Leviticus Warns Against Everything Unclean, but Jesus Has a Different Response
I’ve never met anyone who likes the book of Leviticus, and many admit to skimming it when it comes up in their Bible reading plan, yet a thoughtful read of this often-tedious book reveals startling insights.
Today’s section talks about the unclean: unclean people, unclean actions, and unclean things. That is, those who are different. God gives instructions for dealing with the unclean (Leviticus 13:4).
He wants to keep his people away from such things so they remain both healthy and pure.
Leprosy, an often-fatal condition, is a grave consideration in that day. If carries both a threat to others and a stigma in society. Physical separation is the only solution in confirmed cases.
No one would touch a leper, who would live the rest of his or her life without the comforting pat of another human being.
Those Who Are Different from Us
Jesus, who comes to fulfill the Old Testament Law (Matthew 5:17), has a different idea. When encountering a leper he does the unthinkable; he reaches out and touches the man (Matthew 8:3). Then he helps the inflicted person by healing him.
Jesus, not the book of Leviticus, provides our example for dealing with those who society won’t touch, the unclean in our world.
We accept them. We help them. They are not unclean. They are part of God’s creation, just like us. We love them just like Jesus.
Consider how we might treat others who society essenitially views as unclean? Look for ways to touch those who others ignore, those who are different from us.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
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Study Scripture and Then Use Other Resources as Needed
My book Jesus’s Broken Church was about a decade in the making, perhaps longer—maybe even a lifetime. When I sensed something wasn’t right with how today’s church functioned, I begin praying and searching for answers. Over time, piece by piece, God’s Holy Spirit revealed the answers to me. And they all came from the Bible.
This took years, but eventually a full picture emerged. That’s when I began writing, first in various blog posts and eventually a book.
Two Most Influential Books
Along the way, two additional sources opened my eyes to prepare me to hear what God would tell me. These came in the form of two books. Aside from the Bible, they are the two most influential books I’ve read in my entire life.
They provided insight and a firm foundation for me to stand on as I considered building on these works to determine what would happen next, of what should happen next.
Pagan Christianity? looks at the past. It delves into what was to uncover the influences of our church practices today. Much of what we do today at church is a result of our predecessors’ taking practices from secular society and adapting them to church. In short, many of our Christian traditions don’t have a spiritual origin but one that is more so pagan in nature.
The result of realizing these many shocking revelations was that I begin to ask why, a lot. I looked at every faith practice to examine its relevance and see how scripturally germane it was.
The result was a nagging feeling that our church practices today are far off base from what Jesus intended.
That’s why Pagan Christianity? is one of the two most influential books I’ve ever read.
Whereas Pagan Christianity? looks at the past, The Great Emergence explores the future. Building on a history of semi-millennia religious shifts, Tickle posits that we are on the precipice of another grand transformation.
She envisions what this reformation will look like and its impact on today’s church. Spoiler alert: today’s church will be much less relevant in the future, with other forms of spiritual community and connection supplanting it.
That’s why The Great Emergence is the second of the two most influential books I’ve ever read.
Jesus’s Broken Church
Standing on the firm foundation of the two most influential books I’ve ever read emerged a biblical prescription and how to move forward. I dared to suggest that today’s church—for all the good it does—isn’t functioning as it should, as Jesus intended it to.
Building on Scripture, Jesus’s Broken Church advances a new vision of what church could be and should be. But claiming that it’s new is incorrect. In truth, this isn’t a new understanding, but the reclaiming of an old one, one that’s nearly two thousand years old.
Read more about this in Peter’s thought-provoking book, Jesus’s Broken Church, available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hardcover.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
With Sunday falling between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I have low expectations for their year end service.
Consider these four discussion questions about Church #39:
1. Yet inside, friendly faces and hearty handshakes greet us. People acknowledge us as first-timers, without fawning over us.
How can you better embrace newcomers without making them uncomfortable?
2. We slide into the fifth row, which is also the back row. I’m dismayed over the pews’ lack of lumbar support. I squirm throughout the service and soon have a terrible backache.
What can you do to make sure your seating doesn’t distract people from encountering God?
3. The congregation recites this week’s memory verse in unison. The pastor then challenges them to recall last week’s verse, which he leads them in saying.
What can you do to help people hide God’s word in their hearts (Psalm 119:11)?
4. They invite us to a fast food restaurant after church. When we sit, no one joins us. It’s awkward until a lady moves to our booth midway through the meal. It only takes one person to make the difference between feeling seen or ignored.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
A few decades ago American Express unveiled the tagline: “Membership has its privileges.” Their ads implied that great benefits awaited those who qualified to carry one of their exclusive cards.
To start, there was a high annual fee and, as I understand, minimal annual levels of usage for their various membership tiers. The card became a status symbol, separating the fortunate few who carried it from the masses who didn’t. It generated pride and caused envy.
Church does the same thing when it touts membership. To become a church member, there are hoops to jump through: attend classes, agree to certain teachings, follow specific rules, and commit to donate money, possibly even at a certain annual level.
Once we do so, the church accepts us as one of its own. We are fully embraced and become one of the flock. We are elite, and, even if we won’t admit it, we swell with pride over our special status. Now the church and her paid staff will care for us.
To everyone else, they offer tolerance but withhold full acceptance. After all, church membership has its privileges.
There’s one problem.
Church Membership Is Not Biblical
We made it up.
Having members separates church attendees between those on the inside and everyone else; it pushes away seekers. Membership splits the church of Jesus, separating people into two groups, offering privileges to one and instilling resentment in the other.
It is a most modern concept, consumerism at its finest.
To my shame, I have been a church member. Never again.
Although perhaps well intended, membership divides the church that Jesus wanted to function as one. Jesus accepted and loved everyone, not just those who followed him or offered money.
Paul never gave instructions about church membership, Peter never commanded we join a church, and John never held a new membership class.
I confess my sin of being sucked into this unholy institutional practice of church membership, at both the local and denominational level. I stand in horror over my role in promoting division among the followers of Jesus. Father, forgive me.
Though I will never again join a church as an official member, I am open to attend one, to immerse myself in community, to engage in corporate worship, and to serve others.
This is what church should be. This is what the early church did. This is what Jesus wanted when he prayed for unity. And this is what I will do.
Read more about this in Peter’s thought-provoking book, Jesus’s Broken Church, available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hardcover.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Sunday Should Not Be a Day of Restriction but a Day of Freedom and Celebration
In the book of Exodus, God and Moses have a face-to-face meeting. That is significant. How cool would it be to have a direct conversation with the Almighty?
Certainly, we’d remember what he told us and be careful to follow it completely.
One of the things God tells Moses is to only work for six days and then take a break. Many people today view this as an outdated command.
They think God is trying to restrict what they do, limit their freedom, and force them to be bored for twenty-four hours.
That isn’t God’s intent at all. In fact, God wants to give them—and us—a break from our routine. Remember, these people are coming out of enslavement.
They never had a day off. Every day was the same: work, work, work. From sunup to sundown and probably even more.
One day would blur in to the other, doing the same old same old thing day after day.
The Gift of the Sabbath Day
By telling them to rest on the seventh day, the Sabbath day, God was giving them a mini vacation from their labors. And what better thing to do on that day of rest then to focus on God and thank him for this amazing gift of a break.
If this idea of resting on the seventh day seems a bit familiar, go back to the creation account. God takes six days to form the reality in which we live and then he takes a break from his labors to consider the results.
He did something amazing and then takes time to rest from his work and marvel at what he has done (Genesis 2:2–3). In this he gives us an example to follow, and later, through Moses, insists we do so.
In case we miss this idea of the seventh day being a gift from God, Jesus reminds us. He says, “The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).
In this he confirms we aren’t beholden to the Sabbath Day, held captive by it, or restricted in any way. Instead, the Sabbath is for us to enjoy.
This means we must shove aside legalistic ideas of what we may and may not do on Sunday, which we adopted to be our Sabbath day. Instead we must embrace our seventh day for the freedom it gives us.
How we do so is left for us to determine.
Viewing the Sabbath as a gift from God to us should change everything.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
Consider the Fruit You Bear as a Follower of Jesus
Paul tells the church in Galatia that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
When we follow Jesus and the Holy Spirit resides in us, this should result in changed behavior, a better behavior that’s more aligned with the example that Jesus set for us.
Let’s break down these key outcomes of having the Holy Spirit in our lives. As we study these words, we often see the fruit of the Spirit interconnected in various passages:
Love
Love is not a feeling or emotion. True love is an attitude expressed through action. Paul best explains this in his letter to the church in Corinth. There he defines the elements of true, God-honoring love.
He writes that love is patient and kind, not envious, boastful, or proud. Love honors others and isn’t self-serving or given to anger. Love doesn’t keep track when others cause us harm. It celebrates truth and laments what is evil. Love protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Joy
Joy is more than being happy. It transcends happiness. The Bible doesn’t give us a definition of joy, but looking at the more than sixty verses in the New Testament that talk about joy, we get a sense that joy is ecstatic spiritual pleasure that comes from God and through serving him.
Peace
When we look at peace, there are two forms to consider.
First there is peace with others, living in harmony with those around us and in unity with those in our spiritual family.
Second, there is peace within. It’s an inner contentment that can only come from God.
The fruit of the Spirit exhibits both types of peace.
Patience
Patience is a calmness that exists within us and flows from us. From this as a foundation, we see a patience that endures, tolerates, and exercises restraint. Interestingly, Paul uses patience (along with kindness) in his definition of love.
Kindness
Another godly trait that is part of the fruit of the Spirit is kindness. Kindness is how we treat others, being friendly, generous, and warmhearted in our interactions with them.
Goodness
The idea of being good is living rightly with others. This goes beyond getting along with them. Think of being righteous, upright, and benevolent in how we live our lives and how we treat others. This is goodness.
Faithfulness
To persist in faithfulness, we exhibit devotion and loyalty to God and his ideals. It also includes being faithful in our relationships with others.
Gentleness
Gentleness isn’t meekness, but it’s controlled strength. Jesus personifies gentleness. We should follow his example.
Self-Control
The final characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. This means keeping our emotions, attitudes, and actions in check. It’s restraining our negative expressions to allow godly responses to occur.
Pursuing the Fruit of the Spirit
We may have exhibited some of these traits before we followed Jesus. And other of these nine characteristics may automatically emerge from our life through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.
Yet other areas may require intentional effort to achieve. But we don’t pursue these outcomes to earn our salvation, garner Jesus’s attention, or merit God’s love. This perspective is key.
God has loved us from the very beginning, irrespective of what we’ve said or done.
And we already have Jesus’s attention. We know this because he died for us before we did anything to receive it.
Last, if we follow Jesus, we already have eternal life through him and don’t need to earn it. It’s his unconditional gift to us.
Then why should we consider pursuing the fruit of the Spirit, exhibiting these nine key character traits, if there’s nothing to gain from our effort?
We should want to produce the fruit of the Spirit in response to what Father God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have already done for us. We don’t do this to gain anything but to offer it as a thank you for what God has already done for us.
And if we fall short in any one of these areas, don’t despair. Seek God’s guidance to move forward day-by-day, step-by-step to exhibit a little bit more of these traits in our existence, moving closer to realize the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
And we do so not out of obligation or guilt, but from a spirit of gratitude.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
The church meets in a middle school’s all-purpose room. Large portable signs direct us to the entrance. We enjoy a refreshing church service.
Consider these four discussion questions about Church #38:
1. People mill about: talking, sipping coffee, or munching snacks. They represent all age groups, with many kids.
Younger people are the future of our church. What can you do to attract and connect with them?
2. A team of four leads worship, with optimally adjusted audio. The ideal sound tech is the one you’re unaware of. It’s only because of mistakes that anyone usually notices. This one is good.
What should you do to make sure your audiovisual team supports your service and doesn’t distract?
3. As a special treat, three ladies from a local ballet company worship with us in dance. Ballet and guitars are an odd pairing, but the result is worshiping God through sound and movement.
What fresh worship experiences can you add to your service?
4. Our leader gives us the freedom to dance—or not. I don’t have a danceable bone in my body, so I appreciate the permission to stay still, yet I’m disappointed because only a few join in.
Worshipful dance occurs in the Bible. How can you incorporate dance into your church service?
Overall, we enjoyed a most refreshing church service, connecting with others who pointed us to God. We left in awe of God and his community.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
The Church of Jesus Needs to Focus on Three Things and Master Them All
In our normal usage, church is a building, a place we go to—often on Sunday mornings. I’ll be there later today. Other definitions for church include a religious service, organized religion, and professional clergy.
Yet a more correct understanding is that we are church, both individually and collectively. We, the church, are an organic body, not an institution, religious service, or profession. If we are the church, we can’t go there; we take church with us everywhere we go—or at least we should.
As the people who comprise the church of Jesus—his followers—I see three things we ought to be about, three things that warrant our focus:
Worship
Life isn’t about us; it’s all about him. Or at least it should be. As individuals and as a group we should worship him, our reason for being. Though God doesn’t need our praise and adoration, we should need to give it to him. We worship God by thanking him for who he is and what he does.
We worship him by praising him for his omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent greatness. This can happen in word, in attitude, in action—and in song.
Singing to God about him is a common form of worship. Yet at too many church services this musical expression of faith has turned into a concert. While this is not necessarily bad if the concert connects us with God, it is bad if all it seeks to do is entertain us.
By the way, when we say we don’t like the music at church, we’ve just turned the focus away from God and back to us, to our desire for entertainment over worship.
Beyond this we can also worship God in silence and through solitude, two pursuits that most people in our culture fail to comprehend. In fact, in our always on, always connected existence, even a few seconds of silence makes most people squirm, whereas solitude drives them crazy.
Yet we can worship God in both.
In addition we also worship God by getting along with other believers and serving those outside our group.
Community
The church as a group of people should major on community, on getting along and experiencing life together. Community should happen during our Sunday gatherings, as well as before and after, just hanging out.
Community is following all of the Bible’s one another commands, which teach us how to get along in a God-honoring way.
At some church services people scurry in at the exact starting time (or a few minutes late) and flee with intention at the final “amen.” They miss the community part of church; they miss a key reason for going. Remember, it’s not about us.
If we don’t like spending time with the people we see for an hour each Sunday morning, then something’s wrong: not with them, but with us. So, before we point fingers at others, we need to realize that the problem of why we shun spiritual community lies within.
Help Others
Worship is about God, and community is about our fellow believers. What about others? If we only focus on God and our local faith gathering, we stop too soon and fail to function as the church Jesus intended.
Jesus served others, so should we. And we shouldn’t serve with any motives other than the pure intent to show them the love of Jesus. Loving others through our actions may be the most powerful witness we can offer.
History is full of examples where this indeed happened, when the world saw Jesus through the tangible love of his followers.
A church body that looks only to God and at each other is selfish. A church that only gazes heavenward or internally is a church that is dying. We need to let our light shine so that the world can see (Matthew 5:14-16 and Luke 11:33).
The world watches us; they hope we’ll come through; they want to see Jesus in us.
That’s what church is. We worship and we build community so we can love others in his name.
Read more about this in Peter’s thought-provoking book, Jesus’s Broken Church, available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hardcover.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
For Forty Years the Israelites Had Two Signs from God to Guide Them
After spending four-hundred years in Egypt, the repressed children of God finally get a chance to leave. This comes under the leadership of Moses.
We know of Moses’s meetings with Pharaoh to negotiate the Israelites’ release, of ten plagues, and the people’s escape through the Dead Sea—as if walking on dry land. Their Egyptian captors, in hot pursuit, don’t fare so well.
Now God’s people are free!
What should they do? Where should they go? They know their destination resides in the Promised Land, the area Jacob left four centuries before when he sought food in Egypt.
But instead of heading there on their own, they seek God’s direction.
Pillar of Fire
God sends them a pillar of smoke to guide them by day and a pillar of fire to guide them by night. When the pillars move, the people follow. When the pillars stay put, so do they. They do this for forty years.
I must give them credit. They were content to follow God’s direction for four decades, when they could have reached their destination, the Promised Land, in less than a week.
For all the times his people messed up when they were in the desert, I admire them for being patient and willing to follow God’s leading, even though it didn’t make sense and was taking way too long.
Wouldn’t it be great if God showed us where to go today? If only he would give us a cloud to follow during the day and a fire to blaze our path at night. Then it would be easy to follow him, right?
Yet, God does lead us today. In the Bible he promises to give us his Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit fire (Luke 3:16 and Matthew 3:11). And when the Holy Spirit arrives, what is the visual sign? Fire. Yep, tongues of fire (Acts 2:3).
Yes, God still leads us today. He gives his Holy Spirit fire to blaze our path. All we need to do is listen—and obey.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
The word fruit appears nearly two hundred times throughout Scripture. Coupling the word fruit with the word bear, as in bear fruit, bears fruit, and bearing fruit occurs twenty-nine times, split between the Old and New Testaments. Jesus often talks about the fruit that people bear, with the third of the Bible’s teaching on the subject coming from him.
Bear Fruit
Though people can’t produce physical, edible fruit, like a tree would, we do produce fruit in a figurative sense. It’s the output of our life, the results of what we do and don’t do.
In a spiritual sense we bear fruit when we tell others about Jesus, and they decide to follow him too.
In Jesus’s Parable of the Sower, he talks about a farmer scattering seed. The results vary depending on the conditions of where the seed falls, but the good seed produces a substantial yield of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times what the farmer planted (Matthew 13:23). But this isn’t a story about farm output. It’s how we bear fruit. It’s a metaphor about growing God’s kingdom through saved lives—or not.
In this way, the fruit we produce through our daily actions and words reflect who we are as a person and the priorities of our lives. As we do this, we also impact those around us. This can be for good, or it can be for bad.
Bear Good Fruit
Though there may be rare exceptions, people want to produce good fruit. We desire to benefit others by the things we do and through the things we say. When we live a life that produces what is good, we draw people to ourselves and can point them to Jesus. They want to be around us because of the positive ripples our life produces. This is how we bear fruit, desirable fruit.
We do this by treating the people we meet with respect and kindness. These traits are lacking in today’s polarized, adversarial world. Society has lost sight of civility.
We can change this by being intentional in our interactions with others. This includes family, friends, and those we meet throughout our daily life.
We can also make a positive difference by the things we do. This includes helping others, especially when we don’t have to. It means going out of our way to demonstrate kindness, offer compassion, and assist those in need.
Bear Bad Fruit
Just as we can produce good through our lives, we can also produce bad. Jesus talks about this too. He urges us to produce good fruit and not bad. He adds that we’re known by the fruit we produce, that people don’t gather figs from thorns or grapes from briers (Luke 6:24).
Bear Holy Spirit Fruit
As followers of Jesus, we want to produce good fruit, spiritual fruit. Paul talks about the fruit we bear in our lives through the Holy Spirit. With God’s Spirit indwelling in us we will produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). This may be the best way for us to bear fruit.
May we bear good fruit and have the fruit of the Spirit overflow from our lives. In doing so we will worship God and serve as a powerful witness to the world.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
