Holiness

For us Methodists, Holiness is the theme of the Bible. God is love precisely because of His Holiness.

For a month or so we have been studying Leviticus on Sunday evenings. I know, I know, you can't really believe Leviticus would draw a crowd, but it does. It's a book that is easy to dismiss, easy to freak out about on a surface reading. But if you spend some time with it, try to get into its mindset and then understand how Jesus dealt with it--both in His teaching and on the Cross-- the rewards are great. As evidenced by last night.

We have spent the last three weeks on chapters 11-15: food laws; purification after childbirth; regulations concerning mildew and infectious skin diseases. You wonder, why is this in the Bible? What does it have to do with us?

Well, maybe Dave Saxon summed it up. He said something like this about holiness in light of Jesus' work on the Cross and the nature of the Law: there's no middle ground. You're not following orders. It's about the condition of your heart. And other people need to see it in you.

That, I think, is the holiness Leviticus would impart to us in light of Jesus' work as priest and sacrifice.