Tag Archives: Leviticus 20

Who Changed? The Parent or Child?

March 17, 2025 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.”
Leviticus 20:23 (NIV)

Our granddaughter, Sylvie, is an absolute delight. She is also a willful child in excess measure. Once Sylvie sets her will to what she wants or doesn’t want, you are in for the challenge of your life..

Sylvie is currently potty training. She’s taken her own sweet time getting here. When she came to stay at Papa and Yaya’s house last week we quickly discovered this little game she was playing. When her body told her it was time to do the numero dos, she would tell us she had to go potty. We put her on the pot and she would quickly ask for a wipe, use it and then say she was all done without accomplishing the deed. She loves putting the toilet paper in the adult potty and flushing it. Back she went to playing until a few minutes later she said she has to go potty again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I went along with it the first two or three times, but I was not playing that game all day. What Sylvie doesn’t know is that I successfully raised her Aunt Madison, who was a Grand Master when it came to being a willful child. Sylvie experienced a side of Papa last weekend that she’d never really experienced before. It didn’t change my love for her one iota. She just learned that there’s a serious side of Papa that will meet her toddler willfulness head-on.

When Sylvie is a teenager, and when she becomes a young adult out on her own, my relationship with her will be very different. It’s a natural life progression. Right now, she is a willful toddler who needs loving but very firm and sometimes serious authority from her parents and grandparents to guide her in doing the right and healthy thing.

In this chapter-a-day journey through the book of Leviticus, I have repeatedly used the metaphor of humanity being in its’ toddler stages back in 1500 B.C. One of the hardest things for modern readers of the Great Story to grapple with is that the God of Leviticus seems so different and hardcore than the teachings of Jesus. I think it’s easy to lose sight of who really changed between the two. If our adult daughters, who now have children of their own, behaved in a way I found improper today I wouldn’t shout “NO!” at them with my authoritarian voice, command them to cease, and threaten them with a time-out, being grounded, or inflicting some kind of uncomfortable punishment (not that some parents don’t foolishly still use variations of these tactics with their adult children). That would be silly. They are adults and my relationship with them has changed, though I’m still the same father I was when Grand Master Madison was Sylvie’s age exhibiting her willful shenanigans.

In today’s chapter, God goes back to the sex thing that He addressed with His toddler children two chapters ago. He repeats (you have to repeat things a lot to toddlers) the authoritarian prohibitions of practicing child sacrifice (like the people groups around them were doing) and committing various sexual acts, most all of it referring to incest, which the people groups around them were doing without restraint. The threat of punishment was blunt and severe, just like one threatens a willful toddler.

In the quiet this morning, I thought back to a conversation Wendy and I had with friends over brunch yesterday. The conversation was about children in young adulthood. Children at that stage of human development make some really, really foolish mistakes (the same way we did when we were their age) but a parent must use a far more subtle and nuanced approach in attempting to guide, instruct, and support them towards wise and healthy decisions. The authoritarian toddler stage is pretty easy by comparison. Parenting a young adult requires the surrender, faith, and patience of the Prodigal’s father.

This begs the question, of course, in what ways is God still having to have surrender, faith, and patience with me in my “adult” stages of life? In what aspects of my life am I still being the Prodigal?

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

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Chapter-a-Day

The Importance of the Backstory

August 17, 2016 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
Leviticus 20:10 (NRSV)

Over recent months I have been reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. It is not an easy read. Rather than a simple and continuous narrative, The Silmarillion is a collection of stories that, together, create the cosmology of Tolkien’s fictional universe from its creation. Having a lot of excellent on-line reference material has been extremely helpful.

Slogging my way through The Silmarillion I am constantly inspired as I make connections and gain a broader understanding of the backstory of The Lord of the Rings. Knowing the backstory makes the story I know so well even more colorful and thought provoking. I better understand why the elves are leaving Middle Earth and where they are going. I better understand exactly what the “Three rings of elven kings” really are and represent. I learn the skinny on Shelob the giant spider and the evil Sauron, the scary faces in the Dead Marshes, all the obscure references made by the hobbits and about hoard they find with the barrow wights in the Old Forest, and the song Aragorn sings as he and the hobbits camp on the road to Rivendell.

In many ways The Silmarillion parallels the loose collection of history, poetry, prophecy, and legal text that make up what is commonly known as the Old Testament. For many people these ancient writings are difficult to wade through and understand. Nevertheless, I’ve always found that without them I have an incomplete view of who Jesus is, what His message was about, and why things happened the way they did. The stories of Jesus suddenly gain more color and depth in context with the backstory.

One such example struck me this morning. According to Levitical law in today’s chapter, those who committed adultery were to be put to death – both the man and the woman who committed the deed. I then thought about the story in John’s biography in which the religious leaders, seeking to trap Jesus and discredit him, bring a woman to Him. She had been caught “in the act” of adultery and deserved the death penalty. They wanted Jesus to render the verdict. If He let them kill her then it would be unpopular with the crowds, but if He let her off then they could accuse Him of being a lawbreaker.

But Jesus knew today’s chapter as well as they did. If she was caught “in the act” then where was the man who was committing adultery with her? He was to be put to death as well. The story said that Jesus sat doodling in the dirt as the religious leaders were making their case. Perhaps Jesus was symbolically writing the name of the woman’s lover into “the record.” Knowing the law, I begin to understand how hypocritical, misogynistic, and crooked these religious leaders proved themselves to be with their accusations. Without even saying a word, Jesus’ brilliant response called the leaders to a legal point-of-order. His gracious forgiveness of the woman means even more to me in light of this context. [Note: you can read the brief story in John 8]

This morning I’m thinking about backstories. Beyond The Silmarillion and the Old Testament, there are also backstories to our lives, our families, our communities, our nation, and our world. I realize, once again, this morning why I love history. Knowing backstories helps me better perceive and understand things in the present. With that, I can made better decisions and judgements in the present just as Jesus did with the woman caught in adultery.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Leviticus 20

May 26, 2011 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

: via Flickr and modashell

“Set yourselves apart for a holy life. Live a holy life, because I am God, your God. Do what I tell you; live the way I tell you. I am the God who makes you holy.” Leviticus 20:7-8 (MSG)

When I was a child, the rules of the house were strict and the punishment for infraction were (at least to my child’s mind) severe. Childhood was when the folks “laid down the law” and taught life lessons in black and white terms. As I grew into an adult, I watched the authoritarian parental regime wane. I was given free rein to live on my own, make my own choices, and learn from the consequences of my own foolishness.

As a parent, I gained an even greater perspective. Parenting is about preparing children for life. It starts with helping them understand basic black and white rules for their safety and propriety. It progresses to teaching them principles for successful living and eventually becomes an advisory role as you assist them in grappling with the mysteries of this life journey as they walk it for themselves.

I find it helpful to view the authoritarian rules of Leviticus and their stiff penalties in view of the big picture. It’s easy to get mired in the minutiae and lose sight of the whole. On the surface, the purpose of the law was to protect the people by keeping them spiritually, morally and physically safe and healthy. But on a larger scale, in the linear life cycle of God’s relationship with humanity on Earth, the long list of black and white rules would teach us it is impossible to attain holiness and spiritual wholeness by simply keeping the rules. Keeping the rules cannot, and will never, address the fundamental issue of our sinful condition. It is not the symptomatic behaviors that are the problem, but the underlying sinful nature of our hearts. Like the common cold, you can treat the symptoms and dry up a runny nose, but the virus remains inside affecting the whole body. To address the root problem will require healing that can’t be found within ourselves.