Pastor's Blog

“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but  y ou shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you  i ncur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but  y ou shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the   Lord . ~ Leviticus 19:17-18 ~ The purpose of this passage is, in part, to set a limit to the measures an individual may take to personally redress a grievance he has against his neighbor. If his neighbor has sinned against him, he may confront him and “reason frankly” with him. The Hebrew word ( yākah ) means to rebuke, reprove, or correct . [1] What the law has in view here is precisely the situation Jesus had in mind when he said, “If your brother sins [ against you ], rebuke him, if he repents, forgive him” (Lk. 17:3). Such verbal correction, it should be noted, is not merely permitted, but encouraged. Rebuke for wrongdoing is beneficial. “Whoever heeds reproof,” Solomon says, ...

We are making our way through the book of Leviticus in my Sunday school class. This is the passage we considered this past Sunday: “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.   ~ Leviticus 19:15 ~ We have here a general prohibition followed by several specific examples. The general prohibition is:  “You shall do no injustice in court.” The court, we should understand, is not a human invention, but a divinely authorized institution (Deut. 1:9-18; Rom. 13:1-7). It has been established for the purpose of pursuing justice (Deut. 16:18-20). Justice involves the administration of law in order to prevent one person from harming or defrauding another and to provide a legal remedy when such harm or defraudation takes place. The role of the judge is to decide cases in terms of God’s law. Judges, therefore, are to recognize the Lord as the ultimate source of justice and...