Contemplative Bible Reading

Leviticus 5:3 (New Living Translation)

3 Or suppose you unknowingly touch something that makes a person unclean. When you realize what you have done, you must admit your guilt.

Look at this part of the law given in Leviticus. The phrase “you must admit your guilt” is repeated often. Later, people are told to confess or repeat the matter or tell others what they did that was wrong. Then comes offering a sacrifice to God in an attempt at penance to show sorrow. The person did something that God declared to be wrong. Let’s not do that. Let’s sacrifice something to help us remember what not to do.

Study these steps and these words. This can be confusing. It is easy to be mistaken in the procedure. Gosh.

When was the last time I brought two turtledoves to someone to be burned on a table? Isn’t that the second day of Christmas from that song by Perry Como? Wait, I’m confused.

Yet, this is how it used to be. This was the old agreement. Thank you God that I live under a new agreement of grace.

Admitting guilt? I find there are occasions when that is still a good idea. Admission usually works better than deception. There is much psychology to this concept of admitting guilt. It is often just a good idea to tell another person, “That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. That is what I did. I didn’t intend that, but that happened.”