TCN's Biblical Journey Jan 29th

Today's Reading is from Leviticus 11-15

 Leviticus chapter 11

Do you remember your parent's telling you, "Don't put that in your mouth!"

Yes sometimes they said it just because the idea was disgusting to them but at other times it was because there was a real danger if you did it you would get sick or even die.

They may have explained it to you or if you were too young to understand they may have said the famous words, "Because I told you so."

Here we see God listing the creatures He wanted the Israelites to avoid eating. Though he said He was showing them the difference between the clean and unclean, in another way He was saying, "because I said so."

Why?

In the times the Israelites lived, they wouldn't have understood the dangers eating many of these creatures presented. Some of them if prepared and cooked the correct way today we know are okay, but back then there was no way to test temperature or to explain to them the dangers of invisible bacteria.

Besides seeing the history of the Israelites, and people in general, if God had tried to explain invisible creatures they probably would have made gods to them.

So what does God do? Just what our parent did, they laid down the law. Don't do this.

We may think we are smarter today, but let's be honest. Look around, are we?

Most everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, but people do it anyway. And this is just one example, I could list more, but I think you get the point.

There are somethings even if God explained, we wouldn't obey or we would make some excuse for why we are the exception to the rule. It is what people have done for millennia. And there is that issue of creating more gods (or doctrine) because of the explanations, so God decided in his wisdom, which is greater than ours, that silence is the best option. 

What do we do? Trust God to know better than we do.

We don't have to worry about the dietary laws of Christianity, but we do have plenty of other areas where we need to trust that God knows best. Don't look for excuses. I believe that all of the commandments God gives the Christian have solid reasons behind them, but they can all be dismissed and are if you want to.

At the end of the day, will you choose to trust God, or not? Looking back in light of modern science,  we can see why God commanded the Israelites to do what they did (I won't take the time to list them all ). We see God's track record as being good. So let's trust him in the areas he directs us today.