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When a man is afflicted with a leprous disease, he shall be brought to the priest, and the priest shall look. And if there is a white swelling in the skin that has turned the hair white, and there is raw flesh in the swelling, it is a chronic leprous disease in the skin of his body, and the priest shall pronounce him unclean.

Praise the Lord he has made the unclean clean… None of us need worry about our own inability to approach God, because we can each have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. He has made all things clean!

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.

God hasn’t changed. What is different is that we come before him though Jesus. He still deserves to be worshiped in the proper way. Every one of us deserves to be struck down just as Nadab and Abihu were, but by God’s grace we are not. May we take seriously the worship of the Lord.

On the eighth day Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel

It takes time to prepare for worship. This is true for the preacher, the music minister, and others who are guiding the service, but it takes time for the people to prepare as well. The vast majority of people simply show up to church on Sunday and expect to worship, perhaps this is why there is such a high level of dissatisfaction within many churches today, people are coming unprepared for worship. A worship service is an opportunity for outsiders to come and see what the Lord is doing, they are observers, and should always be made welcome. However, the worship service is a time to respond to the working of God in your life, that happened the week before. How has God spoken to you, what has the Lord lead you to do, how many people have you shared the light of Christ with or invited to come to your church? If you haven’t done any of that, all that is left is to criticize the show. Prepare yourself for worship, come ready to respond to God… not to be entertained by a specticle. 

In the place where they kill the burnt offering they shall kill the guilt offering, and its blood shall be thrown against the sides of the altar. And all its fat shall be offered, the fat tail, the fat that covers the entrails, the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys. The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering to the Lord; it is a guilt offering.

Reading all this, it’s kind of funny we wear bleached and ironed “dress clothes” to worship and most churches won’t allow drinks in our sanctuaries…

If anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord’s commandments about things not to be done, and does any one of them, if it is the anointed priest who sins, thus bringing guilt on the people, then he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering.

There are two important ideas here, first intentions and second headship. One need not be intentional in their sin for it to make them guilty. “Oh but he didn’t know any better.” That may make it easier to stop someone from repeating a sin, that is to say, simply make them aware that they are sinning, but that doesn’t remove the guilt. This should answer the question about people who live in different cultures with different concepts of right and wrong, that doesn’t matter for guilt. There is one standard, and that’s Jesus. Also, this idea of headship. The Priest sins and all the people are made guilty. We have a great high priest who will never sin, not only that, his perfection has made all of us guiltless. Praise the Lord!