Leviticus

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Wordle, I used the entire text of Leviticus to create the above word cloud in which larger words appear in the text more often and smaller words less often. This tool is often used to determine the main focus of a text (Biblical or not). Here you can see that the main focus of Leviticus(according to Wordle) is the LORD with our offering coming in second. Now allow me to offer a word cloud of the things I have heard about Leviticus in the past year:

I suppose it goes without saying that Leviticus doesn't receive a very accurate representation these days. You'll notice that the word "homosexual" does not appear in any form in the cloud of the actual text of Leviticus. So why do we focus so heavily on this "theme" of the text (that is, if two mentions can be called a "theme")? Christians like to try to be relevant. This search for relevance will need to be the topic of another blog post some other day, but for now, suffice it to say that we're doing it wrong. We should approach scripture with an open mind, reading it for what it says instead of coming in looking for an answer and cherry-picking that answer out of context. So before you open your Bible to Leviticus to tell your Atheist friend what God says about gays, try reading the whole book first, it's actually not that long. You'll probably find some cool stuff in there that you didn't realize before. For example:

There are two themes that readily stand out in Leviticus. The first is God's Holiness. God tells Moses that His laws are set in place so that the Israelites can be holy, which is desirable because God is Holy. Over and over again God reminds His people of His Holiness and of the fact that He is making them holy through His Law. I grew up thinking that holy meant perfect. A holy person was perfect and they knew it. And they knew that you weren't. It wasn't until recently that I learned that holy just means set apart and it usually implies a purpose. So when God tells the Israelites that He is making them holy, He is telling them that He is setting them apart with a purpose. They are seeking after something different than the people around them. And while their goals are arguably better than those of the people around them, this holiness doesn't mean that the Israelites are themselves better than anyone else. Neither are we.

The second theme that stands out to me in Leviticus is redemption. This theme is a little less obvious than the last one. While holiness is an overarching theme throughout the entire book, redemption is really only focused on in one chapter (25). Without going into too much detail (you really should read it for yourself), the concept of redemption in Leviticus refers to buying something back. For one example, if a man sold another man his home, he could "redeem" it (buy it back) within a year for the full price plus one fifth if he wanted/needed to move back. This historical understanding of redemption serves to enhance our understanding of Christ's work on the cross. We were God's, but our sin separated us from Him. So He came to Earth and died to pay the redemption cost for us. He wanted us back, so He payed for all the sin that separated us from Him (plus one fifth? ;). While that nicely summed up in just a few sentences, this is perhaps one of the most profound events in our history, and shoud be pondered and reflected upon as such.

All this without mention of the Year of Jubilee, skin diseases, sacrificial offerings, or holy festivals. Each of these (except maybe skin diseases) could be their own blog entry!