Scapegoats and Change

February 22, 2009

Today's Reading: Leviticus 16-17 and Acts 10

I always admired the part in the book of Acts where Peter sees this vision of a sheet, with all the animals on it. The Lord tells him to kill anything from the sheet and eat it. (I am assuming that the voice wanted Peter to cook it first.)

So what does Peter do? He tells God that he will never disobey Him. And to prove it, he disobeys God.

It apparently took three times with this vision, and it doesn’t look like Peter ever ate. In fact, it looked like he was hungry, so he starved himself to the sake of obeying and disobeying God at the same time.

I can totally see why Peter did what he did. After all, the book of Leviticus shows that God gave the Israelites a system of procedures and rules that were so strict, they had to invent the Pharisees just to implement them.

One in particular was the scapegoat. This is when a priest would lay his hands on a goat, and then release the goat into freedom. Symbolically, the goat represented the sins of the people, and its release symbolized the separation of the sins from the people.

Jesus is the fulfillment of this scapegoat, as he took all of our sins. Because of what he did, a lot of the procedures no longer applied. No more sacrifices anymore. Not only that, what was once simply unclean is somehow okay.

Fortunately, Peter got the message when he met up with Cornelius, a Gentile who needed to hear the gospel. Up until this time, Jews and Gentiles were forbidden to mix, but for the sake of God’s plan with Jesus, this old law became out of date in a hurry.

I can honestly say that there are things that God has told me to give up, which I did. And then years later, God tell me it is okay. I remember for a while God told me to stop watching Star Trek. For about two or three years, I did. Then one day, I saw that it was on, and I felt God was saying that it was okay for me to watch it.

Did I feel bad when I watched it after I had “repented” of it? Oh yeah. It’s hard to do something when God has told you previously not to. Of course, things change, and so that was once unlawful is somehow made okay.

The important thing is that we obey God with whatever plan he has going for us now. Can we “hear from God” and be wrong? Of course. Sometimes it is better to err on the side of not doing something than to do something and be wrong. Still, it may be better to do something new than stick with the old.