Lev 13:1-59, Mark 6:1-29, Ps 39:1-13, Pr 10:10
Today is the 22nd day of February welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy and a privilege to be here with you today as we begin moving into our workweek, continue our journey through the Bible this year. We are well underway…well…in both Old and New Testaments with our new books - the book of Leviticus in the book of Mark. So, we will continue on our journey through that territory, obviously, beginning with the Old Testament, the book of Leviticus. And today we’re gonna learn about skin diseases. Leviticus chapter 13.
Commentary:
Okay. So, did…did you enjoy the skin disease portion of our reading today, like to look if the flaking is turning white or if the hair has turned white or if it’s yellow or if it’s red-ish, yeah, all of that stuff, we have to remember a couple of things. Number one there’s always a spiritual component to everything we’re gonna read in the Scriptures, especially…especially here as God is laying out the laws that will govern this people, like establishing an entire culture but we also have to remember where we are. We are in the wilderness. We are…I mean have you been in the desert before? If you have ever been out in a actual desert you know that that…there’s nothing out there. It’s empty wasteland as far as you can see in any direction and…and they don’t have antibiotics and they can’t run down to the drugstore. There is nothing there. So, a skin disease that begins to spread can become a huge problem. It can bring death to the community. Or what about the section about mildew and mold. Again, like we can go, “what is this doing in the Bible like just get something and spray it off and wipe it down and you’ll be fine.” They couldn’t do that. And I mean even until this very day you get mold in your house and you got a problem. Depending on what kind of mold it is it could be like a devastating problem requiring deconstruction of a portion or all of the structured, right, if it is allowed to run. That’s even today with all the stuff we have to fight against. They didn’t have anything. So, yeah, you let mold creep up your walls and don’t do anything about it, you’re gonna have a problem in the end. So, that gives us a little bit of a context about why we would find something like this here. These are important things. It is important to be clean because cleanliness in body or in a building is important to its long-term survival and its place within a community. But that brings up the larger story here. What were ultimately talking about is clean and unclean, and this is being built into the fabric, that there is clean and there is unclean in body, in building, in society, in spirit. There is clean and unclean. So, we can glaze over and go like, “I don’t know why we gotta read about skin rashes in the Bible”, but we do still have to pay attention to the fact that there is clean and there is unclean in everything including our thoughts, including our spiritual lives and our motivations. So yes indeed, If you have a rash or a bump on your skin and it’s determined that that rash is more than skin deep, in other words, it’s below the surface, it’s a much bigger problem. If you have essentially a spiritual rash, if there’s unforgiveness or bitterness, or envy or just competition or rebellion, you name it, and it’s more than skin deep, it’s a problem. We all know that. And now, even skin diseases and mold becomes a mirror out of the Bible and forces us to look at ourselves. We can’t leave the structures of our lives with mildew and mold growing in the corners in the dark, dank places. That’s gotta be cleaned out. That’s not gonna lead us on the narrow path that leads to life. That’s not gonna lead us on a path where we can reveal God’s kingdom because we can see God at work. It’s just gonna poison us just like it would’ve poisoned them. And, so, all the sudden we see that there’s a spiritual component to every component that is baked into the fabric of their culture and we should pay attention to these things because although we have disinfectants and antibiotics our hearts are the same as their hearts were and we can be infected and it can become poison and it can become a disease that’s below the surface, that’s beyond skin or that’s more than skin deep, and it can become a real problem and we know it. And, so, let’s take this little lesson about being clean and keeping things clean so that it doesn’t pollute the entire community and understand that there’s a spiritual component and it’s just as relevant.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit as we move into our workweek, may we have eyes to see and ears to hear, may we pay attention to the fact that there is clean and there is unclean, and we know the difference. Help us to pay attention that we might not become unclean. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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