Day 110: Leviticus 8-10 - The Bible Dept.

Podcast Summary: The Bible Dept. – Day 110: Leviticus 8-10

Introduction

In Day 110 of The Bible Dept. podcast, hosted by Dr. Manny Arango of ARMA Courses, listeners delve into Leviticus chapters 8 through 10. This episode serves as a pivotal point in understanding the establishment of the Levitical priesthood, the significance of holiness, and the severe consequences of deviating from divine instructions. Dr. Arango expertly navigates the complexities of these chapters, offering deep insights and practical applications for modern-day listeners.

Overview of Leviticus 8-10

Dr. Arango begins by emphasizing the central theme of holiness throughout Leviticus. He explains that the primary objective of these chapters is to instruct the Israelites on becoming a holy nation to dwell among a holy God. This is achieved through a combination of ritual sacrifices, the establishment of the priesthood, and the implementation of strict purity laws.

Establishing the Priesthood

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the inauguration of Aaron and his four sons as priests. Dr. Arango details the meticulous process Moses follows to consecrate Aaron and his sons, highlighting the symbolic act of anointing with blood on their ears, thumbs, and big toes. This act signifies their dedication to listening to God, performing priestly duties, and walking righteously before Him.

“Moses takes some blood, puts it on their earlobe, thumb, and big toe to signify that they are to consecrate their ears to God, consecrate their hands to God, and consecrate their walk, consecrate their feet to God.” (04:30)

The Incident of Nadab and Abihu

The narrative takes a dramatic turn with the tragic story of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, who offer "strange fire" before the Lord, resulting in their immediate death by divine fire. Dr. Arango explores the gravity of their actions, emphasizing the importance of adhering strictly to God's instructions.

“They used a certain kind of incense that was common as opposed to holy. And the holiness of God fully consumed them.” (13:45)

Nerdy Nuggets

Names of Aaron's Remaining Sons: Dr. Arango reveals that Aaron's other two sons are named Eleazar and Ithamar, providing additional context to their roles within the priesthood.
First Messiah Concept: An intriguing point raised is the portrayal of Aaron as the first Messiah, meaning "anointed one," drawing parallels to Jesus as the ultimate Messiah in Revelation 1:13.
Holy vs. Common Fire: The use of unholy fire by Nadab and Abihu underscores the strict separation between what is permitted and what is forbidden in worship practices.

Context Clues

To fully grasp the events in Leviticus 8-10, Dr. Arango advises listeners to reference Exodus 28, which contains the detailed instructions for appointing and anointing priests. This cross-referencing provides a comprehensive understanding of the priestly duties and the gravity of maintaining holiness.

Timeless Truths

Dr. Arango presents profound lessons applicable to contemporary life:

Holiness Requires Diligence: The establishment of the priesthood underscores the necessity of being meticulous and reverent in one's relationship with God. Any deviation, no matter how seemingly minor, can have severe consequences.
Consequences of Sin: The immediate death of Nadab and Abihu serves as a stark reminder that while God extends grace, certain violations, especially those against His holiness, incur dire repercussions.
Role of Empathy in Leadership: Aaron's past involvement in the Golden Calf incident, despite his subsequent role as high priest, illustrates that leaders can grow through their failures. His empathy, born from personal mistakes, enhances his ability to guide others toward repentance and reconciliation with God.

“God is just objectively. ... A violation of holiness equals a full consumption of the individual.” (22:15)

Practical Applications

Dr. Arango encourages listeners to reflect on their own "golden calf moments" — instances of straying from God's path. He emphasizes that while God offers grace, it requires sincere contrition and a renewed commitment to holiness. Leaders, in particular, are reminded of the weight of their responsibilities and the importance of upholding God's standards consistently.

Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, Dr. Arango previews the upcoming discussions on purity laws and the Day of Atonement in Leviticus. He reinforces the importance of continuing the Bible reading journey, urging listeners to maintain their study streaks and engage deeply with the Scriptures.

“If you've enjoyed some of the interpretations that I've brought to the table from Genesis, then that's just the tip of the iceberg...” (37:50)

Final Thoughts

Day 110 of The Bible Dept. offers a thorough exploration of Leviticus 8-10, blending scholarly insight with practical wisdom. Dr. Manny Arango adeptly guides listeners through the intricate details of priestly duties, the sanctity of worship, and the profound implications of maintaining holiness. This episode not only educates but also inspires a deeper commitment to understanding and living out biblical principles.

Additional Resources

Listeners are invited to download the Bible reading plan from thebibledept.com/plan and to join the community for further engagement and study. Upcoming events, such as live lectures in Nashville, are also highlighted as opportunities for deeper learning and fellowship.

For those seeking a transformative journey through the Bible, The Bible Dept. podcast by ARMA Courses stands as a comprehensive and engaging resource, making Scripture accessible and impactful for every believer.

Transcript

Dr. Manny Arango (0:00)

Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. To all my fellow pastors, I've got a question for you. Does your city know that your church exists? Listen, I get it. You're preaching, you're leading, you're discipling, you're doing ministry. We are in the same boat. And let's be honest, social media and marketing, not your strong suit. Not mine either. And that's probably the last thing on your mind. And that's why we chose to partner with Church Candy marketing for our church. Plant the garden. We out here, y'all. They help churches get more actual guests walking through the doors on Sunday without your eye having to stress over ads or algorithms or trying to crack the social media code. Right now, Church Candy is helping nearly 400 churches reach their communities with simple invite ads. And it works. It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience. So if you're tired of being your city's best kept secret, how about you do this? Go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a free consultation book a discovery call. Their team will break it all down and show you how to start seeing new faces at your church this Sunday. I'm in the trenches with you trying to grow the church. And how about we just start a whole campaign? No more empty churches. So let's partner with Church Candy and get our churches full. The glory of Jesus. Let's go, family. Welcome to Day 1 10. We are looking at Leviticus chapters 8 through 10. If you've already done the reading, can't wait to dive in. If you have not done the reading, pause the video, pause the audio. Don't watch, don't listen. Go do the reading. Today's reading is actually pretty freaking action packed. We are crossing over. Okay, From a section, Leviticus chapters 1:7 was all about the rituals, the ritual sacrifices that people are going to need in order to be holy. Remember, the whole point of this book is to get the people of Israel to be holy so they can dwell amongst a holy God. Okay? So holiness is the big theme. The people need to be holy because God is holy and they're amongst the holy God. Okay? The other thing that they're going to need in order to be holy is not just ritual. Sacrifices. But a priesthood can't offer priests, can't offer sacrifice on your own. There has to be a mediator, okay? The priests are going to have to live more holy or more sanctified or more set apart or more different than the regular people because they are around God more, okay? They're at the epicenter of God's power. Their lives are centered around the tabernacle, okay, where sacrifices are being made and where holy things are being touched, okay? So they. The requirements on their life are just way more strict than the average Israelite. The other thing that the people are going to need in order to be holy are gonna be laws, like pure purity laws. And we're gonna get into that actually in the next chapter. Not the next chapter, in the next section, starting in, like, chapters 11. That'll go all the way to chapter 15 of Leviticus. And then we're gonna get the Book of Atonement, the day of atonement, in the middle. And then you're gonna get more purity laws again, then instructions about priests and then more rituals, okay? So you see how we got rituals and then priests and then purity laws, and then the day of Atonement's right in the middle. And then it's just like you're gonna mirror this side, okay? You're gonna have purity laws and then more stuff about priests and then rituals, okay? So if you fold it in, everything would. Would touch perfectly. So this isn't the last time that we're going to get instructions about priests. And these instructions about priests are actually in the form of a narrative. God is going to give a warning because Nadab and Abihu, which would be Aaron's sons, they offer strange fire before God, which would be unholy fire. So they did what was convenient instead of doing what was required. And the Bible says that not only does the fire of the Lord consume the whole burnt offering in this initial, this is the first time that Aaron and his four sons are offering anything to God on behalf of Israel. And two of his sons are consumed by the fire. Literally dead, gone, instant. There's two reasons for why Aaron and his remaining two sons and Moses. This is Moses, nephews. They're not allowed to mourn for Nadab and Abihu. The first reason that they can't mourn is because they can't touch any dead bodies. If they touch a dead body now, they're ritually impure. Now they can't perform their duties as priests. Second, they cannot communicate to the people of Israel in any way, shape or form that they disagree with God's judgment. They have to uphold, by the way that they act, that God was just and what he did. And the reality is that God was just objectively. Now, I personally don't have to deal with the emotions of this situation because Nadab and Abihu are not my sons or brothers or nephews. But can you imagine, like, being Aaron or his other two brothers? Actually, I'm going to find his other two brothers. It's here in the text. I wasn't going to tell you. His other two brothers. And then there we go, Eleazar and Ithamar. Okay, so that'll be our nerdy nugget. One of our nerdy nuggets for the day is that Aaron's other two boys are named Eleazar and Ithamar. We get this entire section, Leviticus 8 through 10, which is going to give a massive. Well, it's going to tell us, like, okay, here's the beginning of the priesthood. So that's just context. That whole chart where I showed you, like, where it fits in the book, that's context. And we can kind of now, like, move into everything I say now will be kind of nerdy nuggets. Aaron can't mourn Eleazar and Ithamar can't mourn because God is justified. There's a certain kind of incense that they were supposed to offer, and that incense had been made holy. I was about to say holified, made holy, or sanctified, or set apart for being used in the tabernacle. They used a certain kind of incense that was common as opposed to holy. And the holiness of God fully consumed them. Okay, so the Levitical priesthood gets started with this idea that you could die doing this, that you better be really, really, really careful, because it's God that we're dealing with, okay? That we should not be flippant, we should not be casual, we should not be convenient. We need to be diligent, we need to be careful, because we're dealing with a holy God. And his holiness will consume us the same way it consumes the sacrifices. It will consume us. In order for Moses to anoint or install Aaron and his four sons, he has to put blood on the lobe of their ear, on the thumb of their hand, and on their big toe. And that signifies three things. It means that the priests must listen to the Lord, that their ears are consecrated to listen to the Lord, to hear the voice of the Lord. Number two, that their hands have been consecrated to perform priestly functions. And three, their toe, that they are consecrated to walk rightly before God. So Moses takes some blood, puts it on their earlobe, thumb and big toe to signify that they are to consecrate their ears to God, consecrate their hands to God, and consecrate their walk, consecrate their feet to God. One of the. One of. One of the nerdy nuggets that I think is really, really interesting is that Aaron is actually the first Messiah in the Bible. I want you to remember that Messiah means anointed one. Okay? So there's the. This scene is one where Moses is anointing Aaron, okay, To be a leader, okay? Anointing Aaron to be a divine representative. And Revelation chapter 1:13 is going to make this a full circle moment, because the clothing, the way that Jesus is depicted in Revelation 1:13 is like a high priest, okay? And so if Aaron is our first Messiah, then Jesus is our last Messiah. Let's just go back to holy fire. Just want to read this to you. The most common interpretation is that they use common or unclean fire for a source for the incense. They used what was convenient instead of God's fire, the stuff that was set apart for God. When it comes to being clean and unclean, there's a distinction between what is allowed and what isn't. Some scholars look at it this way. A person or object may be holy or common or clean or unclean. It is possible to be holy and clean, or common and clean, or common and unclean. That's good. That's really, really helpful. You could be common and still be clean. The only combination that is not allowed in the priesthood system is, is holy and unclean. If something is holy, it must be clean. The job of the priest was to teach the Israelites how to recognize the difference between these things and become increasingly committed to what is holy and clean. This would become increasingly more difficult if they were intoxicated with alcohol. Nowhere does the Bible condemn alcohol, but it does condemn drunkenness. Now, there are a lot of people who 100% believe that Nadab and Habihu are under the influence of alcohol. Now, the reason for this is because in the Golden Calf story, everyone is indulging in revelry. Okay? So there's this undertone that the Golden Calf incident or pagan worship in general involves alcohol. And it involves sexually explicit behavior. It involves orgies, it involves drunkenness. But these two things, orgies and drunkenness, kind of go together when you think about secular worship. Worshiping BAAL worshiping, Asherah, worshiping Greek Gods and goddesses. So there's some, not a ton. There's some scholars who believe that man were Nadab and Abihu, like not sober. That's up for debate. But what we definitely know is that they weren't sober minded. Okay. Whether or not they were, they were literally sober says nothing about whether or not they were acting sober, like sober judgment. Last thing I'll say, we'll get into our, our timeless truth for the day. Aaron and his sons were one of the main worshipers in the story of the golden calf, yet was still chosen to be high priest for the nation of Israel. Regardless of his past, the Lord still wanted to use Aaron as a mouthpiece. His generation. Actually, I would say that being someone who greatly sinned before God actually made him a better priest. Because part of the job of a priest is to teach and instruct and inspect sacrifices and to lead people into repentance. It wasn't just, you know, to offer the sacrifices for the people. It wasn't just like a, it wasn't just like a, you know, full service gas station kind of situation. It was pastoral, it was relational. The role of the priests was a role where contrition was determined. In the process of leading people into reconnecting with God or atoning with God, there was an element of psych, pastoring and loving people. And I think that Aaron is able to do that with empathy because of the mistakes that he's made in his past Bible Department family. It's Dr. Manny Arango, and first thing I want to say is that I'm proud of you for completing the New Testament. You did it. And now that we're in the Old Testament, I hope that looking at Genesis and Exodus from an ancient perspective and worldview has kind of like opened your eyes. Well, I got news for you. If you've enjoyed some of the interpretations that I've brought to the table from Genesis, then that's just the tip of the iceberg. This entire book, Crushing Chaos, was written from an ancient hermeneutic. I'm looking at stories like the Flood, Adam and Eve from the perspective of an ancient person. And we've got an event coming up on April 26th where I'll take a lot of the content from, from this book and I'll turn that content into live lectures. You don't wanna miss it. You can actually register for that event right now. The link is in the description. And more than content, I think what you'll find as we gather together in Nashville are like minded believers and friends in A community of people that you don't just watch content with online, but you can get to know in person. I'd love to see you in Nashville. I'd love to hug you. High five you. And I'd love to nerd out together for one day as we come together in Nashville to learn about how to crush chaos. I'll see you in Nashville. Peace. Actually, I'll go back to one of our last context clues. Leviticus chapter 8. Okay. We see the anointing by Moses of Aaron and his four sons. If you want context for everything that's happening here, you can actually just back up to Exodus chapter 28. If you go back to Exodus, you're going to get the instructions for how to anoint and appoint the high priests and the priests. And now in Leviticus 8, we actually see Moses doing that. So you're going to see the instructions and the fulfillment. And so if you kind of want context for what's happening in Leviticus chapter 8 as it pertains to the priests, then you can go back to Exodus chapter 28 and kind of get that context. All right, we've covered context clues. I gave you some nerdy nuggets. We talked about our timeless truth. And our timeless truth is that you as an individual may be someone who has had a golden calf moment. And that doesn't mean that you can't then have a Leviticus 8 moment where you get anointed into the priesthood. Although God has grace for this golden calf moment, he does not have grace for Nadab and Abihu that all sin is equal, but all consequences are not equal. And consequence for Aaron creating a golden calf is that he has to live with that guilt, live with that shame, but then ultimately he's still allowed to be a high priest for Nadab and Abihu. They offer unholy fire, which may seem like a lesser sin, but it is more of a violation of God's holiness. The consequence is that they die immediately. Okay, so I know that may not be the way that you think about sin. You may think about, oh, equal sin. Sin should have a punishment that makes sense. I get that. That's a very human way to think about that. But the issue here is God's holiness. And a violation of holiness equals a full consumption of the individual. All right, we got context clues. We got nerdy nuggets. We got a timeless truth. And tomorrow, as we go into day 111, we'll cross the threshold and we'll start talking about some purity laws we've dealt with two days worth of rituals, of ritual sacrifices. Today we talked about the priesthood, which was a story that every priest would have remembered, that this whole thing started with Nadab and Abihu being fully sacrificed to the Lord and that we should act right. Okay. And then now we'll keep tracking through purity laws, and then we'll hit the day of atonement, and then we're gonna see everything a second time. Okay. As we get on the flip side of the book. All right. I hope you're enjoying this trek through Leviticus. If you're on a streak, don't mess it up. If you haven't started a streak, today's a great day to start one. Read today and make sure you read tomorrow. I'll see you right here for day one 11 as we begin our journey through Leviticus, chapters 11. I love you guys. I'm proud of you. See you tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram at the Bible Department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow. It.