Why I Now Love Leviticus

I have a confession. I’ve avoided reading many parts of the Bible, mainly the Old Testament. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I’ve committed myself to reading it from start to finish and always end up giving up somewhere between Genesis 33 and Exodus 13. I get bored, I lose my place, I don’t understand anything that I’m reading. But mostly I quit because I have a hard time reconciling that God of the Old Testament with the Christ I know in the New Testament. I get skittish around Bible stories that don’t fit the God I want to believe in. I don’t always trust that the God of the Old Testament is a God that I will love and adore as much as the Jesus I know in the New Testament. As a result I avoid much of the Old Testament. But I am a youth pastor now (or something like it) and I am embarrassed to admit that many of my students have a better knowledge of the Bible than I do. So 2010 is the year that I started a Bible reading plan. Usually I have a little Old Testament and a chapter in the New Testament and maybe a Psalm thrown in there for good measure. It’s a doable amount (less doable is the 3-5 days of catch up I end up doing when I continually get behind…but alas, I’ve got no one to blame but myself).

I’ll never forget the sense of accomplishment I felt when, at the beginning of February, I finished Exodus! I’d never gotten that far before! I understood why I’d never made it to that point before; God was protecting me from the pages and pages dedicated to the description of the tabernacle. In an earlier time, that might have put me over the edge. But I persevered. I powered through. And I was rewarded with…Leviticus. Oh Leviticus. My eyes hurt just thinking about it. But, in some beautiful foresight made by someone smarter than me, my Bible reading plan had me reading Leviticus along side Acts. Thank you Jesus.

I loved reading Leviticus alongside Acts. I love Acts. I love the bold faith, the crazy miracles, the energy of the Holy Spirit. But I appreciated both Acts and Leviticus more when I read them together. As I read list after list of what was clean and what was not in Leviticus, God lovingly brought me back to what He told Peter in Acts 10:15- “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” As I read page after page about sin offerings and guilt offerings in Leviticus, I realized through Acts just what Jesus’ death did. In the times before Christ’s life and death people had to make atonement and pay for their sins. They had to kill goats and drain the blood and do all sorts of other gross things. Christ’s death has taken that away. Goats and bulls and lambs do not have to die anymore. Christ paid the price! He freed us from the tiring game of evening up the score. Without Leviticus I never understood just how chained to this cycle of sacrifice and atonement the Jews were. It was a profound moment at Caribou coffeehouse when I realized the full weight of what Christ was freeing the Jews from on that cross and the extent of how life changing that message would have been to the people in Acts.

Leviticus shows me the depth and detail of the law and Acts constantly reiterates how Christ took all that away. It is not through the law, through circumcision and keeping Kosher that we are saved. It is through the grace of Jesus. Leviticus showed me grace in a new way. And so I plug along through the Old Testament, riddled with questions and wrestling to understand who God is in the midst of mind numbingly detailed rules and people being wiped off the earth in a moment because of their failure to obey. I realize that I need to study the Old Testament because I need to know who God really is and trust that I will still really like Him on the other side of it. And revelations like the ones I received in Leviticus and Acts are helping me to do just that.

Who's YOUR Story For?

IWho is your story for?

I love a good story. As a kid I was a voracious reader, devouring books as though they were Hostess Swiss cake rolls (by far my favorite “banned” treat as a child). My favorite part of meeting new people is getting to know their life story, and then, as I get to know them better, learning how that story has shaped and formed them. In my younger days I used to wish for a different story, one with more adventure, grit and danger. I have a pretty picture perfect life story. I’ve been incredibly blessed with two loving parents, family and friends that make life good, and virtually no major disaster or drama. I was a goody two shoes who played by the rules, which was easy because I was never really tempted in the first place. The closest I ever came to drugs was when the smelly kid pulled out a bag of weed on the bus home in 9^th grade. I immediately joined every possible after school activity to insure I would never have to take the bus again. Dork.

Anyway, the white picket fence suburb I grew up in gave me a story that is tame, and safe and would never inspire a made for t.v. movie. I always found myself daydreaming big dramatic moments. Even my conversion to Christ took about three years longer than it needed to because I kept waiting for that “moment.” Something akin to God speaking to me while being held hostage in a bank robbery. Telling me that he would spare my life if I promised to finally give it to Him. A moment that ended with me sharing Christ with the bank robbers who then gave their lives to Him and let all the hostages go. You know, no big deal….dork.

I think that’s why I love Paul’s story. Oh the drama and excitement! My overactive imagination could not have written it better myself. You have this hardcore Jesus hater, on his way to relentlessly hunt down the people of “the Way,” struck blind as he hears the voice of Jesus. By the time God restores his sight he is not the same. Saul became Paul. He is now in the temples, preaching that Jesus is the son of God. He has become like those he once hunted.

I love in Acts 22 when Paul speaks to the Jews who are trying to arrest him. He clearly shares his story with them, boldly telling of what Christ did to him, for him and through him. Paul was the perfect person to share this testimony to this group of people because of who he was before Christ changed his life. He was once like them. As Saul, he would have been in that crowd, calling for the death of the one who proclaims Jesus as the Messiah. If anyone’s story had a hope of softening the hardened hearts of this crowd it was Paul’s. The scene makes me imagine a modern day picture of Bill Maher attending some atheist convention as a changed man, sharing with the crowd his and God’s story, impacting them as only he could.

It also makes me wonder whom my story is for. Tame as it may be, it is the story God and I share and it has potential to impact someone. Who is your story for? Does your story contain parts you are ashamed of? Segments you wish you could edit out? I’m sure Paul cringed when he thought of the damage he caused while he watched Stephen being stoned to death. I’m sure he would have liked to gloss over why he was on the road to Damascus in the first place. But who Paul was is what makes his story so compelling. What Christ redeemed and saved in you is what will give hope to others. And if you’re like me, wondering if you would have a greater impact if your story had a bigger rock bottom moment, or some crazy loud message of hope and redemption…well, there are so many people who’s lives haven’t been so rocked to the core that they have no place to turn but God. Maybe those people need to hear how God works in the mundane moments of life and woos ordinary people in ordinary ways. Maybe those people need help becoming aware of the voice of God in the tamer moments of life. You are unique. God has worked uniquely in your life. Who can be impacted by your unique story?