But who gets to say which bits should be red, and which bits are still green? And if you can do this for Leviticus 19 then why can't you do it for any chapter of the Bible? What is to stop you finding the bits you don't like and claiming them to be yellow or red sections?
This is exactly the problem we get in to when we forget that none of the Bible was written with us in mind. When Leviticus was written down, or when Jeremiah was speaking or when Luke wrote his gospel, or when Paul wrote the letter to the Christians in Rome - none of those authors had you in mind. They were not writing to you. They were writing to people in a very different culture, in a very different situation, a long long time ago.
But, as I said last time, we read from a position of faith believing this to be the word of God. In the pages of the story we encounter God, and we live our lives in the light of that encounter - rather than following a series of rules that we have read and therefore obey.
So, when we read, the first thing to do is to ask what the text actually says. We read it through a few times, carefully. This part, for Leviticus 19 is fairly easy - for example, verse 11 simply states: do not steal, lie or deceive each other. That is what is says.
But then we need to try and put ourselves in the shoes of the original audience and understand what the words meant to them. And this is often the tricky bit - because we are so far removed from the original audience. So we need the help of Bible teachers, commentaries, a study Bible or the kind of books I recommended last time. So for example, after reading a commentary we might learn that the instructions about not cutting your hair or beard in verse 27 are not simply fashion statements, but they are instructions that relate to not adopting the mourning rituals of Israel's pagan neighbours. They are about not getting involved in the sorts of things that are linked to worshipping other gods.
And then once we've worked out what the passage meant then, we can ask the Holy Spirit help us apply it and determine what it is that God is saying to us now. This is that all important 'So What?' question.
This application may well be different depending on who is doing the reading. Those reading the Old Testament from a very rural, agricultural setting, surrounded by communities who practise ancestor worship, for example, may well find the application of Leviticus very different to those reading from their office in London. They may even find it easier to apply because their context is not so far removed from the original setting.
None of this is particularly easy. Therefore we need to ask God for help, and we need to find other people who will help us on this journey of discovery - ideally a good local church.
