Leviticus 21:16–24
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We live in an age that is allergic to distinctions, an age that considers every standard to be an act of oppression. Our culture preaches a gospel of radical, unconditional inclusion, which is really just a demand for God to rubber-stamp our own self-assessments. When the modern reader comes to a text like this one in Leviticus, he is almost certain to be offended. He sees a list of physical ailments, and he immediately concludes that God is prejudiced against the disabled. He sees exclusion and thinks it cruel, arbitrary, and fundamentally unjust. But this reaction, however common, is a profound misreading of what God is doing. If we read the Bible with secular, twenty-first-century therapeutic goggles on, we will be perpetually scandalized. But if we read it as God's own Word, understanding that He is teaching us His grammar of holiness, then a passage like this is transformed from a source of embarrassment into a glorious billboard pointing to the perfection of Jesus Christ.