Scripture Passage for Today
Scripture Focus
“When a man has lost his hair and is bald, he is clean.” (Leviticus 13:40 NIV)
Observation
Okay, I confess—today’s “Scripture Focus” is offered tongue-in-cheek by a “follicly-challenged” man. The fact is, though, any honest daily Scripture reader will be hard pressed to find a particular verse in today’s reading that seems to carry a “special blessing”. We’re reading a section of health regulations, for heaven’s sake!
I get lost in the minutiae, but I do marvel at the comprehensiveness of God’s care for Israel. What I read as boring health regulations really meant life to upwards of 3 million people traveling together in primitive conditions. These rules and regulations—administered by the priests as the first “public health officials” of their kind—“…protected Israel from bad diet, dangerous vermin, and communicable diseases. These were rule-of-thumb laws that God gave in his wisdom to a people who could not know the reason for the provision.” (Good words from Zondervan’s NIV Bible Commentary.)
What Israel could not have understood from a scientific perspective God provided from a religious perspective. And centuries later, we understand better the reasons behind the infinite wisdom of God revealed in “religious” (“clean” and “unclean”) terminology.
Makes a guy wonder what, of God’s wisdom so easily rejected today, might be understood centuries down the road as obvious and commonsensical truth. Makes a guy wonder, when he’s tempted to balk at some yet-to-be-understood command, if maybe he ought to just obey, and leave the understanding and results up to God.
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