Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the daily Bible podcast. Let's do this. We're back again. And we're jumping more into Leviticus here. But before we get into that, I know we chopped up a little bit yesterday on the division of the law. And so just to clarify on the division of the law This really emerged. Thomas Aquinas was one of the first people to suggest a threefold division of the law. We talked about two yesterday cause I couldn't think of the third, but the third is passed around. Now we're talking about afterwards is you've got the civil, you've got the ceremonial and you've got the moral and Calvin and his cronies. Also kind of developed this along with Thomas Aquinas there. So it was these groups together and, and basically it breaks down this way. And, and this is something that I found in doing some research in between episodes here. Civil laws were those given to govern the nation of Israel. So you think we are not that do what, and we are not that, and we're not Israel. Right. So just like we might. Have our constitution in the United States with laws and rules and regulations within the constitution. Our constitution does not apply to people living in Germany. Our constitution does not apply to people living in France. It's for us as a nation. So Israel likewise under God had civil laws given by him to govern the nation of Israel. Ceremonial laws then were those laws that regulated worship for Israel. And then this author says they, they foreshadowed Christ in his ministry. And so those are the laws that we would say those pointed to the coming of Christ and Christ fulfilled those laws. So sacrifices, ox, lambs, things like that, incense, the tabernacle, the eventual temple, things like that. All the ceremonial stuff that had to do with the cultists of Israel were things that were fulfilled in Christ and under the new Testament. Right. And then this guy says the moral laws, and I like the way he puts this, are those that derive from the character of God. So these are the laws that reflect his holiness. This is what is right and what is wrong. And we would say that the moral laws that still apply today, like we said yesterday, are those laws that, that, The ones that we can take to the bank for sure the ones that are repeated in the new testament And so when we see the the moral teachings of christ in the new testament We see some laws that we can clearly trace back to their their roots in the old testament say, okay These are still in place and still in act in act in action Enacted they still apply to us today where we sit here as 21st century christians Yeah. So the question then becomes, well, how do you know the difference between the civil ceremonial and the moral? Sometimes it's harder to discern that, for instance, like the laws that we read about yesterday when it came to the, the sexual ethic laws that God prescribed for them, were those civil laws or were they ceremonial laws? Because they seem to be at least in the, in the, within the context of the book of Leviticus, these are ceremonial, but they seem to be applicable to all of Israel for that time that God governed them. So were they civil ceremonial or moral? There can be overlap there. There can be somewhere. It's like a Venn diagram. Yeah, all three fit both. And yeah, but I think when We see in other places that they are rooted in something that is moral. For example, the laws on sexual relationships is rooted Back to God's design for that to be something that takes place between a man and a woman, husband and wife within the confines of marriage. So when we look at that and we look at these other things, and yes, ceremonially they would have rendered somebody unclean and yet they were also a moral transgression of God's design. And so we can say that it's both the ceremonial and the moral. So though the ceremonial was fulfilled in Christ, the moral. Aspect of that still remains today and it's still binding to us as as Christians Some have responded that god seems to change his mind with certain laws for instance through the sexual ethic laws god At one point allowed for them to have relations with their siblings, you know with their but their close relatives And it's really not until you have development of god's old testament canon specifically the pentateuch where god says you're no longer able to do That that's in fact a violation of my standards Does God have a changing mind on some of these things? Does any of this that's moral change in God's economy? I think it changes even just if we think about, yeah, God's economy dispensations as God is, is working through creation. You've got a limited human population to deal with. And so really, unless God was going to create, you know, 4, 000 people at one time, all with different genetics. You were going to have to have relationships between siblings and relationships between relatives and things like that, that today would make us uncomfortable. They got allowed, huh? Rightly so. Rightly. So yes, they got allowed at that time because it was part of his plan to be fruitful. Multiple. I feel the earth. Why did God only use one couple and not create 4, 000 people at the very beginning with different genetics? I don't know. I don't know. He didn't though. I mean, when we read the scripture, when we read the Bible, this is the way it operated. This is the way it worked. And you, you start that over again with Noah because the, the flood and the situation there, you start over again with Noah and his family. You're going to have that permissive marriage of, of relationship. Relatives and things like that at that stage. But at this point in Israel's history, there are enough people in the population that God has now said, this is not to be, this is wrong. And this is not my, my design. So his design was still always his design from the very word go, but for that period of time, it was necessary for the fulfillment of what was going on. And God preserved. The people during that time, because one of the reasons why today this is looked down upon and frowned upon is genetically. It's not good for the human population. There's deformities and other issues that can arise as a result of these improper relationships. God allowed these relationships to take place during those seasons and Prevented those deformities from taking place because it was part of his design to be fruitful multiply and fill the earth Yeah, that's a helpful insight And I think this points to the fact that spending a lot of time in your Bible is costly But it's gonna pay off dividends in the way that you understand it and the way that you apply it The more of God's knowledge that you have stored up in your brain the better You're gonna be able to reason from God's Word to say what is God looking for his people for? Looking from looking for from his people today. And part of the answer to that is learning, okay, where did, what did God prophesy about the fulfillment of the law in Christ? What of this is carried over to the new Testament? And often there's lots of cross references in your Bible. If you have a Bible with cross references, I would advise you to. Click on them or to open them as you have opportunity, because so many of these questions that we have are often answered in the Bible itself. The Bible gives us insight on how to understand a lot of these things. And when you're trucking through Leviticus, I can, I can remember some of my first occasions through it. It's, it's tough. It's like, what am I reading? Why? Why? Why is this even necessary? But it is necessary and it's fruitful. Just stay, stay with it. Hang with it. Keep listening to the podcast. We'll do our best to help you kind of walk your way through it, but it's worth the time. So you should be encouraged by this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, chapter two, 22 and 23, just two chapters today. Chapter 22. These are rules about what would defile a priest and rules about the types of animals that were acceptable for a sacrifice to be offered. So regarding the priest, you have the priest in eating here. So versus one through nine, when to abstain from participation due to uncleanliness versus 10 through 16. These are others who can and can't eat the priest's portion of the sacrifice who was allowed to participate in that. And then really in 17 through 30, we get into what is described as what is and what is not an acceptable animal for sacrifice. And this is another one of those things where you can, if, if you've been reading the Bible for a while, maybe something. goes off in your mind. You go, okay, there's something about this. I remember something about the animals. And if you go over to Malachi chapter one, you're going to see a connection point between these rules and regulations and what's going on in Malachi chapter one and Malachi chapter one. God is indicting Israel for disobeying these specific commands. So in Malachi chapter one, God is confronting the nation of Israel saying, Hey, You did wrong by me. You broke the law because you're bringing sacrifices to me that are lame and wounded and and otherwise disqualified sacrifices. You wouldn't even give to the governor and yet you're bringing them to me, the God of all creation. So there's a connection between Malachi chapter one and Leviticus chapter 22. These rules and regulations for the, Animals there in in chapter 22 here, chapter 23, then we get into the instructions for observing the various feast days in Israel. And so here we, we lay out the various feasts and the ones that were enacted at this point and the ones that Israel was to observe and how they were to observe them. Leviticus 23, you get the verse three, you get the Sabbath. It was the Sabbath of a feast, not formally, but it was a celebration. It was meant to be a time of rest and worship. And so every seventh day the pattern was established there that they would rest and not participate in any form of work. And it was also to be a time of worship of the Lord. 23 five, you have the Passover, which was a meal in and of itself. In and of itself, that was part of a broader feast versus six through eight of unleavened bread. And so the feast of unleavened bread would go for a full week. And then it was was also part of the celebration of the Passover, the Passover being the memorial feast to remember when God passed over, protected, covered over the people there in Egypt and did not allow the angel of death to enter into the home to take the firstborn. So the Passover And also the feast of unleavened bread. That's verses five through eight there. Then you get the feast of the first fruits in verses nine through 14. This was the day following the first Sabbath of the harvest season. So they were meant here to recognize Yahweh as the provider and to pray for continued blessings upon the harvest moving forward. They were to bring the best of their offerings, the first fruits and say, Lord, we're going to give these things to you and trust that you are going to give more After this you've got the feast of weeks in verses 15 through 22. This is 50 days later after the first fruits of the feast of weeks. This was a bookend to the feast of the first fruits. This was again about the Lord's provision about harvesting. You've got the Feast of Trumpets verses 23 through 25, first day of the seventh month. This was a worship and a reminder of God's covenant promises to Israel there, a day of atonement versus 26 through 32. We just talked about that recently from Leviticus chapter I think 16 is the instructions for the day of atonement. That was a feast that they were going to have as well, a celebration. And then Leviticus 23, 33 through 36 is the Feast of Booths. And we've seen the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles in the Gospel of John, as we've studied through that as well. So Feast of Booths is a reminder of the fact that God brought Israel out of Egypt and sustained them during the wilderness wanderings. And so this, these instructions are given even before the people really have much to look back and remember for, for God's sustaining presence as it's delivered while they're still in the wilderness there. The new Testament church had more of, and it was, it's dates like this dates on the calendar where everybody who's a Christian says, this is what we do. And I know in the Eastern church, there's still a lot of these days on the calendar. And for Catholics, there's dates on the calendar to liturgical churches have days that they do stuff like this. And I kind of wish in our tradition that we had more, because I think these kinds of rallying points in the course, in the course of a year are helpful for not only time markings, but also for kind of moving your soul in a certain direction, a day of atonement Christians don't celebrate this. We don't commemorate this because our atonement has been completed once and for all in Christ on the cross. And that's, that's done first John one, nine, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just forgive us. And that's, that's a, that's a finished act, but how good would it be? For Christians to set aside a time to say, man, I want to think about my sin. I want to think about the fact that my sin has been paid for at the cross and that Jesus paid the price. And I guess that the closest we get is the Friday before Easter, which is coming up soon. But this is helpful. What this tells us about God is that God is not only okay with, he encourages us to spend days, even weeks in some cases, multiple days to take time to celebrate, to take time to contemplate, to take time to rest. He does this on a weekly basis, but then he also says, look, I want you to spend a week. Thinking about this, I want you to do. I spent a week in a tent as a symbol of my deliverance. This is something that we often don't think enough about again, as new Testament Christians, and especially in our Protestant tradition, we don't have a lot of these things, but I think it'd be really good for us to think of ways to embody our faith in a, in a, in a real tangible way that reminds people of what God has done or what he is doing for the church. I'm not sure what that looks like necessarily, but I think that's, that's something here that we just kind of miss out on Israel had all these things. We don't have very many of them. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. And yeah, they'll look. Liturgical churches do a better job of that. Even within their weekend and week out services. Yeah. Smell some bells. There's times for the confession. There's times for, yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. I would agree with you on that. And more parties to sit down together and eat food together would be fun too. I mean, that would, that alone would be reason enough to say, let's add a couple more on the calendar. Yeah. We should do, let's just, let's just start that. We'll start the feast of Hutchins. Can we do that? Yeah, that sounds good. Let's do it. Pleasing aroma. Man, that'd be great. Don't, I don't want to burn offering though. I just want a cooked offering though. Yeah, no, no burnt smoked offering. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Well, let me pray for us and then we'll be done with this episode. God, we do want to be faithful to be thoughtful Christians to think well about what you've done in our life and in the type of life that we're living. We want to spend time in confession. We want to spend time reflecting on your goodness, your provision for us. We want to spend time reflecting on the cross, the greater exodus that we as believers are Can celebrate now that the greater active of your mercy and grace as you gave Christ for us so that we might be spared Lord, help us to be contemplative. Help us to be thoughtful Christians, not just rushing through the motions as we are prone to do in our culture. Here's Americans thinking about what's next and what's on my calendar and how do I get to the next thing as quickly as I can, but God help us to be slow with you and to be thoughtful with you and to be intentional. And to, to think about these things so that we can, can really truly meditate on the, the greatest truths that we will find this side of eternity, which are contained there in the scriptures. So God give us that ability, Lord, make us a contemplative people. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the daily Bible podcast. See ya. Bye y'all. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the daily Bible podcast. We hope and pray this has been a blessing to you and your time in the word. If it has, if you would subscribe to this podcast, leave a like, leave a comment and share it with some friends and family. That would be awesome. If you need more information about Compass Bible Church here in North Texas, you can go to compassntx. org. Again, that's compassntx. org. And we'll be back with you tomorrow for another episode of the daily Bible podcast.