TOM · The Owner's Manual · Old Testament

Leviticus 19

Chapter 19 in 30 seconds

Be holy, because I am holy, and here is what holy looks like on a Tuesday. Leave the edges of your field for the poor. Pay your workers the same day. Do not trip the blind. Stand up for the elderly. Use honest scales. Love the foreigner as yourself. And right in the middle: love your neighbor as yourself.

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In this chapterThe Big Question · Christians disagreeDo Christians Have to Keep the Law? · after verse 37

Commandments for Holiness

¹Then Yahweh said to Moses, ²“Speak to the whole congregation of Israel and tell them: Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy.

LEV 19:2[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → 1PE 1:16

³Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must keep My Sabbaths. I am Yahweh your God.

⁴Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods. I am Yahweh your God.

LEV 19:4[DEMONIC]Do not turn to idols or make molten gods

⁵When you sacrifice a peace offering to Yahweh, you shall offer it for your acceptance. ⁶It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it, or on the next day; but what remains on the third day must be burned up. ⁷If any of it is eaten on the third day, it is tainted and will not be accepted. ⁸Whoever eats it will bear his iniquity, for he has profaned what is holy to Yahweh. That person must be cut off from his people.

Love Your Neighbor// Romans 13:8–10

⁹When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. ¹⁰You must not strip your vineyard bare or gather its fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am Yahweh your God.

¹¹You must not steal. You must not lie or deceive one another.

¹²You must not swear falsely by My name and so profane the name of your God. I am Yahweh.

LEV 19:12[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → MT 5:33

¹³You must not defraud your neighbor or rob him.

You must not withhold until morning the wages due a hired hand.

¹⁴You must not curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am Yahweh.

¹⁵You must not pervert justice; you must not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the rich; you are to judge your neighbor fairly.

¹⁶You must not go about spreading slander among your people.

You must not endanger the life of your neighbor. I am Yahweh.

¹⁷You must not harbor hatred against your brother in your heart. Directly rebuke your neighbor, so that you will not incur guilt on account of him. ¹⁸Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.

LEV 19:17[HEART]Do not keep hatred for your brother in your heart. Talk to him instead. The next verse says love your neighbor as yourself.
LEV 19:18[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → MT 5:43
LEV 19:18[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → MT 19:18-19
LEV 19:18[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → MT 22:39
LEV 19:18[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → MK 12:31
LEV 19:18[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → MK 12:33
LEV 19:18[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → LK 10:27
LEV 19:18[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → ROM 13:9
LEV 19:18[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → GAL 5:14
LEV 19:18[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → JAS 2:8
LEV 19:18[NOTE]KEEP THE LAW? Jesus called this the second greatest commandment. See Do Christians Have to Keep the Law?

Keep My Statutes

¹⁹You are to keep My statutes. You shall not crossbreed two different kinds of livestock; you shall not sow your fields with two kinds of seed; and you shall not wear clothing made of two kinds of material.

²⁰If a man lies carnally with a slave girl promised to another man but who has not been redeemed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. But they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed. ²¹The man, however, must bring a ram to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting as his guilt offering to Yahweh. ²²The priest shall make atonement on his behalf before Yahweh with the ram of the guilt offering for the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven the sin he has committed.

²³When you enter the land and plant any kind of tree for food, you shall regard the fruit as forbidden. For three years it will be forbidden to you and must not be eaten. ²⁴In the fourth year all its fruit must be consecrated as a praise offering to Yahweh. ²⁵But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit; thus your harvest will be increased. I am Yahweh your God.

²⁶You must not eat anything with blood still in it.

You must not practice divination or sorcery.

LEV 19:26[DEMONIC]Do not practice divination or sorcery

²⁷You must not cut off the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

²⁸You must not make any cuts in your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am Yahweh.

LEV 19:28[NOTE]Cutting the body and marking the skin were ways people around Israel mourned the dead and honored their gods, 1 Kings 18:28, Jeremiah 16:6. Many Christians say this verse was about those pagan customs, not modern tattoos. Others say it still applies today.

²⁹You must not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will be prostituted and filled with depravity.

³⁰You must keep My Sabbaths and have reverence for My sanctuary. I am Yahweh.

³¹You must not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out, or you will be defiled by them. I am Yahweh your God.

LEV 19:31[DEMONIC]Mediums and familiar spirits — death penalty under the Law

³²You are to rise in the presence of the elderly, honor the aged, and fear your God. I am Yahweh.

³³When a foreigner resides with you in your land, you must not oppress him. ³⁴You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.

³⁵You must not use dishonest measures of length, weight, or volume. ³⁶You shall maintain honest scales and weights, an honest dry measure, and an honest liquid measure. I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

³⁷You must keep all My statutes and all My ordinances and follow them. I am Yahweh.”

The Big Question · Christians disagree

Do Christians Have to Keep the Law?

Three Kinds of Law?

Matthew 5:17 to 19 · Acts 15 · Romans 6:14 · Galatians 3:24 to 25

THE PROBLEM: Leviticus says love your neighbor, 19:18, and in the very next verse says do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material, 19:19. Christians keep the first and ignore the second. Is that fair? Jesus said He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, Matthew 5:17. Paul said we are not under law but under grace, Romans 6:14.
THE EARLY CHURCH: The first big church fight was about this. Some said Gentile believers had to be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses. The council in Jerusalem said no, and asked only that they avoid food offered to idols, blood, strangled animals and sexual immorality, Acts 15:1 to 29. Paul said the Law was a guardian until Christ came, Galatians 3:24 to 25.
THE THREE KINDS VIEW: Thomas Aquinas, about 1270, taught clearly that the Old Testament law has three kinds, building on older Christian ideas: moral laws like do not steal, ceremonial laws like sacrifices and clean food, and civil laws for running the nation, Summa Theologiae I II question 99. John Calvin taught the same in his Institutes, 4.20.14 to 16, and so does the Westminster Confession of 1646, chapter 19. The moral law still applies, the ceremonial law was fulfilled in Jesus, and the civil law ended with Israel's nation.
THE PUSHBACK: Leviticus itself never sorts its laws into three kinds. Love your neighbor and do not mix fabrics sit side by side. Critics say the split is a helpful tool but not something the Bible spells out.

Every View · Moses, Luther and the Hebrew Roots

Jeremiah 31:31 to 33 · Romans 10:4 · Romans 13:8 to 10 · Hebrews 8:13

LUTHER: In a 1525 sermon, How Christians Should Regard Moses, Martin Luther said the Law of Moses was given to the Jews, not to us. Christians keep the parts that match the law of nature written on every heart, like the Ten Commandments, and read the rest for its promises of Christ and its good examples. Lutherans stress Law and Gospel: the Law shows our sin, and the Gospel saves.
THE NEW COVENANT VIEW: Many Baptists and others say the whole Law of Moses ended as a code when Christ came, Romans 10:4 and Hebrews 8:13. Christians now live under the law of Christ, 1 Corinthians 9:21, and the old laws apply only as the New Testament repeats them. Nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated, but not the Sabbath. See Saturday or Sunday? in Acts on.
KEEP IT ALL: Rousas Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law, 1973, argued that nations should still follow Moses' civil laws, a view called theonomy. Many Messianic Jews, organized in America since 1915, keep the Law as Jews who follow Jesus, not as a rule for Gentiles. The Hebrew Roots movement, growing since the 1980s and 1990s, teaches that Gentile Christians should keep the Sabbath, the feasts and the food laws too.
THE NEW COVENANT PROMISE: God promised a new covenant: I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts, Jeremiah 31:33. Christians of many views agree the Holy Spirit now does from the inside what the Law could only command from the outside, Romans 8:3 to 4.
WHAT ALL SIDES AGREE ON: Nobody is saved by keeping the Law, Galatians 2:16. And love sums it all up: Love your neighbor as yourself, straight from Leviticus 19:18, is the fulfillment of the Law, Romans 13:8 to 10.

Leviticus 19

Commandments for Holiness

Love Your Neighbor// Romans 13:8–10

Keep My Statutes

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