Everyday Mysteries

Read Leviticus 11:1–17:16

2. The following instructions are for those seeking ceremonial purification from a skin disease. Those who have been healed must be brought to the priest,
3. who will examine them at a place outside the camp. If the priest finds that someone has been healed of a serious skin disease,
4. he will perform a purification ceremony. . . .
8. The persons being purified must then wash their clothes, shave off all their hair, and bathe themselves in water. Then they will be ceremonially clean and may return to the camp. However, they must remain outside their tents for seven days.
9. On the seventh day they must again shave all the hair from their heads, including the hair of the beard and eyebrows. They must also wash their clothes and bathe themselves in water. Then they will be ceremonially clean. Leviticus 14:2-4, 8-9

How much do you understand about the inner workings of your television? How about your car? your municipal government? your spouse? your kids? A wonderful fact of life is that we can enjoy many things without understanding how they work. We may satisfy our curiosity by understanding them, but we don’t have to.

This is the final section of instructions for worshiping God (Leviticus 1:1–17:16). It includes instructions about food, childbirth, infectious skin diseases, mildew, bodily discharges, the Day of Atonement, and handling blood. There is more to this set of instructions than rules about eating, treating wounds, and personal hygiene. In them we see God’s love and care for his people.

That’s a good reason to study the other rules in this section, too—preparing for worship, practicing good health and hygiene, and keeping sex pure. What evidence of God’s love and care do you see in these areas? Read on.

God wanted his people to be holy (set apart, different, unique), just as he is holy. That is why he designed laws to separate them—both socially and spiritually—from the wicked pagan nations they would encounter in Canaan.

These laws also had an immediate practical benefit. God told the Israelites how to diagnose infectious skin diseases and mildew so that they could avoid and treat them (Leviticus 13:1–14:57). These laws helped the Israelites avoid diseases that were serious threats in that time and place. Although the people would not have understood the medical reasons for some of these laws, their obedience to them made them healthier. Many of God’s laws must have seemed strange to the Israelites. His laws, however, helped them avoid not only physical contamination, but also moral and spiritual infection.

We do not always understand why God commands us to do this or to avoid that. But his expressed will is for our good, even when we don’t understand exactly how.