Daily Scripture Reading Leviticus 13:34-52
Grace Church believed in empathy and kindness. When a teenager was caught stealing, the church overlooked it because he came from poverty. They did not even demand that he pay back what was stolen. Eventually, the teenager stole again.
There was a man who committed adultery and left his wife. The elders did not confront him because they did not want to risk turning him away from Christianity. They thought he would never hear the truth if he didn’t come to their church. They failed to recognize that by failing to confront him, they were not telling him the truth anyway. After a while, the man brought a new girlfriend to church. Two other men who were in unhappy marriages saw all this and left their wives.
A young lady in the church moved in with her boyfriend. The church refused to address that issue because the young lady came from a broken home. They believed she needed acceptance, not condemnation. Soon, multiple young people in the church were moving in with boyfriends and girlfriends before getting married.
Modern Christianity is very high on extending mercy and grace. They argue that Jesus ate with sinners. That is true, but Jesus also told sinners to repent.
The rules and regulations that governed people with leprosy were clear that leprosy needed to be isolated. This is a picture of how Christians need to deal with sinners.
The 13th chapter of Leviticus tells us that when a man or woman had an infection on the head, the priest needed to determine if it was leprous or not. If the symptoms were not conclusive, the person had to be isolated for seven days.
Lev. 13:34 Then on the seventh day the priest shall look at the scale, and if the scale has not spread in the skin and it appears to be no deeper than the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean; and he shall wash his clothes and be clean.
Lev. 13:35 But if the scale spreads farther in the skin after his cleansing,
Lev. 13:36 then the priest shall look at him, and if the scale has spread in the skin, the priest need not seek for the yellowish hair; he is unclean.
Lev. 13:37 If in his sight the scale has remained, however, and black hair has grown in it, the scale has healed, he is clean; and the priest shall pronounce him clean.
Lev. 13:38 ¶ “When a man or a woman has bright spots on the skin of the body, even white bright spots,
Lev. 13:39 then the priest shall look, and if the bright spots on the skin of their bodies are a faded white, it is eczema that has broken out on the skin; he is clean.
Lev. 13:40 ¶ “Now if a man loses the hair of his head, he is bald; he is clean.
Lev. 13:41 And if his head becomes bald at the front and sides, he is bald on the forehead; he is clean.
Lev. 13:42 But if on the bald head or the bald forehead, there occurs a reddish-white infection, it is leprosy breaking out on his bald head or on his bald forehead.
Lev. 13:43 Then the priest shall look at him; and if the swelling of the infection is reddish-white on his bald head or on his bald forehead, like the appearance of leprosy in the skin of the body,
Lev. 13:44 he is a leprous man; he is unclean. The priest shall surely pronounce him unclean; his infection is on his head.
Lev. 13:45 ¶ “As for the leper who has the infection, his clothes shall be torn, and the hair of his head shall be uncovered, and he shall cover his mustache and call out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’
Think about the rules a leper had to follow. He had to tear his clothes, uncover his head, cover his mustache, and call out that he was unclean. In other words, he had to broadcast the fact that he was unclean.
Lev. 13:46 He shall remain unclean all the days during which he has the infection; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his place of habitation shall be outside the camp.
Look at the words “alone” and “outside”. Lepers needed to go outside the camp, and be away from all clean people. This was a picture of the need to purge evil.
Multiple verses in Deuteronomy commanded the Israelites to purge evil from their midst. Evil people included false prophets (Deuteronomy 13:5), idolaters (Deuteronomy 17:7), false witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:19), rebellious sons (Deuteronomy 21:21), and sexual sinners (Deuteronomy 22:21-24). Those sins and the people who committed them were not allowed to exist within the nation of Israel.
There are similar concepts in the New Testament. Elders who continue in sin should be publicly reproved so that everyone else will be afraid (see 1 Timothy 5:20). Paul commanded us Christians to remove wicked men from among ourselves (1 Corinthians 5:13). This is because a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
Many Christians hesitate to do this because they want to practice grace and mercy. They do not want to shame people. They are afraid that if they expel people from church, then the expelled people will permanently turn away from Christianity and never hear a salvation message.
However, evil needs to be expelled because sin is corrosive. If sin is tolerated, then people will become desensitized to sin. If immature believers see a church compromising with sin, then they will adopt the belief that there is nothing wrong with the sins on which the church is compromising.
Lev. 13:47 ¶ “When a garment has a mark of leprosy in it, whether it is a wool garment or a linen garment,
Lev. 13:48 whether in warp or woof, of linen or of wool, whether in leather or in any article made of leather,
Lev. 13:49 if the mark is greenish or reddish in the garment or in the leather or in the warp or in the woof or in any article of leather, it is a leprous mark and shall be shown to the priest.
Lev. 13:50 Then the priest shall look at the mark and shall isolate the article with the mark for seven days.
Lev. 13:51 He shall then look at the mark on the seventh day; if the mark has spread in the garment, whether in the warp or in the woof or in the leather, whatever the purpose for which the leather is used, the mark is a leprous malignancy; it is unclean.
Lev. 13:52 So he shall burn the garment, whether the warp or the woof, in wool or in linen, or any article of leather in which the mark occurs, for it is a leprous malignancy; it shall be burned in the fire.
Modern Christianity is very high on extending mercy and grace. They argue that Jesus ate with sinners. That is true, but Jesus also told sinners to repent.
Just as lepers needed to be removed from the camp of the Israelites, and just as the Israelites were told to remove evil from among themselves, so too we Christians need to remove evil from our churches.
What evil is your church tolerating?
What evidence do you see that the tolerated sin is spreading throughout the church?
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“Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com.”