Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. \u201cI am willing,\u201d he said. \u201cBe clean!\u201d
\n \u2014 Matthew 8:3<\/p>\n
Rules in Leviticus about skin diseases and rashes may not make for the most comfortable reading\u2014especially if we are reading this at mealtime. And there is a lot more here about things that made an Israelite \u201cclean\u201d or \u201cunclean.\u201d This section of Leviticus includes all kinds of requirements about foods, bodily fluids, and sacrifices. These commands describe whether a person was fit for participating in worship as a part of God\u2019s people.These laws didn\u2019t necessarily say that a person had committed a sin, though. Rather, the person had come into contact with something that made them ritually unclean\u2014usually a bodily fluid, a certain kind of animal, or a skin disease. When a person was \u201cdefiled,\u201d steps were needed to restore purity\u2014usually bathing, waiting for a period of time, and bringing an offering. An unclean person also had to take care not to touch other people because that would spread the uncleanness. These laws reminded the people that God desired holiness in all areas of life. From eating food to having children to taking care of one\u2019s body, God\u2019s call to holiness was always in view.Yet people could not make themselves holy. Only a priest declared whether that was so.And this is vitally good news for us. When Jesus healed people, their impurities flowed to him, and his purity flowed to them. In the great reversal that makes God\u2019s salvation possible for us through Jesus, we are made pure once for all!<\/p>\n
Lord Jesus, thank you that although we are not holy, you make us clean by taking our impurities away. Amen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. \u201cI am willing,\u201d he said. \u201cBe clean!\u201d \u2014 Matthew 8:3 Rules in Leviticus about skin diseases and rashes may not make for the most comfortable reading\u2014especially if we are reading this at mealtime. And there is a lot more here about things that made an Israelite<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2070,2069,2068],"class_list":{"0":"post-10333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-devotionals","8":"tag-flesh","9":"tag-fluids","10":"tag-foods"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}