8/16 Reading (Leviticus 22-24; Acts 9)

I have to be honest here, I’m relying heavily on the notes and section headings for the rest of Leviticus, primarily from the CEB version. I just keep struggling with Leviticus and I think the problem is the feeling that I need to write a lot. After talking with my father about all of this I realized that I can’t let myself get frustrated about this. If I don’t write much, so be it. That’s how I felt on that particular day or during those readings.

Leviticus 22: This chapter deals with priestly uncleanness, unauthorized eating, unacceptable animal offerings, and additional rules for sacrifice. Again, more rules and laws for people to follow. We get reference to semen again in the first part.

Leviticus 23: We learn all about sacred times and holy days throughout the year. Don’t work on the seventh day, the sabbath. We are reminded of the date of Passover and the Festival of the Unleavened Bread immediately following Passover. We learn again about the rules of the first bundle from the harvest. We then learn about the Festival of Weeks, which commemorates the harvest of new grain and the Day of Reconciliation and the Festival of Booths that occur in the seventh month (Leviticus 16 has more info on these).

Leviticus 24: About the first 9 verses in this chapter: From the notes in my NRSV – “Ritual lamps and bread. These two regular rites (lighting lamps and displaying bread) performed by the high priest effect the perpetual worship of God in his sanctuary” (p. 177). We then learn about rules pertaining to cursing God, which is a punishable offense, and blasphemy, which is punishable by death. If you kill someone, it is punishable by death. We see the “eye for an eye” phrase again. The other two places we see this phrasing are Ex. 21.24 and Deut 19.21. We also see here too that the punishments are the same for citizens and aliens.

Acts 9: Saul is confronted by Jesus. Jesus wants to know why he is persecuting him. Saul is converted and begins to preach for Jesus. Many were skeptical of him and fearful because of his history of persecuting Christians. I also noticed that the text refers to him as Saul, but the notes refer to him as Paul. One place I saw online said that Saul did not become Paul the Apostle. But many other places said that he did. Not too sure what to believe on this one.

People wanted to kill Saul, but he escaped. We also see Peter perform another miracle. This time he brings a woman back to life. Pretty incredible.

What Saul was doing was real persecution. What is currently happening is not persecution of Christians. I’m kinda tired of people arguing that it is. It’s hard to be the ones persecuted when we live in a country that is predominantly Christian.

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