Tag Archives: Leviticus 11

Different

March 3, 2025 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“‘You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between living creatures that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten.’”
Leviticus 11:47 (NIV)

I like to wear hats. I have a lot of them. Not the ubiquitous baseball cap, but actual hats like a pork pie and fedora. It’s funny how often people will comment to me about it. I suppose that it’s, in part, because I’m an Enneagram Type Four, the “Individualist,” and we actually like to be a little different. It’s a thing.

Beginning with today’s chapter, we’re entering a new section of the priestly instruction manual God gave his newly appointed high priest, Aaron, and his sons. It was also an instruction manual for the Hebrew people and how God wanted them to live. This section of the manual deals with being ritually clean and ritually unclean along with prescribed rituals for dealing with any uncleanness.

Today’s chapter begins with food. God tells the Hebrews that there are certain creatures they can eat and others that they cannot. In some cases, scholars have argued that the restrictions given had certain health benefits. For example, cud chewing animals tend to secrete the toxins of the food they chew so by the time it gets to their stomach, only the most nutritious part of the food is left and the meat of the animal is healthier. While this is true of cud chewing animals, this healthy versus unhealthy distinction is not clear through all of the various types of creatures God labels clean and unclean.

What is clear is that God has chosen the Hebrews to be His people. He’s already breaking all religious convention of that day by being the one and only God and by choosing a people to perpetually dwell with, lead, instruct, and provide for. With these instructions, God is ensuring that His people will be different from all of the other peoples around them. They eat differently, they have a completely different belief system, they behave differently, and live differently.

Hundreds of years later, when God’s Son, Jesus, shows up, He will instruct His followers that they are to be different, as well. He spoke of food, as well, but this time it was metaphorically. He said that everyone knows a plant or tree by the fruit it bears. Some bear good fruit you can eat. Some bear bad fruit you need to avoid. So, He expected His disciples to bear “good fruit” through our thoughts, words, actions, and relationships that are marked with love in all its positive varietal attributes. Jesus graduates the “difference” from dietary to spiritual, from food to behavior, from meat to love.

In both cases, the underlying mission is for the world to know God through His people, that they might see, believe, and follow. With his fledgling Hebrew tribes in the toddler stages of humanity, it begins with simple instructions for how to eat. It’s much like teaching a little child how to dress, eat, and wash their hands. God is taking baby steps in His relationship with humanity the way every parent does with a child.

So in the quiet this morning, I think back to my hats. It is a little different, which I confess that I like. Nevertheless, it’s not the different that Jesus asks of me, and of all His followers. The difference He wants people to notice in me is in the way I love them and others, the way He has loved me: generously, graciously, mercifully, humbly, and sacrificially. That’s a pretty “clean” and easy instruction. Lord, help me not dirty it up today.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Chapter-a-Day

Rules That Serve a Time and a Place

July 27, 2016 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

This is the law pertaining to land animal and bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms upon the earth, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature that may not be eaten.
Leviticus 11:46-47 (NRSV)

Rules and laws are often culturally important for their time and place in history, but time moves on and so does culture. In retrospect, some old laws and rules seem silly to us.

In my home state of Iowa it is against the law for a moustached man to kiss women in public. It’s also illegal in the hawkeye state for a kiss to last longer than five minutes in public. In Iowa all one-armed piano players are required, by law, to play for free. Ministers in Iowa must apply for a permit to carry liquor across state lines. Reading palms in public is strictly (well, maybe not so strictly) forbidden by law in our state. My friends in Ottumwa should know that it’s against the law for a man to wink at a woman he doesn’t know within the city limits. The food service vendor at the Iowa State Capitol way want to remember that, by a resolution passed by the Iowa congress, they must serve cornbread.

In similar fashion, the Levitical laws in today’s chapter pertaining to what the ancient Hebrews could and could not eat were relatively important in their time. The dietary rules that categorized food into “clean” and “unclean” generally protected the population from a health perspective in an age when hygiene and health were not common considerations.

For the good, Jewish followers of Jesus, the dietary rules and regulations of Leviticus were repealed shortly after Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus had made clear to his followers that they were to spread his Message to all peoples, even non-Jewish Gentiles, and they were to tear down the cultural walls separating the cultures. In a vision, God made clear to Peter that God was making “clean” the foods that Leviticus had deemed “unclean.” The Levitical rules had served their purpose for their time and place. The times, they were a changin’.

This morning I’m thinking about laws and rules. From family rules to religious rules, from civic laws to social mores, we are guided throughout life by rules that govern our time and place. But times change and rules change all of the time. There are core rules like those in the ten commandments, that are applicable for all people in all times and places. Killing, lying, stealing and coveting are never a good thing no matter what time and place you find yourself. There are other rules that serve their time and place.

Wisdom is discerning the difference.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Leviticus 11

May 13, 2011 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“These are the instructions on animals, birds, fish, and creatures that crawl on the ground. You have to distinguish between the ritually unclean and the clean, between living creatures that can be eaten and those that cannot be eaten.” Leviticus 11:46-47 (MSG)

Last week Wendy and I were talking to the mother of a young toddler. She commented on the fact that her daughter, like most children that age, will put anything in her mouth. She said that she and her husband and been doing yard work with their little one playing around them. Before they knew it, their little one had streaks of dark brown mud running in streaks down the corners of her mouth. She’d attempted to eat her first mud pie.

When children are small, we do a lot of rule making.

“Don’t eat that, it’s dirty.”
“Don’t touch that. It will hurt you.”
“NO! That’s not good for you.”
“Did you touch that? Go wash you hands.”
“Wash your hands before supper.”
“There will be NO dessert until all of your peas are gone!”

Throughout the book of Leviticus, when I read the list of do’s and don’ts I hear the voice of a parent setting boundaries for their children. Some of them are no brainers. Some leave me scratching my head. Then again, so did some of the rules handed down in my house growing up.