Leviticus 13:29–37
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We come this morning to a passage in Leviticus that causes many modern Christians to quietly close their Bibles and go looking for a Psalm. We are confronted with detailed instructions concerning scaly infections on the head or beard, yellowish hair, seven-day quarantines, and shaving. It can feel distant, strange, and perhaps even arbitrary. We are tempted to think that this has more to do with ancient hygiene than it does with our salvation. That is to read the Bible with the lights off. We must understand that Leviticus is God's picture book. It is a massive, divinely-inspired audio-visual aid, designed to teach a young and hard-headed people the grammar of holiness. These ceremonial laws are not arbitrary; they are object lessons. They are designed to teach Israel, and us through them, the crucial difference between clean and unclean, holy and common, life and death.