This study coincides with the first day of Lent, and it is a great way to begin the Lenten season. After all, the Christian calendar -- Advent, Epiphany etc -- is meant to help us think through the life of Christ, and this study on blood helps us link Leviticus to the work of Christ. We sing so much about blood sometimes ("What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!"), and somehow in the Christian belief, blood is for washing, and makes us white and clean. This is somewhat counterintuitive, because certainly we don't use it for washing in our daily lives, and we know that blood stains!
Lev 17 helps shed light on the significance of blood to the Christian belief.
The important background to today's study comes from Lev 10:1-2. It records for us the death of Aaron's 2 sons from offering unauthorised fire to the Lord. They put fire and laid incense in their censers even though God did not command them, and as a result, fire came from the Lord and consumed them. This sets the stage for us to understand Lev 16.
This study looks at the cases of bodily discharges, but first, let us introduce ourselves to a NT case study of bodily discharge, in Mark 5:24-34. In Mark 5, the healing of this woman is sandwiched between more spectacular healing -- the healing of the demon-possessed man, and the dead child brought to life. The passage describes the woman's fear and stigma against her clearly. We are told that she "suffered much", "grew worse" and "spent all that she had" (v.26). It was with "fear and trembling" that she approached Jesus, and "fell down before Him and told Him and told Him the whole truth" (v.33). It is not hard to infer how she suffered. Why? It is important for us to understand Lev 15, for it forms the backdrop of this NT encounter.
How many of you have had spots on your skin before? Rashes, pimples, burns, etc. This passage might be of interest to you for it tells you how you can tell an unclean spot from a clean one. In fact, the passage has so many different types of spots that it is almost certain you could at least be suspected to be unclean.
In today's study, we look at another set of instructions to the people of God, this time, for after childbirth.
This is our first study in Leviticus, and this is certainly no easy book. Before we begin, it's important to consider one obstacle to understanding this passage. You see our secular mindset -- the philosophy and mindset of the age, the mind of the flesh, what we possess naturally -- causes us to approach the Bible and passages like Leviticus with man as the starting point. The secular mindset says man is the starting point of all things and man decides what makes sense and what is right and wrong. Problems, solutions and successes are defined according to man. This is why we struggle with the Bible and passages like Leviticus, because things don't make sense to us. Even Christians can be secular. How do you know if you have a secular mindset or not? How do you pray? If you pray around what you want, what you deem as needful or not, what is good according to your standard, chances are, you are still operating with a secular mindset. In contrast, the Spirit-filled mind (c.f. Rom 8) starts with God, letting God decide the agenda, praying that our Father in Heaven will have His name hallowed, and that His will be done in Heaven and on Earth. The Spirit-filled mind starts with God.
We end the year looking at the last of the Servant Songs. "The year of the Lord's favour" referred to in verse 2 was something that Israel was familiar with. From the verse, we see that this Servant will come to proclaim what happens in a year of the Lord's favour. As our year ends and a new one begins, this text shows us also what this means for us in the year ahead.
We continue our series in the Servant Songs of Isaiah, and in today's passage, we'll learn more about the heart of this Servant.
Today, we'll take a look at another Servant Song in Isaiah, one that could be more familiar to many of us. Let us take a closer look at these verses and see what the Servant of the Lord is like.
In this series, we're making our way through the prophecies of Isaiah, written around 742 BC – more than 700 years before Christ. Today, we'll look at the second Servant Song.
We begin with our first Servant Song in the book of Isaiah. Written 600 years before Christ, these were prophecies and presented a portrait of the coming Messiah for the people of God.
We're now in the final verses of Romans 8, and to understand the closing verses, we need to understand and recap the previous verses to understand what Paul has been trying to establish and build towards.
We've finally hit the parts of Romans 8 that are more familiar to most of us. In this study, we'll take a look at what it means that God is for us. Perhaps it's different from what most of us assume it is, and is actually so much more!
We're more than halfway through Romans 8, and let us take a timely recap of the big argument in Romans 8. This is important before we proceed on to these verses, which are often cited and could be familiar to many of us. Romans 8 flows from the question Paul poses in Rom 7:24 -- "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Here, Paul is not talking of death in a mere physical sense, but the full state of things in this fallen world. Romans 8 helps us see the fullness of the Godhead is involved in our salvation from sin and death, and this chapter unpacks for us what the love of God applied to us means.
While reading Romans 8, it is not difficult to see the repeated mentions of the Trinity in the passage. This week, we'll take some time to pause and study in greater detail the work of the Trinity, and the many implications there is for the Christian life. We'll use Romans 8 and also Ephesians 1:3-14 for our study.
We've learnt that hope is inseparable from salvation, and talked about waiting with both eagerness (expectantly) and patience for the return of Christ. This particular section of Romans 8 started with Paul comparing the present sufferings with future glory in verse 18. Today's verses pick up and continue to develop this theme, this time focussing on the very present work of the Spirit. We will also look at the words of Jesus in John 16:4-15, where He taught the disciples about the Spirit.
In the previous session, we saw how all creation waits for the redemption of all things. In this study, we read about how we should wait.
We're halfway through Romans 8, as the layers are peeled away one by one, we begin to uncover more of the wonderful riches in these verses. Today we read these verses which talk about things at a cosmic scale. From Rom 8:1-18 thus far, Paul has been speaking to and about "those who are in Christ Jesus" (c.f. Rom 8:1). Paul was writing to the Christians in Rome to help them to see who they are. They have their past dealt with ("now no condemnation", Rom 8:1) and have been set free from sin and death. The law of sin and death no longer has any hold on them because of the work of Christ. Those who are in Christ now have the Spirt and now live lives not according to the flesh, but in the Spirit (Rom 8:5-15). The Spirit transforms all who believe (i.e. us), and they are also God's children by adoption (Rom 8:15). A promise awaits the children of God, the promise of resurrection.
In the last study, we looked at the idea of being called "sons of God" and the implications of this truth is further unpacked in this study.
In Romans 8, continually speaks of the contrast between the Spirit and flesh. The chapter begins with how we have all sinned and are unable to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law. Therefore, God has to provide a way (and He did so) through Jesus Christ. Christ is the propitiation for our faith -- He has fulfilled the law and its requirements on our behalf and we can now be counted righteous by the righteousness of another.
The law of the Spirit leads to life and peace, and as Christians, we have the Spirit dwelling in us to give us new desires. This leads to today's study, where we explore and understand our identity in Christ.
