General A Lesson from Leviticus

[Lori Jane]

I just finished the book of Leviticus for my bible reading - I have to admit it was a hard one to get through.

I was doing some research and came across this article and it struck me https://unoriginalobservations.word...blems-and-misunderstanding-the-old-testament/

The key is in Leviticus 13:46, just after we read the humiliating way in which Lepers were to announce their presence, we read these words:

He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.

Now look at what it says in Exodus 33:7:

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.

Do you see it. Lepers were to live outside the camp, the place in which the very dwelling place of God resided! Surely the Israelites caught this connection as they read. God’s intention was to communicate His care for those who are outcast because of their position in society. And it doesn’t end there. The writer of Hebrews sheds even more light on this issue. Look at Hebrews 13:11-13:

… the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.
God dwells in the midst of those who are suffering. Jesus died in their very presence. And we are now called to join with Christ in His suffering for the sake of those who are in most desperate need of true mercy and love. This is the call that Christ has placed on us, to associate with the lowly because He has done the same for us. We may be healthy in body, but without Him, we are all lepers, destined to remain outside the camp and away from the rest of society. But He has welcomed us into His eternal holy city by the blood He shed for us in our midst. Now, we must go in the words of Micah 6:8:

He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
We must bring justice to those who are oppressed, love those who are unloveable, and walk humbly in light of the reality of our sinfulness and the amazing Grace that God showed to us when He sent His very own Son to die like a Leper outside the gate so that we might inherit the Kingdom.

I feel the disfellowshipping doctrine the JWs follow totally misses the mark. We exJWs are on the "outside" and what did we find? God's very presence!

God dwells in the midst of those who are suffering.

 

[Lori Jane]

And here is another good one https://agapechicago.com/2017/03/06/2017-3-6-in-case-you-missed-it-leviticus-13-14-psalm-65/

Certainly God is a practical God. But there are deeper reasons for these laws. Ultimately God is making a tabernacle to usher Israel back into a new sort of Eden where God would be present with his people. Death, disease, sickness, and danger do not belong there. We understand this;, but in a world full of sinners, some times expelling danger means expelling people. For example, this leaves the problem of people with leprosy being unclean for ceremonial worship. They are cut off from Israel’s worship and community. This seems very harsh to us. Didn’t Jesus heal lepers? Why would God ostracize them and thus treat them as if they were unwelcome in this new Eden? Remember, just because the person is unclean does not mean that God cannot consider them righteous. The lepers that obeyed God’s laws for the unclean ultimately benefit from the keeping of God’s laws just like the people at the tabernacle. In many ways, the lepers were honoring God as much in their ostracism as those who obeyed God through involvement in the tabernacle. The problem arises when neighbors treat lepers as if the leper’s sin is the reason they have leprosy. God does not treat personal sin as the cause of uncleanness, but rather the unclean as those inflicted by the reality of sin in this world. Even though, ceremonially speaking, this person is unclean and thus cut off from the worship in this new Eden, their faithfulness will be the reason they will have access to the true and better heavenly Eden.

 

[LeeB]

When Adam ate the forbidden fruit he acquired the knowledge of good and evil. Without the Holy Spirit, which was in the tree of life, man cannot control this knowledge, he will sin and he will die. Without a written code, the law, the world quickly became evil with every thought and intent of their hearts. After the flood God set about to raise up a nation , Israel, to reveal His law, the Ten Commandments. This law was to restrain sin not eliminate sin and used death as an enforcement. The law only addresses the outer man, his words and deeds that were evil and could be testified to by at least two witnesses. The law never addressed the mind or spirit of man that is the birth place of sin. This is why Jesus needed to magnify the law. The schoolmaster was to teach us this very thing in its tenth commandment because lusting or coveting takes place in the human spirit and human witnesses cannot discern this. This is why Jesus said that people were like whitened sepulchers as on the outside appeared beautiful but inside were full of dead Mens bones. This is why Paul said, I had not known sin unless the law had said thou shalt not covet.