by Pastor Rich Carlson          

I want to do what the text says, and be like Him. As near as I can tell, the main reason for the ceremonial, civil, health, and moral laws found scattered throughout the first five books of the Bible is to help people be holy as He is.           

Some of these laws don't make sense anymore because they were given to the Israelites, who had just come out of 430 years of slavery. Some were designed to show the terribleness of sin, others to help unite a million complaining Israelites. Some helped them regain health after generations of bondage and mistreatment.

Pretty much their whole lives were regulated by laws from God. Some of the details don't make a lot of sense to me, but the desire of God to bring His chosen people back into a state of close connection with Him makes a lot of sense. Even if the specifics seem strange, the spirit of those laws can apply to my life if my desire is to "be holy" and my reason is "because He is holy.”          

I see in all the various laws God gave to Moses—created for a vastly different group of people in a much different time—the heart of a loving God who desired to do whatever it would take to help His people be with Him and be like Him. It wasn't the legality of an irrational and power-hungry superpower, but a precisely calculated plan of an all-knowing, loving Lord looking for ways to bring His people into a right relationship with Him.          

That doesn't answer all the questions I have about the Old Testament legal system, but it does help me focus more on God’s priorities. It helps me make more sense out of this part of Scripture. It leaves me with renewed confidence in God, who cared enough even to make tough rules that in the long run would further His will for the children He loved.           

Rich Carlson is campus chaplain at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska. "God is Faithful" is adapted from the email devotionals he writes regularly for the Union College family. Rich enjoys filling his life with God, his family, and especially his five grandchildren.