Author: Erin Newton

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Leviticus 20 Listen: (4:18) Read: Acts 16 Listen: (5:53)

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 20:7

Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God.

Reflection: Our Role in Holiness

By Erin Newton

What part do we play in holiness? As Christians, we are accustomed to crediting our holiness to the work of Christ imparted to us in faith. Are we holy in and of ourselves? No.

“Consecrate yourselves,” Leviticus 20 says. Consecration means devoting oneself to God. It is the act of separating oneself from that which is “secular.”

Child sacrifice, sexual license, and dietary restrictions—these three categories include the death penalty as a result in most cases. And these practices reflected the culture around them. God, here, describes ways to be different and be devoted.

From the way they worshiped to their intimate relations to the foods they consumed—in short, every part of life was to be consecrated to God.

Consecrating everything would be a lot easier with a long list of do’s and don’ts. Or so we think. The list here is lengthy but not comprehensive.

On top of that, some laws were seemingly rejected with Christ. Separate clean and unclean food? God tells Peter, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” (Acts 10.15). The death penalty for adulterers? Even Jesus sends the crowd away and raises no stone against the woman in John 8.

Jesus came not to abolish the Law, but he certainly understood its purpose better than we do. “Be holy” appears throughout Leviticus, nestled among commandments. It serves as a prelude to the whole litany of commands in chapter 19. It is the core truth among a myriad of rules.

We still live under the call, “Be holy as God is holy” (1 Peter 1.16), but we don’t have to worry about eating ham or keeping a pet lizard. Those rules are easily dismissed today. Yet we shudder at the mention of child sacrifice or many of the sexual practices listed in Leviticus 20.

How, in the twenty-first century, do we consecrate ourselves to God? Sometimes we’d like to reduce our faith down to a laundry list of do’s and don’ts, especially if we can check boxes and point out others’ shortcomings. But no list in the universe would be adequate to achieve our own feeble participation in holiness. In a pursuit of consecrating ourselves via ticking boxes, we’ve merely adopted legalism as our plan of salvation.

As we learn to consecrate our lives in a modern world, may we pray for wisdom to know the difference between being devoted and being legalistic.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting

With my whole heart I seek you; let me not stray from your commandments. — Psalm 119.10

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Testify to Ultimate Healing

Christ touches us before we are healed, while we are sinners, while we are his enemies. He does not inspect us for righteousness, but imputes it to us.

Read more: The Sojourn of Sanctification

Sin’s chains are struck from our hands in an instant, but it takes time…for the chains of an enslaved mindset to be melted from our hearts.

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Leviticus 13 Listen: (9:34) Read: Acts 9 Listen: (6:05)

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 13:2

2 “When anyone has a swelling or a rash or a shiny spot on their skin that may be a defiling skin disease, they must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who is a priest.

Reflection: The Stigma of Disease

By Erin Newton

When my son came home from the hospital, he had a glaring, visible physical disability. There would be no hiding this. We were prepared to have a child with disabilities, but after months of medical treatment, we realized his disease would be a billboard.

Stigma comes with diseases and disabilities. People form conclusions and assumptions without information. My love for our son was no less the day he received his tracheostomy, but I knew the stares and whispers would come the moment we stepped out of the building. I imagined them saying, Who sinned, this boy or his parents? (John 9.1-3)

Leviticus 13, unfortunately, has been misunderstood as support for associating disease with moral failure. A series of scale diseases are listed: things that cause discoloration, shiny marks, boils, burns, even baldness. Long ago, these descriptions were misidentified with leprosy, or Hansen’s disease. Combined with stories of scale diseases inflicted on a person for sin, such as Miriam in response to her criticism against Moses (Numbers 12), modern readers began to assume that God judged all those suffering from Hansen’s disease.

Diseases affecting the skin are not the only ones to carry such stigma. Amy Kenny (My Body Is Not a Prayer Request) details how people in the church have approached her with remedies or assessments of her faith just because of her disability.

How do we read Leviticus 13?

The visual aspect of scale diseases resembled skin peeling away. It was a reflection of death; it reminded them of decay. Death has no place in the presence of God. It was not a moral judgment on the person with boils but a recognition that death deteriorates the body. God bestows life and order; death brings decay and disorder.

More than anything, we must read these chapters with eyes heavenward. We are not being given a rulebook on how to judge others based on disease or disability. This chapter points up to God by pointing down toward death.

Diseases should ignite our sympathy, not our stigma.

And what of those that have no “scales” to the naked eye? What reaction will I get when I tell you of my anxiety or my OCD?

Learning to see the world through the eyes of God means being quick with sympathy and slow with accusations. It means knowing the real enemy is the disorder brought on by death and not pinpointing supposed faults.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer

The Lord is near to those who call upon him, to all who call upon him faithfully.
He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he hears their cry and helps them.
The Lord preserves all those who love him, but he destroys all the wicked. — Psalm 145.19-21

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Spiritual Twins

Each twin is a perfect donor match to the other. They can heal one another if needed. A better “eye for an eye.”

Consider Supporting Our Work

Our work can only continue with donor support. Small monthly donations, the size of your streaming subscriptions, make a huge difference.

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Leviticus 5 Listen: (3:35) Read: Acts 2 Listen: (6:35)

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 5:4-5

4 or if anyone thoughtlessly takes an oath to do anything, whether good or evil (in any matter one might carelessly swear about) even though they are unaware of it, but then they learn of it and realize their guilt— 5 when anyone becomes aware that they are guilty in any of these matters, they must confess in what way they have sinned.

Reflection: Awareness is the Signal

By Erin Newton

Ignorance is bliss—but ignorance doesn’t erase guilt. Leviticus 5 addresses two types of ignorance: doing something wrong unintentionally and doing something wrong through haphazard agreements or careless actions.

The story of Watergate is a well-known historical event about political corruption, named after the hotel where political operatives broke into the opposing party’s headquarters and planted recording machines to eavesdrop on their competition. What is less known is the story of Chuck Colson. Colson was Special Counsel to President Nixon during this time. According to his memoir, when the truth about the Watergate scandal was uncovered, Colson felt the Spirit’s conviction to confess to his participation in some of the illegal actions. His previous cavalier disregard for what was right was abruptly interrupted by awareness. He confessed, was convicted, and spent seven months in prison.

The story shocked the world. Who would admit to such a thing? Especially someone with so much power to get away with it. Who wouldn’t fight back? Yet, when someone does something wrong and confesses (such as Colson’s no contest plea), it is a moment of integrity.

Leviticus 5 highlights the reality that people are creatures of impulse, rash decision-making, and limited knowledge. We are gullible, ignorant, self-centered, distracted, and so easily duped. But such shortcomings are not swept aside. Ignorance is not a valid biblical excuse for error.

Awareness, offering, and making amends in our relationship with God are necessary. It is more than an apology or admitting an error was made. Verse 5 (and our character) hinges on the word “when.”  There is an expectation that awareness will come. How? By knowing truth, seeking wisdom, looking inward, and assessing outward. We are not meant to pursue and guard ignorance.

Plausible deniability is not a virtue God desires.

How do we become aware of our own ignorance? By being present, here and now, with your own life, your relationships and commitments. What are you tied to and invested in? Do you really know that person? That organization? That community? Where have you been and where are you trying to go? Look at your own history and past involvements. Keenly observe the direction you are headed (and with whom).

Where the Spirit convicts, admit errors and make amends.

In each of these areas, awareness is the path to freedom. The difficulty is that awareness demands an action, a correction, a confession.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. — Matthew 5.6 (KJV)

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Jesus, Our Restorer

Jesus not only rebuked Peter, telling him to put his sword back in its place, he put Malchus’s ear back in its place, healing him with a touch.

Consider Supporting Our Work

You can help us bring ad-free biblical devotionals to inboxes worldwide for the cost of a cup of coffee a week. Become a donor today.