siblings, but now God wanted these practices to end. The emphasis of this section is on the fact that Israel’s conduct was to be morally superior to their neighbors. Israel was not to look to Egypt or to Canaan for their sexual standard any more than we should look to the pop charts or Hollywood to justify our behavior. Israel had a new standard set by God and the spirit of that standard still applies to God’s people today.
After this long list of sexual regulations, the author includes a prohibition against an even more disturbing practice, child sacrifice. Israel is warned: “Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord” (Leviticus 18:21).
The Canaanite culture Israel moved into also would be filled with challenges. The pagan practice of child sacrifice was just one of the many practices unacceptable for Israel. God set them apart from other nations, including Canaan, and God expected them to act like it. They were called to be holy.
In Leviticus, holiness means being distinctive as the people of God. Accordingly, the central verse of this entire passage is Leviticus 20:7 which says, “Consecrate yourselves and be holy because, I am the Lord your God.” With these words, God set the standard. God’s very nature was the benchmark and the model for Israel and is for us.
Sign up for our weekly edition and get all our headlines in your inbox on Thursdays
Frederick Buechner’s definition of holy helps to shed light on how this works in our lives. He said: “Only God is holy, just as only people are human. God’s holiness is his godness. To speak of anything else as holy is to say that it has something of God’s mark upon it.”
As God’s chosen nation, Israel was to live a life of holiness. Yet, humans cannot be holy in and of themselves. Holiness is intrinsically an attribute of God alone. For humans, holiness is therefore a state of grace that comes from contact with the Divine. The message of Leviticus is that through obeying the law and carrying out rituals such as sacrifice, Israel too could become holy.
Thankfully, we no longer have to offer sacrifices in order to be made holy before God. As the New Testament reveals, “… we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). Yet Leviticus still raises the question, how do Christians today continue to demonstrate the distinctiveness that God called Israel to through the book of Leviticus? We begin by making sure we continue to hold ourselves to the standards set forth in Scripture. And we continue to resist the influence of the culture around us and follow the example of Christ.
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone about a Christian businessman who makes his living by running a payday loan agency. Payday loans are small-dollar loans designed to get clients through to their next paycheck.
The catch is that these loans come with high service fees and interest rates. Also, the borrower is normally required to pay off the loan completely at the end of two weeks, which often creates a cycle of debt that is hard to escape. The fees and interest rates that clients are asked to pay “can reach the equivalent of up to 500 percent APR,” according to researcher Amy Wiles. By charging exorbitant interest rates, these businesses take advantage of low income families who are desperate to make ends meet.
The person I was talking with argued that since these businesses are legal, it is fine for Christians to operate them. However, this passage in Leviticus reminds us that if our lending practices, our business deals, or even our sexual relationships look just like everyone else’s, we have failed. Just because it is legal does not mean it is moral. As followers of Christ, we have a different standard.
Like the Israelites, we are called to be different from the culture around us. We live in the world. Yet, we are resident aliens, constantly aware we are not of this world. Our citizenship is in God’s kingdom and our standard of morality is based on Scripture and the example of Jesus.
We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.
Send comments and feedback to Eric Black, our editor. For comments to be published, please specify “letter to the editor.” Maximum length for publication is 300 words.