All these regulations...

Leviticus 8:1 - 15:33

I had a couple people ask about the blog this past week wondering what had happened. Most all of them wondering what the heck I was going to write about given what we'd been reading!!

The interesting bits to me are:

Lev 10:1-3
Aaron's sons experience Raiders of the Lost Ark like wrath of God stuff and get fried for offering unauthorized fire before the Lord. All I can think here is that God has ordained how that was supposed to work and they didn't follow orders. Remember this is the official grand opening of the tabernacle so God was no doubt going to be strict out of the gate. (We'll read more on this tomorrow.)

As to the stuff that follows think in the context of a 1,000,000+ person camping trip. How do we keep the people healthy, on their feet, and on the march...

Clean and unclean animals? Health regulations really. God trying to point out what is going to keep His people on their feet.

Skin diseases? For thos of us who have seen pverty in the developing world we know how easily disease can spread and we know how often e see folks, who have no medical resources available, just live day to day with bad, often contagious infections. These regulations in Leviticus are designed to keep disease from spreading. Notice how the folks deemed to be infected have to identify themselves by how they dress, they have to cover their lower face (mouth) and they have to live outside the camp. All steps that keep disease from spreading. (Interesting to note too that some of the symptoms described are the early stages of leprosy.)

Mildew? Same thing, regulations to keep folks healthy.

It starts to cross over into respect for the Lord as we see what is required to "come back" from being unclean and, although it is tedious to read, I love the picture of intimacy it paints in that the Lord wants to be intimately involved at a very detailed level when someone comes back into fellowship.