What does it mean to be holy, and why does Leviticus spend so much time distinguishing between what is clean and unclean? In this reflection on Leviticus 11–15, we explore the laws concerning food, childbirth, skin conditions, purification, and bodily discharges. These chapters can seem strange and distant from our modern lives, but they reveal something important about Israel’s calling to be a people set apart for God. We also consider how ritual uncleanness differs from sin and how Jesus’ healing of the woman who had been bleeding gives us a beautiful picture of holiness bringing restoration rather than separation. Ultimately, holiness isn’t about becoming preoccupied with rules. It’s about following Jesus and allowing his grace to transform our lives.
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Good morning! I hope you’re doing well this Thursday morning. I hope things are going well for you this week.
The week just keeps rolling along, doesn’t it? We’re getting close to the weekend, and it’s a big weekend here in Starkville. It’s Mississippi State Homecoming! So, if you’re coming up to Starkville, we’d love to see you. And we’d especially love for you to stay an extra night and worship with us here at First Church on Sunday.
Wherever you find yourself, I hope you’re enjoying this time of year. We’re really getting into the heart of fall. Halloween is behind us, we’ve had our fall festivals, and now we’re turning toward Thanksgiving. And before you know it, Christmas will be here, followed by the new year.
My joke is that churches are already planning Christmas, and I’m sitting here saying, “Well, we need to look past Christmas. What are we thinking about for Easter?”
That’s just the way things work in the church. Time moves quickly, and before you know it, the next season is upon us.
Today, we’re continuing our big-picture look at Leviticus.
We’re not trying to dig into every verse or every individual reference. I think sometimes the best way for us, with our modern understanding, to approach Leviticus is to step back and look at the bigger picture. What are the larger ideas we can learn from this book of the law?
Leviticus is essential to understanding the ceremonial, religious, and ritual life of the Jewish people. It helps us understand the world of Jesus and shapes the way we understand the law and the life of faith.
Remember the larger structure we’ve been talking about. You have the offerings at the beginning of Leviticus, then the instructions about the priests and their responsibilities. As we move toward the center of the book, we encounter the laws concerning what is clean and unclean. And right in the middle, we find the Day of Atonement, which is one of the most important chapters in the entire book.
Today, we’re looking at chapters 11 through 15. Tomorrow, we’ll get to chapter 16 and the Day of Atonement.
These chapters deal with the distinction between clean and unclean.
Chapter 11 deals with clean and unclean animals and food.
Chapter 12 deals with childbirth and the purification practices associated with it.
Chapter 13 deals with skin diseases, traditionally translated as leprosy.
Chapter 14 describes the process of purification and restoration for those affected by certain skin conditions.
And chapter 15 deals with bodily discharges.
Boy, who doesn’t love a good discussion of bodily discharges?
But here’s the important thing: These chapters are really about holiness. They’re about what it means for God’s people to be set apart.
And I want you to notice something. Holiness isn’t simply an individual calling. It’s also a communal calling.
It’s not just that Andy Stoddard is supposed to pursue a life of holiness. It’s that I want our church to pursue holiness. I want our entire conference to pursue holiness. I want the people of God to live in a way that is distinct and different from the world around us.
But I want to be careful about something as we read these chapters.
It’s tempting to read things into the text that aren’t actually there. That doesn’t mean we can’t draw spiritual lessons from Scripture. Of course we can. But we need to be careful not to confuse the spiritual lessons we take away with the specific reasons Scripture actually gives.
Let’s start with chapter 11 and the clean and unclean animals.
The chapter gives specific instructions about which animals the people of Israel could eat.
For land animals, they were to have divided hooves and chew the cud. An animal had to meet both requirements to be considered clean. That’s why animals such as camels, rabbits, and pigs were considered unclean.
There are also instructions about water creatures, birds, and insects. Certain creatures were permitted, while others were not. There were also instructions about avoiding contact with the carcasses of certain animals.
Now, people sometimes explain these dietary restrictions by saying that the animals were unhealthy to eat. And there may have been practical health considerations associated with some of these practices. But that’s not the reason the text itself gives.
The stated reason is holiness. God tells the people to be holy because God is holy.
The point is that Israel is to be a people set apart.
These dietary practices distinguished the Israelites from the people around them. Their everyday lives, even something as ordinary as what they ate, reminded them that they belonged to God.
I once heard a rabbi friend make the observation that there’s nothing inherently wrong with a sausage biscuit. It’s simply that the Jewish people were commanded not to eat pork as part of their calling to be different.
That’s an important distinction. The issue isn’t that the animal itself possesses some inherent moral evil. It’s that God gave Israel particular practices that marked them as a people set apart.
Chapter 12 deals with childbirth.
And here’s something important: Childbirth is not sinful.
The chapter describes certain purification practices following the birth of a child. It gives different time periods for the birth of a male child and a female child.
People have debated why those periods are different. There are various explanations, but the text itself doesn’t give us a clear reason.
That’s one of those places where we have to be willing to sit with Scripture, wrestle with it, and acknowledge what we don’t know.
But I do think it’s important to recognize that ritual uncleanness is not necessarily a statement about someone’s moral condition.
A woman who has given birth hasn’t committed a sin. These instructions concern ritual purity and participation in the religious life of the community.
And when we read the New Testament, we encounter a new understanding of the relationship between people. Paul tells us in Galatians that in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female, because we are all one in Christ Jesus.
That doesn’t mean every distinction in human experience disappears. But it does remind us that our standing in Christ isn’t determined by those distinctions.
Chapter 13 deals with skin diseases, traditionally translated as leprosy.
One thing we need to understand is that the biblical word translated as leprosy covers a much broader range of skin conditions than what we call leprosy today. We shouldn’t assume that every person described as having leprosy in Scripture had what we would now medically diagnose as Hansen’s disease.
These chapters describe conditions that could affect a person’s participation in the community. Depending on the condition, a person might have to live outside the camp until they could be examined and declared clean.
And there’s a connection here to some of the other themes we’ve already seen in Leviticus.
Throughout these chapters, we encounter blood, bodily conditions, disease, and death. In the biblical understanding, blood is closely associated with life, and it is treated with particular reverence.
Some of these conditions remind us of the fragility of human life and the effects of living in a world where illness, suffering, and death are realities.
We can connect that larger reality to the story of Genesis 3, where sin enters the world and death becomes part of the human experience.
But again, we need to be careful. Having a skin condition didn’t mean that someone had committed a particular sin. We should never confuse ritual uncleanness with moral guilt.
Chapter 14 tells us how a person who has been affected by these conditions can be declared clean and restored to the community.
And I think that’s important.
Uncleanness isn’t necessarily permanent. There are circumstances in which someone is separated from the community for a time, but there are also provisions for restoration.
That brings us to one of my favorite stories in the Bible.
Think about the woman who had been suffering from bleeding for many years. We find her story in the Gospels. Because of her condition, she would have been considered ritually unclean under the law.
She reaches out and touches Jesus, believing that even touching his clothing might bring healing.
And something remarkable happens.
Under the usual understanding of ritual uncleanness, contact with an unclean person could make another person unclean. But in this encounter, we see something different. Jesus isn’t made unclean by her condition. Instead, his healing power restores her.
I think that’s a beautiful picture of the way Jesus works.
His holiness isn’t diminished by coming into contact with human brokenness. Instead, his holiness brings healing and restoration.
And finally, chapter 15 deals with bodily discharges.
I just didn’t know that I’d have to say the words “bodily discharge” quite so many times in a Bible study!
I know there’s nothing you love more than hearing me talk about that first thing in the morning.
But seriously, these instructions deal with ordinary biological realities. They include things that happen to our bodies as part of life, as well as conditions that may involve illness.
And that’s important because not everything described as unclean in this chapter is the result of wrongdoing or sin.
Our bodies are complicated. They do all kinds of things. Sometimes those things affect our health, our relationships, and our ability to participate in the community.
The instructions in Leviticus provide a way for the people to understand and respond to those circumstances.
So, when we step back and look at chapters 11 through 15, we see that these instructions are about holiness, being set apart, and living together as God’s people.
And I think there’s an important lesson here for us.
Our focus on holiness needs to be rooted in following Jesus. It needs to be about allowing his grace to work in our lives and shape the way we live.
We can become so focused on rules, regulations, and legalistic concerns that we actually miss the point of what God is trying to do in us.
We can keep a law perfectly and still miss the heart of the law.
As Fred Craddock once put it, you can get an A in Bible and an F in Christianity.
I think that’s a pretty good reminder.
It isn’t simply about knowing the rules or following a particular set of regulations. It’s about loving Jesus and allowing that love to transform our lives.
And when we follow Jesus, when we allow his grace to shape us, the rest begins to fall into place.
So, these are interesting chapters. They’re challenging chapters, and there are certainly things in them that are difficult for us to understand from our modern perspective.
But I hope this big-picture look helps you see how they fit into the larger story of Scripture.
Tomorrow, we’ll get to the Day of Atonement, one of the most important passages in all of Leviticus.
I hope you have a great rest of your day. I’ll see you in the morning.
Thanks!