Title: Picky Eaters: The Clean Food Rites of Israel
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Handout
Text: Leviticus 11:44-47
What laws should govern my reading of Leviticus?
1. Don’t try to interpret longsighted symbols with shortsighted lenses. 20th Century knowledge should not be our lens (reason, diet, science, technology)
2. Allow the NT to clarify what is still expected of the people of God. The NT clarifies what laws endure.
3. Listen to that which is absolutely clear and discern what is symbolic. The rituals/laws symbolically tells us something about the LORD and what He expects from his people today.
Introduction:
The Consuming Fire over Nadab and Abihu
Summary: They possibly went further in than they were supposed to go. They did not sanctify the Lord (Leviticus 10:1-3)
Ill: Man who put head into alligator - small drop of sweat caused clamping upon head
App: Circumstances and the reality of life/death
Are you prepared not only to die but also to live?
How can we get closer to God without dying?
Answer: Cleansing & Holiness. [Cleansed & holy people, places, and things]
Illustration Defining Clean to Holy - In the book of Leviticus cleansing (suitable/court of tabernacle) and holiness (belong/further in). Both require sacrifice – blood.
Visiting Atrium Med. during Covid
* They don’t let dogs in typically, so being a human being typically makes me suitable, but if I want to keep entering…check temperature on head to make sure…not contaminated.
The closer to the inner sanctum you get the greater the purity needed.
How can we get clean and holy so that we don’t die?
The initial response that the author gives is through dietary laws. As we consider these chapters, let’s consider Leviticus 11 in light of 3 questions:
Why did Israel have to choose certain animals over others?
How did Israel make choices for clean animals?
What must I believe/do because of these clean food rites?
Why did Israel have to choose certain animals over others?
Why did Israel have to choose certain animals over others?
Life/Death -- Nadab and Abihu.
Because the Lord is their God - Leviticus 11:44-47.
The holy Lord graciously chose them – Deuteronomy 7:6-8; 14:1-2
6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
They show the LORD’s choosing of them by particular choosing:
Obedience to the Lord’s Command
Obedience to distinguish between clean/unclean
Summary: As God has chosen Israel, they now were going to symbolize this grace in choosing clean foods. It symbolizes God’s grace.
Object Lesson Illustration – Table of Food representing the nations and Israel (unlikely food). Second table representing food/animals chosen by Israel for diet.
Quote: “Just as God had separated Israel from among the peoples, so Israel was to distinguish between clean and unclean animals in relation to eating. Every meal served as a reminder of God’s election of Israel from out of the nations, but also Israel’s call to keep themselves separate from the uncleanness of those nations...” [Morales, p. 163]
App: The doctrine of divine choosing is not to scare you but to comfort you.
App: We must allow the scriptures to reframe our thinking about holiness/uncleanness.
The Lord cares about holiness. Holiness/cleanness is not a mourning of prohibitions but a celebration of God’s grace. It is daily choosing because I have been chosen in Christ, the Elect One. I Peter 2:9
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Examples:
Do you see holiness as a way that you can show God’s grace or as purely a restriction of what you want to do?
How did Israel make choices for Cleanliness?
How did Israel make choices for Cleanliness?
Quote: Wenham [NICOT] - Holiness belonging to God. Another way you might consider Holiness and Cleanness is in terms of “wholeness” or “naturalness”.
They chose land creatures, fowls, and fish that met certain criteria Leviticus 11:3-4; 9; 13
Four helpful principles:
Since God is Perfect, the animals which conform to what is natural to their kind are considered clean. [Example: Most fish have scales and fins for swimming. A fish that does not have scales or fins is not most natural]
What is most normal in created order?
Since God is life, animals associated with death are unclean (Ex: Birds of prey See Leviticus 11:14-19)
Illustration: Owl killing our ducks.
Since God is life, dead carcasses of all animals contaminate anything with which they come in contact (Leviticus 11:24-26).
Since God is holy, anything that swarms or crawls on the ground (Leviticus 11:41-43) is a contaminate.
Summary: Israel’s choices can be summed up to God’s created natural order and life versus death. A sinful disordered creation that is full of death does not eliminate God’s requirement of cleanliness and perfection.
Illustration: Clean bulking versus dirty bulking when weight training. A dirty bulk typically involves eating a lot of extra calories from high-calorie foods, including junk foods, to promote quick weight gain. A clean bulk uses a more moderate increase in calories in addition to healthier food choices.
App: We must strive for what is morally normal according to the holy God. The natural, normal represents the realm of life.
Quote: Wenham, “These rules were symbols of a moral order. Only the normal members of each sphere of creation, e.g., fishes with fins, counted as clean. This definition, which identified “perfect” members of the animal kingdom with purity, was a reminder that God looked for moral perfection in his people.”
Examples:
Recognize God’s moral order in creation. Husbands/wives = one flesh; children obey parents; Marriage = one man/woman.
Adultery, homosexuality, transsexuality, pansexuality...all lead to death. God’s moral order produces life.
Submit your feelings to God’s standard of normality.
See God’s perfect moral standard is met in Christ but not eliminated in Christ.
In Christ, you are cleansed and given the position of holy.
What is your position before God?
In Christ, you are also commanded to and empowered to live out God’s moral standard.
Are you a Christian positionally but not practically?
Are you lazy, gluttonous in entertainment, fornicating? These all lead to death.
Live morally by the power of Christ’s Spirit. Romans 8.
What must I believe/do because of these clean food rites?
What must I believe/do because of these clean food rites?
What do these abolished dietary laws teach us about God, life, and worship?
Christian Thinker: Christian obedience must always be by faith whether we understand the reason or not. [two cliffs of fideism and rationalism]
Is your faith in your faith? Is your faith in your reason? Or is your faith in God?
God is life. Without him is death.
If He has redeemed us from the tyranny of Egypt and brought us to himself, we can trust Him, even when we don’t completely understand.
If He saved you by Christ, then you can trust Him in your cancer, your relationship problems...etc.
General Inquisitor: We should believe that our problem is not first a healthy diet problem but a heart disease problem. [to the lost] Mark 7:18-23
18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Of Christ, John says that “in him was life and the life was the light of men” In Christ eternal life has been made available to you through the Creator of life.
Church: We must rise, kill, and eat. Acts 10:13-15
13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
Pursuing an ethnically diverse church is eternally connected to the dietary laws
Holiness is not racial or ethnic divide. Holiness is about belonging to Jesus Christ regardless of racial or ethnic divide.
We should work vigorously to lead people out of death into life.
Mission work – joyfully serve, send, and support.
Christian Worship: Our worship should be characterized by life/health.
What is your expectation of Christian worship?
Paul in I Timothy 1:10 – sound = healthy or life-giving.
Practically: Singing to be rich in life = truths of God, the Gospel...etc.
In these ways, and many others, we continue to show forth that we are in the land of the living. We show God’s grace of divine election. Are we picky eaters? Yes, but our pickiness is a good.
Illustration: The Price is Right. Person gets selected and they show this reality by going forward joyfully and playing according to the rules set forth. There has never been someone who was selected and then felt they were going to be the Rule-Maker. This would actually be a subversion of grace. God is the Chooser. Mankind is the gracious recipient, and chosen people live choosy lives. They choose the clean over the unclean. They chose the holy over the unholy.
What then is the price that is right for cleansing and holiness?
The blood of Christ.