If you want to sacrifice an animal as an offering to the Lord, you can’t do that just anywhere: you have to bring it to the tent of meeting, and offer the animal as a sacrifice there (Leviticus 17:3-6). If you fail to do this, it leads to the conclusion that you must be offering your sacrifice to a false god, to some kind of demon: so this statute is to be observed through all generations (17:7). Those who fail to follow this command shall be cut off from the people (17:8). How do we today apply this text, when we don’t make any animal sacrifices at all?

Moreover, if anyone eats meat that has not been fully drained of blood in the kosher manner, “I will set my face against that person … and will cut that person off from the people” (17:10). Do we think that anyone who eats non-kosher meat is to be cast out from the people of God? God commands that the people not follow the practices of Egypt or Canaan: “My ordinances you shall observe, and my statutes you shall keep, following them: I am the Lord your God.  You shall keep my statutes and my ordinances; by doing so one shall live: I am the Lord” (18:4-5). Do we believe that we live by keeping God’s statutes and ordinance, rather than by faith in Jesus?

At the end of an extensive section on sexual sins (18:6-20, 22-23), we find a command not to offer your children as sacrifices to the Philistine god Molech (18:21). We probably have no objection against such a prohibition, but also shrug because we recognize that there are few Molech worshipers in the world today. But again, the text insists on sabbath-keeping (19:3, 19:30), and on leaving produce in the field at harvest time for the poor to glean (19:9-10). It commands that we refrain from lying (19:11), from hatred and grudge-holding (19: 17-18), from beard trimming (19:27), from tattoos (19:28).

What are we to make of this collection? Along with commands that we pay no attention to regarding tattoos and beards, there are commands that we cherish, like “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (19:18). There are commands that we are tempted to dismiss as impractical, such as sabbath-keeping and leaving produce for the gleaners. The challenge is to acknowledge that parts of the law don’t apply today – while not allowing ourselves simply to set aside verses that we don’t like. That’s a hard balance to maintain: but if we don’t, we will have traded in the authority of the Bible for the authority of our own preferences.

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Help us, O Lord, to be faithful readers of your word. We often find it hard to apply your words from more than 3000 years ago to our present day. Give us grace to be honest and sincere interpreters, ready to be taught by you, and diligent to avoid simply choosing to do what we like.

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