Download audio Leviticus 11:1-47 Tonight we take up the question that occurs to any attentive reader of Leviticus: why in the world were some animals approved to be eaten and others not. Why was beef or lamb allowed, but not pork? Why were some birds clean and others unclean? This distinction seems pointless to the […]
Download audio Leviticus 12:1-8 We are, as we noted last time, now in a section of Leviticus that deals with causes of and remedies for ritual impurity. Last time we considered the ritual impurity that is caused by certain animals. The remainder of the section, to the end of chapter 15, deals with causes of […]
Download audio Leviticus 13:1-14:32 Some of you said to me last Sunday evening that you had been wondering what sermon I would preach on Leviticus 12, with its account of purification from ritual defilement after childbirth. Well, the emphasis on blood in that chapter made it much easier to see and explain the larger issues, […]
Download audio Leviticus 15:1-33 After two Lord’s Days away from Leviticus, let me remind you where we are. Chapters 12-15 detail various ways in which Israelites could become ritually impure and the various steps necessary to be taken to remove the impurity. We have considered the impurity a woman contracts through childbirth (chapter 12), the […]
Download audio Leviticus 16:1-34 Let me remind you of where we are in this important book of the Bible. We have completed a section of the book of Leviticus that deals with the causes and remedies of ritual defilement. We have made the point repeatedly that this system of ceremonial purity had as its object […]
Download audio Leviticus 17:1-16 Since it has been several weeks since we were last in Leviticus, let’s review. After seven chapters detailing the regulations of the four major sacrifices and three chapters having to do with the ordination and work of the priests, there followed five chapters of regulations concerning ceremonial impurity and its removal. […]
Download audio Leviticus 18:1-30 For the first time in Leviticus we have before us something other than liturgical instruction. We turn now to ethics, to rules for living. But we should not think of these commandments as simply a list of “thou shalt nots.” What we have here is something more fundamental. What all of […]
Download audio Leviticus 20:1-27 Chapter 19, which we considered last week, was a selection of laws based more or less on the Ten Commandments. Chapter 18 was a long list of laws, most of which dealt with whom it was permissible to have a sexual relationship, always in marriage of course. This chapter concerns the […]
Download audio Leviticus 21:1-24 One of the principal reasons why ministers do not preach through books of the Bible is that when they do, they come from time to time to chapters like Leviticus 21. In some ways, it is genuinely remarkable that, given when and where the Bible was written, there are so few […]
Download audio Leviticus 22:1-33 Remember we started our series of sermons in Leviticus by saying that for the ordinary believer in the ancient church the three books of the Bible that he or she would know best would be Deuteronomy, the Psalms and the Book of Leviticus. It may be the book of the Bible […]