“Jesus declared all foods clean.” Why then should believers in Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) consider the food laws of Leviticus? We look at Solomon’s Temple dedication, Leviticus’ spectrum between “holy” and “common,” and Messiah’s teaching that true defilement flows from the heart — not unwashed hands. Learn why the food laws and Peter’s vision of pigs in a blanket are really about God’s calling and cleansing of the nations — and discerning when He is at work in the hearts of humanity.
Discover how Shavuot (Pentecost), the Book of Ruth, Ezekiel’s chariot vision, and Acts 1–2 weave a single story: God gathering a harvest from all nations. In this study we explore Ruth’s bold “Your people will be my people,” exile and restoration in Ezekiel, Peter’s Shavuot message, and the New Covenant promise of the Torah written on our hearts by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit). Learn how law and Spirit unite to transform identity, obedience, and hope.
Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread teach us to be spiritually prepared, not just stocked up for doomsday. Chametz (leaven) vs. matzah (unleavened bread), clean (fit to approach God’s presence) vs. unclean (unfit to approach), Mary vs. Martha, Israel at Sinai, and Joshua at Jericho. Through these Bible stories we learn to discern good and bad teaching, count the true cost of discipleship, and choose what really matters — Heaven’s presence with us. It’s a call to move from Egypt to home, prepared on the inside, not ruled by fear.
The distinction between “clean” and “unclean” animals in Leviticus 11 and Acts 10 echoes the choice between the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad/Evil in Genesis 2–3. By eating from the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve sought to determine good and bad for themselves, instead of trusting in God’s provision and boundaries.
In this study of Torah reading שְׁמִינִי Shemini (“eighth,” Leviticus 9–11), we’ll see that learning the underlying lesson of distinguishing clean from unclean teaches the commonwealth of Israel to accept God’s designations rather than relying on their own understanding. Those who “eat” what God deems “unclean” place themselves outside of His blessing and life, just as Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden. But by obeying God’s instructions on diet and ritual purity, Israel can enjoy communion with the holy God and partake continually of His life-giving presence, prefigured by the Tree of Life.
Peter’s vision in Acts 10 teaches this fundamental lesson of how “cleaned” believers in Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) are elevated/separated from the “unclean” way of the world.
There’s a big difference between learning Torah on an intellectual level, through hearing lectures and reading books versus doing it in the real world.
In the Torah reading שמיני Shemini (“eighth,” Leviticus 9–11), ancient Israel high priest Aaron and his sons are taking what Moses has taught them about being their role in the Tabernacle and starting to step into the hands-on role. We have to do the same thing. It’s a good thing to read the Bible, listen to it being spoken, but then we have to actually do what it says before it can change us and make us who God wants us to be.
Amid all the instructions about “clean” and “unclean” foods in this passage, the underlying lesson is profound: It’s in God’s great mercy and love for mankind to lift us up from the mire we’re knowingly or unknowingly trapped in then set us apart to join Heaven in the restoration of the world (Eph. 2:10; 2Tim. 2:21).
The concept of ritual impurity is confusing to the gentile mindset. The Torah says that if one is “ritually impure” one can’t participate in the work of worship that happens in God’s house. It seems like God is punishing us for things that are beyond our control.
However, it is not a sin to be ritually impure, and God isn’t out to punish us for things outside our control. Everything God says in the Torah is there to teach us lessons about Himself — and about ourselves in the process.
In the Torah reading שמיני Shemini (“eighth,” Lev. 9:1–11:47), discover the things Heaven says make one fit and unfit to enter God’s Presence. Some of those things are out of our control living in a world under the curse since Eden, so Heaven has to transform us. Focus on what’s in our control.
Heaven is taking each of us and humanity on a journey to a new beginning: from bondage to rest.
It seems bizarre that the Bible packages instructions for purifying new bothers and newborns together with what look like public health instructions for dealing with chronic skin diseases and toxic mold. And this passage in Leviticus 12–15 (Torah readings Tazria and Metzorah) comes between a big failing of the priesthood (deadly use of “strange fire” in Leviticus 10) and Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16). Discover the important messages that come from these passages, unwrapped as a packaged set. Why are the instructions for purify childbirth packaged together with those for cleansing the “walking dead?” Why does the miracle of birth require a sin offering? What is it about baby girls that doubles the exclusionary period from the Tabernacle? Why is there an elaborate ritual for the cleansed leper? How is the rebirth of the leper similar to the resurrection of Israel from the house of bondage?So we can start to see links to Pesach (Passover) and the forethought, continued caring and compassion of God and the one and only Son of God, the Lamb of God.