The 30-Day Leviticus Challenge

August 2008, Christianity Today published an article entitled “The 30 Day Leviticus Challenge”
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/august/13.30.html

I was asked to write a one-page review of it for O.T. Hebrew class.

The 30 Day Leviticus Challenge Reflection

Studying the book of Leviticus concentrates attention on two major confusions among Christians. Firstly, what do we do with all the stuff that came before Jesus? Secondly, how do we follow Jesus without falling into licentiousness or legalism?

Daniel Harrell’s article argues that these issues cannot be ignored because they affect our thinking about and practice of our faith today:

“As a Christian, you can’t fully comprehend the New Testament and its vocabulary… without first understanding Leviticus. The second greatest commandment, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ comes from Leviticus.”

Interestingly, his approach was not to provide a hermeneutical approach. In fact, he admits that his “Levites for a month” adopted different hermeneutical approaches. One must assume he modeled one approach in his sermon series. The focus of the article was on the challenges presented and lessons learned by experientially engaging with the text.

A key pre-understanding that was brought to the exercise was that Leviticus was intended to be lived communally. Those who personally participated, as well as those who observed through social media, were pushed to engage more thoughtfully than usual with the Biblical text and to practice it more faithfully. Then came Harrell’s statement,

“For the participants in the Levitical experiment, its power for personal transformation was unexpected and perhaps the most rewarding aspect.”

Surprised? Thinking hard about what the text means and practicing it faithfully is transformational! Does this inform us more about the book of Leviticus, or about our own usual approach to and response to the teaching of the Bible more generally? The relative obscurity of Leviticus may have forced Harrell to bring his best to the task. Hopefully his example will inspire us with all of Scripture.