God created the world; He knows how He designed it to work.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Leviticus 26
In this final lesson on Leviticus, I offer a survey of the final chapters, focusing on God's instructions to His people to live differently from the world around them. God's rules are "better" because His rules align with the design of life. And the people simply had to want to be God's people, and He would be their God. Unfortunately, we know how this went.
I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to live in freedom. (26:13)
When We Studied This Chapter in 2017
I feel like there's a lot more "meat on the bone" (clean animals only) in Leviticus this week, so I'm going off-script and suggesting some additional verses for you to study. Even in 2017, I feel like Lifeway picked a better range of verses to make some wider points:
In that post, I talked about
Utopias
"Fine print"
The covenants
"Prosperity Gospel"
Statute/ordinance/command
If you want to learn more about any of those topics, I encourage you to read that earlier post.
Mom's House, Mom's Rules
I used a version of this idea when we covered rules for Christian living in 2022.
Substitute "Grandma's House" or "Aunt Karen's House" or whoever -- what rules do you remember growing up? What of those do you still follow today? (And just as interesting, what rules have you discarded and why?)
Do you see value in keeping little lists list this up and around as reminders to you or family members? The apostle Paul did -- he put lists like this in several of his letters. In 2022, we studied one such list in 1 Thessalonians 5:
You'd want to keep this moving, but you might ask your group something like, "What rules do you remember reading in the New Testament?" If you need help getting started, some of my favorite such passages include:
Romans 15:1-9
Ephesians 4:17*-5:21
Philippians 4:4-9
1 Thessalonians 5:12-24
Here's why I think a version of this topic would be great this week: we're studying rules for holy living in the book of Leviticus. I'll point out that Christians still have high "rules" for living (higher than what we read in Leviticus), so I think it would be appropriate to look at some of the rules in the New Testament and talk about how they compare to what we read in Leviticus. (Spoiler: I'll be focusing on that Ephesians passage to this end.)
Cultural Moments - the SNL 50th
I am a few months older than SNL, so Saturday Night Live has been a steady part of the culture my entire life. If you weren't aware that they just celebrated a "star-studded 3-hour show" last Sunday in honor of their 50th anniversary, well, bless you. You'll have to find a different cultural institution for this discussion idea.
This idea was inspired by this article on the New York Times:
(Beware, there's mild language, drinking, and a few tasteless jokes. I'm sharing this because of its influence on my generation, not to make you laugh.)
My goodness, my adolescence was slam full of those references, and a lot of them I didn't even realize were from Saturday Night Live!
I watched a few of the old sketches on YouTube (and from the 50th special), and some of them are still incredibly funny (Hans and Franz: "Hear me now, believe me later"). A lot of them -- very intentionally -- crossed some lines. I found myself cringing at a lot of the "jokes" on the 50th special.
So, what's a Christian supposed to do with this? We consume a lot of culture. And I am consistently dismayed by how many Christians are unaware at how much culture they consume. In this week's passages, God tells the people of Israel to live differently from the cultures around them. And the Ephesians passage I mentioned above says the same thing to Christians.
So again I ask, how is a Christian supposed to interact with a cultural phenomenon like SNL (or pick the thing that connects best with your group)?
I am confident that we can't ignore it. We can't withdraw from the culture absolutely -- not if
we want to build relationships with non-Christians who are immersed in that culture and
we want to teach our children or new Christians how to rightly interact with the cultural elements that surround them.
How can we rightly evaluate "what the kids are saying these days" if we don't know where those sayings come from?
How do your group members believe they are supposed to interact with culture as a Christian?
Here's my personal approach.
I work to understand what the Bible has to say about whatever cultural event -- the nature of the joke, the worldview of the writer, the things being promoted, etc.
I work to understand the effect that thing is having on me -- is it desensitizing me to a biblical truth? is it actively trying to shape the way I think?
With that knowledge, under the prodding of the Holy Spirit, I evaluate what I should do with it. And again, I ask myself some questions:
Would it be right for me to retell this joke to someone else?
Would it be right for me to invite someone to come with me to this event?
And if I'm not sure what the answer is, that's the equivalent of a "no".
This is why this discussion can be very hard in a large group: I think that those approaches/lines are slightly different for every Christian. Remember Paul's argument about meat sacrificed to idols/diet choices?
Romans 14:1 Welcome anyone who is weak in faith, but don’t argue about disputed matters. 2 One person believes he may eat anything, while one who is weak eats only vegetables.
And his conclusion was,
14:19 So then, let us pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another. 20 Do not tear down God’s work because of food. Everything is clean, but it is wrong to make someone fall by what he eats. 21 It is a good thing not to eat meat, or drink wine, or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble. 22 Whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23 But whoever doubts stands condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith, and everything that is not from faith is sin.
I see equivalencies between what Paul is saying about diet and other elements of culture -- music, art, social activity, etc.
That's why for me, the questions are things like
should I retell this joke to another Christian?
should I take a Christian to such-and-such event?
My job as a Christian is to build other Christians up and help them become more like Jesus (discipleship). It's also to reach out to non-Christians and help them want to come to faith in Christ. I can't do that if my behavior is stunting the growth of Christians and putting off non-Christians from wanting anything to do with Jesus.
So, pick your cultural moment: a movie, an album, a concert, a game, a trip, etc. How can you interact with that while still observing the biblical command to be different from the world?
One last observation before we move on -- for me, my priority is pleasing Jesus, not pleasing my friends/peers. Christians have a wide range of views on just about every issue, so you can't please everybody. Focus on Jesus; He's the one who died for you. More about this below.
This Week's Big Idea: Laws for Holy Living in Leviticus
This section will double as my "where we are in Leviticus" because the last few chapters all deal with the topic of "holy living". These are the sorts of people God wants His people to be. I'm just going to highlight some representative laws:
17:8 Anyone from the house of Israel or from the aliens who reside among them who offers a burnt offering or a sacrifice 9 but does not bring it to the entrance to the tent of meeting to sacrifice it to the Lord, that person is to be cut off from his people.
17:10 Anyone from the house of Israel or from the aliens who reside among them who eats any blood, I will turn against that person who eats blood and cut him off from his people.
18:6 You are not to come near any close relative for sexual intercourse; I am the Lord.
18:21 You are not to sacrifice any of your children in the fire to Molech. Do not profane the name of your God; I am the Lord.
18:22 You are not to sleep with a man as with a woman; it is detestable.
19:14 Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but you are to fear your God; I am the Lord.
19:23 When you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, you are to consider the fruit forbidden. It will be forbidden to you for three years; it is not to be eaten. 24 In the fourth year all its fruit is to be consecrated as a praise offering to the Lord. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit. In this way its yield will increase for you; I am the Lord your God.
19:27 You are not to cut off the hair at the sides of your head or mar the edge of your beard.
19:28 You are not to make gashes on your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves; I am the Lord.
Some of those, you can probably understand. Some of those seem strange, right? And some of the laws in Leviticus are just bizarre to us.
God's Point
18:25 The land has become defiled, so I am punishing it for its iniquity, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants.
18:30 You must keep my instruction to not do any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you, so that you do not defile yourselves by them; I am the Lord your God.
20:22 You are to keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and do them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live will not vomit you out. 23 You must not follow the statutes of the nations I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and I abhorred them.
This turns into a simple rule: live according to God's worldview, not the world's worldview.
With a little bit of digging, we can learn that surrounding cultures in the Ancient Near East would promote behaviors like:
anyone can make a sacrifice anywhere for any reason to appease any god;
drinking blood -- it's good for the soul;
have sex with anyone you want at any time;
if you really want to impress a god, sacrifice your child;
certain haircuts and body markings identified your gang/tribe;
And can we blame them? They were making up rules as they went. But the God of the Israelites created the world! He created people, animals. He knew how He designed them to work, so He could establish valuable parameters -- against incest, against homosexuality, against drinking blood, etc.
You'll also find a lot of rules about how to treat people, especially marginalized people. Don't take advantage of people. Don't put people at risk. That is a very different worldview than the "might makes right" of everyone else.
Long and short of it: live according to God's rules, not the rules of the world.
If your group would be interested in this exercise, bring a few verses about holy living from Leviticus -- ask your group what the law means and why God would command it. Most of the laws have to do with getting the people to act differently from the cultures around them and taking on God's worldview. If you run into any stumpers, perhaps I can help.
Hot-Button Case: Male vs. Female
One thing that gets people's goats is the way God distinguishes male from female in Leviticus. A most famous example is this:
27:2 Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When someone makes a special vow to the Lord that involves the assessment of people, 3 if the assessment concerns a male from twenty to sixty years old, your assessment is fifty silver shekels measured by the standard sanctuary shekel. 4 If the person is a female, your assessment is thirty shekels.
Is God saying that men are more valuable than women? In one specific instance, yes: the capacity for manual labor. This was an agrarian society; they worked in the fields (or would once they got to the Promised Land). And no matter what certain agendas try to say, male and female bodies are different by design. Male bodies were designed to be more effective at labor in the fields. Now, did some men take from this that they were more valuable than a woman? Clearly they did. But that was not what God was saying.
Part 1: Don't Worship like the World (Leviticus 26:1-2)
1 Do not make worthless idols for yourselves, set up a carved image or sacred pillar for yourselves, or place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. 2 Keep my Sabbaths and revere my sanctuary; I am the Lord.
I see these verses as a summary of much of the rest of Leviticus: worship the Lord according to the Lord's instructions. The rest of the world does things like carve idols, set up stone altars, worship trees, etc. God's people are not to do those things.
This s where I would recommend doing a summary of some of the other laws given in Leviticus 17-25 -- not just about worship, but also about how to behave and how to treat other people.
[Fun Aside: if you want to talk about the festivals, Leviticus 23 is for you! It's a wonderful summary of how God wanted His people to approach time, seasons, and worship.]
Here's my big application for the entire lesson. You might go ahead and do it here, or you may want to wait until the end: how might Christians be tempted to worship like the world?
This would then drift into a much bigger discussion about holiness for Christians.
Aside: Christians Are Still to Be Holy
The reason why I have emphasized the principles of these rules in Leviticus is to demonstrate how they share a worldview with the rules for Christians in the New Testament.
Ephesians 4:17 Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thoughts. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. 19 They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more.
20 But that is not how you came to know Christ, 21 assuming you heard about him and were taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, 23 to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.
All of Ephesians 4 and 5 is a wonderful summary of Paul's instructions to Christians -- the what and the why.
Here's a post I made when we studied Ephesians 5, if you want to know more:
Should Christians get hung up in legalism? No! But that doesn't mean God doesn't have rules for us. And God gives us rules because God created the universe. He knows how He designed it to work. This is why Christians aren't to get their truth from a secular sociologist. Of course that person believes that all manners of sexual behavior are okay! That person believes that humans are no different from the wild animals he believes humans evolved from.
What does God our Creator say? That's the "opinion" we should care about.
And this is where the discussion about "what parts of culture are okay for Christians to consume?" would come up, if you haven't had it already. Does this mean that Christians shouldn't listen to Taylor Swift or watch the Superbowl or go to the cinema?
I gave you my personal approach to this matter above. For you, these two questions might work:
Question 1: Why do you want to participate in that cultural thing? And to go along with that, what does God think about your answer. (In other words, "I feel like it" doesn't cut it.)
Question 2: Does this cultural thing drive me back to my former way of life? Does it feed my "old self" or my "new self"?
Let me make this clear: having fun is not wrong. Things that you enjoyed before you became a Christian are not necessarily wrong for you to enjoy now. Paul just encourages us to be critical of our "tastes". The Bible might be very clear that a certain thing is wrong for Christians. And you might decide that the "pull" into your old way of life is too strong to want to associate with that thing. This is why these lines tend to look slightly different for every Christian. We are to bring glory to God and edify our fellow Christian.
Cultural Moment: Kendrick vs. Drake.
Above, I used the SNL 50th as my example of culture. But I just heard a non-Christian say something unintentionally profound about the ongoing beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar: "Liking Drake's music doesn't make you a bad person. And liking Kendrick's music doesn't make you righteous." I know approximately zilch about their beef, but it sounds like a window into a lot of cultural questions. Any number of cultural topics could lead to healthy discussion about Christian interaction with culture.
Part 2a: Blessings for Obedience (Leviticus 26:3-8)
3 If you follow my statutes and faithfully observe my commands, 4 I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time; you will have plenty of food to eat and live securely in your land. 6 I will give peace to the land, and you will lie down with nothing to frighten you. I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword will pass through your land. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword. 8 Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand; your enemies will fall before you by the sword.
In my previous post on this passage, I put a section in about what the Prosperity Gospel gets wrong about this chapter. If you are of the notion that God promises to financially bless everyone who faithfully obeys Him, please read that post.
This passage is one reason why I have been emphasizing the idea that God created it all; He knows how He designed life to work. That's why His laws are "better" than any other laws.
But it goes beyond that: God didn't just create the laws of the universe -- He is also sovereign over the universe. This promise -- that God can bless His obedient people with good weather, good fields, and no pestilence, no predators -- works because God can actually do these things.
Think of it this way. If God could promise "heaven on earth" to the Israelites in a fallen world, how much more can we trust God's promise of an actual eternal heaven!
Aside: The Sabbath Year and the Jubilee
This might just be me, but these promises in chapter 26 explain something I have always had a hard time grasping:
18 You are to keep my statutes and ordinances and carefully observe them, so that you may live securely in the land. 19 Then the land will yield its fruit, so that you can eat, be satisfied, and live securely in the land. 20 If you wonder, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we don’t sow or gather our produce?’ 21 I will appoint my blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22 When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating from the previous harvest. You will be eating this until the ninth year when its harvest comes in.
I did wonder, "What will they eat in that seventh year?"!
Really, I shouldn't have been confused by this at all. It is the exact same principle as "collecting two days of manna on Friday so you don't have to collect on Saturday". If God can do that (which He has been doing on the entire journey for the Israelites), why should anyone be concerned about obeying a command to give a field rest every seven years?
This is about two things: rest, and trust.
People need rest. Animals need rest. Fields need rest. God designed it that way. But resting means that we have to trust God to take care of us while we rest.
And we can trust God.
Part 2b: Punishments for Disobedience (Leviticus 26:14-17)
14 But if you do not obey me and observe all these commands— 15 if you reject my statutes and despise my ordinances, and do not observe all my commands—and break my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring terror on you—wasting disease and fever that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will turn against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even though no one is pursuing you.
Lifeway included these verses in 2017, and I think there's value enough that you should include them this week. People want God to be a divine Santa who always gives gifts to everybody (even when they're bad -- think about it). But that's not God. God struck down Aaon's sons when they disobeyed His rules for worship. He will punish the people for their disobedience.
These verses explain a lot of the major movements in the Old Testament. God's people did routinely disobey God's rules. Is it any wonder that their history is filled with military conflict -- the Philistines, the Syrians, the Assyrians, etc.? Is it any wonder that there were famines and floods and pestilence and plagues?
Those things are a consequence of sin. Sin continues to leave a scarring legacy on our world today.
Part 3: I Will Be Your God (Leviticus 26:9-13)
9 I will turn to you, make you fruitful and multiply you, and confirm my covenant with you. 10 You will eat the old grain of the previous year and will clear out the old to make room for the new. 11 I will place my residence among you, and I will not reject you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, so that you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to live in freedom.
This is just a beautiful passage to emphasize. God desires to have a relationship with His people. He desires it so much that He was willing to let Jesus die to repair the covenant that we broke, all so He can say these incredible words:
I will be your God, and you will be my people.
Last week, I suggested the topic of friendship -- particularly how easy it is to break and friendship and how hard it is to repair a friendship. How devastating it is when someone says (by word or action) "I don't want to be your friend"!
And yet here is God willingly saying to the Israelites, "I want you to be My people." And He repeats that desire to us in Jesus Christ, "I want you to be My people." God wants to share eternity with us.
(How many people do you want to share eternity with? Maybe don't answer that out loud.)
The last thing for you do to with this passage is relate it to Christians. How do God's words to the Israelites in 29:9-13 relate to Christians today?
As we have studied Leviticus, I have repeatedly pointed out how the Israelites would fall short time and again. They didn't take God seriously. They didn't appreciate God's mercy and power. They didn't care about God's rules.
On this side of Jesus, we realize that God's love and mercy and power is so much more than the Israelites could have imagined. How are we doing with taking God seriously?
Our application is the whole idea of "holy living for Christians". Take a thing from culture that someone in your group has questions about or struggles with. Work together to come up with guidelines how God wants us to "live differently from the world" with respect to that thing. Be gracious with one another, realizing that Christians will have different opinions about some of these "disputable matters". But above all, go to the Bible for your answers. Don't let anyone get away with "Well, I just think ..." What does the Bible say? That's where the large group can be helpful, working together to discern God's Word on that subject.
And then pray for one another. It's tough to be a Christian in this world. It's tough to have healthy relationships with non-Christians. It's tough to work somewhere that doesn't share your Christian values. But God called us to be salt and light in the world.
Closing Thoughts: Repentance
Another passage that Lifeway included in 2017 that I'm sad they neglected here -- 26:40-45.
Please read 26:40-45 and realize where God was going with all of this. And if you need proof that God was serious about this, I submit the image of Jesus on the cross.