In Sydney ministers do not tend to be referred to as “Priests” largely out of a concern to distinguish very clearly the difference between the nature of Jesus’ priestly service and those who oversee church communities. To explore the language the New Testament often uses to speak about church leadership click this LINK

However it is not altogether inappropriate to use priestly language in describing those who serve the church. Here are a few points to consider.

• The Levitical High Priest i. mediated between God and his people, exercising an access to God that not all people or even all priests enjoyed. Jesus’ high priesthood fulfils that role now exclusively; he has entered a heavenly sanctuary that no other human has access to.

• The Levitical priesthood also ministered by way of facilitating the people’s worship of God and a teaching/instruction role with respect to God’s word (Lev 10:11). Those ordained as Overseers and Deacons in the Christian Church certainly continue to fulfil these priestly functions.

• The apostle Peter will speak of all believers as a “nation of Priests” meaning that we in a sense mediate/proclaim God to the nations. This “priesthood of all believers” coexists with the particular authority in teaching assigned only for Overseers.

• The apostle Paul will happily refer to his own work as an apostle as his “Priestly duty of proclaiming the Gospel” (Rom 15:16). While Jesus’ offering of himself has uniquely qualified Jesus to mediate "atonement of sin” and the “acceptance of our service to God”, other aspects of the priestly role ARE carried out by apostles/ministers in the church. Paul will also speak of seeking present the church to Jesus as a holy bride - a priestly kind of work that Church overseers are also responsible for.

• However, Jesus alone acts in the role of a HIGH PRIEST - making atonement and mediating God’s forgiveness to us, and our prayers to God.
  
  

Following the birth of a boy or girl, two different rituals reflect the need to consecrate (sanctify, set apart for God) both the child and reproductive process.

For the birth of a boy, it is circumcision. For the birth of a girl, the mother’s own purification period is repeated/doubled.

This is not because a female baby is more spiritually compromising! I think there is good reason to believe that the extended purification period functions as the baby girl’s “equivalent” to the boy’s circumcision.

The difference in ritual form is accounted for by the difference of the sex - “only females discharge menstrual blood, only males discharge semen — these instructions as a whole do not discriminate between the worth of men and women or the susceptibility of their bodies to impurity.”
(Samuel E. Balentine, Leviticus (Interpretation) (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2002), 100.)

The circumcision of the boy symbolised purification from “common” life, and consecration to a “holy” life - a life in which the boy’s procreative efforts are to be set apart in service of God. For examples of where circumcision symbolises being consecrated to God see Exodus 12:43-49 and Joshua 5:2-9. See also Colossians 2:11-12 below.

However, Circumcision is not an appropriate sign of consecration for a girl. Because a female child will herself one day be capable of menstruation and childbirth, the ritual purification period is doubled (in the place of circumcision) - once through to consecrate the mother, and a doubled time for the consecration of the baby girl. This reflects the Levitical categories of bodily discharge (Lev 15) where the purification of menstrual blood is ritually significant. Rabbinic commentators (in the Mishnah) also suggested the doubled time after a girl’s birth accounts for both the mother’s own postpartum bleeding and symbolically anticipates the baby daughter’s own future cycles.

New Testament echos: In the NT both circumcision and blood continue to be associated symbolically with being cleansed and setting apart for God.

Colossians 2:11–12 — Speaks of a circumcision made without hands by Christ, linked with putting off the body of flesh— a vivid “removal of impurity” image.

Hebrews 9:13-14 - 13 — Speaks of blood of the blood of Christ, which cleanses or purifies our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may be consecrated to serve the living God!

It would be a mistake to imagine that this verse represents some horrific judgement that God arbitrarily dreams up as punishment. This horrific foreshadowing is describing the fruit of Israel’s prior choice to “dine/fellowship” with the false god Molech, rather than to “dine/fellowship” with God.

One might say - “you become like the god you worship”. Let’s see how this works out in Leviticus.

1. Child-offering Already Condemned in Leviticus

Leviticus explicitly prohibits offering children to the “god” Molech (18:21; 20:2–5). This is not a hypothetical sin; it is named as a concrete threat for Israel - something that profanes God’s name and desecrates his sanctuary. The parents are warned against feeding their children to a false god in the fire.

2. Consumption/Feeding Language (ʾākal) as a Cultic Category in Leviticus

• In a Positive sense: In Leviticus, priests and worshipers are to “eat” a share of the sacrificial portions they rightly offer to God in worship (ch. 1–7). To eat is to share fellowship with God in all holiness and life.

• In a Negative sense: The same verb “eat” becomes a curse in the context of idolatry. Those who offer their children to the “god” Molech, will end up participating/fellowshipping with him in the same wickedness - You become like the god you worship.
Eating functions as a worship category. Who you fellowship/eat with in worship will ultimately shape who you become.

• When God declares “You shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters” (26:29), he is not dreaming up some terrible arbitrary curse; he is proclaiming that the character of the false god they have chosen to worship will shape their fate.

3. Prophetic development of the same logic

• Jeremiah 19:4–9: Israel burns their children to Baal in worship (vv. 4–5). As consequence, God declares they themselves will eat their children in judgment (v. 9). What they chose freely in the practice of idolatry, becomes the reality they are tormented with in the face of judgement. (See also Ezekiel 5:6–10)

  • The “eating” of children is later described as a horror of city life under the military siege God brings as judgement against his people (Deuteronomy and Lamentations). However, the curse itself is the fruit of Israel’s prior worship of idols. The prophets make explicit what Leviticus already anticipates; what Israel imagined as an act of worship offered to an idol will eventually find expression in their own wickedness.

4. Conclusion

Leviticus 26:29 does not depict God “dreaming up” some arbitrary horror with which to punish Israel. It is the twisted corollary of Israel’s own prior pattern of chosen worship.

• In right worship, offerings are consumed by God and worshipers in holy fellowship with one another.

• In false worship, children are offered to be consumed by Molech in the fire, but it turns out the people are only devouring themselves.

In our sermon on Leviticus 17-20 (and especially Lev. 18) we looked at Paul’s warning about sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 5. There Paul speaks about a situation in which the church is to treat an unrepentant sinner “as if they were an unbeliever”. The question asks at what point we are to take such action in our own relationships with one another.

1. IT IS NOT AN ACTION THAT INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIANS ARE EVER CALLED TO IMPLEMENT ON THEIR OWN INITIATIVE
There are no New Testament passages that call for an individual believer to exercise rebuke or church discipline on their own initiative. This is something exercised only as a Church community (Matthew 18:15-19) or by church leaders (2 Tim 3:16, 2 Tim 4:2, Titus 2:25) as part of their teaching oversight.

2. ONLY AT THE POINT SOMEONE CLAIMING TO BE A BELIEVER IS UNREPENTANT & BOASTING IN THEIR SIN BEFORE THE CHURCH
This is the situation in 1 Cor 5. The offending believer and perhaps some in the church are actually boasting in their sexual immorality as something to be proud of. My (Steve’s) experience has been that this is a rather rare situation. It is one in which someone is proclaiming as “good” that which is evil. It is a situation of apostasy that threatens to lead others into sin (recall the “yeast” illustration).

3. ONLY WITH THE AIM OF PEOPLE REPENTING AND BEING RESTORED TO THE CHURCH COMMUNITY
(see 2 Corinthians 2:7-10)

We tend to look for what each scripture passage is INSTRUCTING ME AS AN INDIVIDUAL TO DO in various situations. However the apostle Paul is not offering advice for individuals in 1 Corinthians 5. It is a warning for the church community (and especially leaders) who are treating as nothing a public evil that threatens to spread through the church.

Please do speak to the Summer Hill Church staff if you ever fear that open wickedness is being tolerated in the church community.

You might wish to listen to the sermon we preached a few years back on the uncommon practice of REBUKE |
LINK TO SERMON

In Leviticus 18:7-8 and 14 several instances of sexual immorality are forbidden because of the dishonour that it would cause to a husband. Here is one example of such a verse…

“Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonour your father”.

The original questioner was asking why the woman (wife) is not spoken of as being dishonoured. It is an important question!


1. LEVITICUS IS SPEAKING OF SITUATIONS IN WHICH A WIFE HERSELF MAY BE A WILLING PARTICIPANT IN THE SEXUAL IMMORALITY THAT IS BEING FORBIDDEN.
Lev 18 almost exclusively addresses men as potential initiators of sexual immorality. This is likely because as heads of households they had far more liberty, power, and opportunity to initiate such behaviour. HOWEVER Leviticus envisions situations in which the women themselves may also be willing participants in the sexual immorality (even if it is less likely that a woman may have initiated the behaviour).

2. LEVITICUS 18:2 WARNS AGAINST ACTING LIKE THE EGYPTIANS OF ISRAEL’S NEIGHBOURS IN CANAAN.
There are no examples in scripture where Israelite women are explicitly condemned for breaking the laws of Leviticus 18. However there are examples of where Egyptian women (Genesis 39) and women associated with the land of Canaan (Lot’s daughters in Genesis 19) do initiate such sexual immorality and so dishonour their husband/father. Leviticus’ aim is to warn both Israelite men & women against such sexual immorality.

3. THE LAWS AGAINST SEXUAL IMMORALITY IN LEV 18 WOULD PROTECT ISRAELITE WOMEN IN THEIR VULNERABLE SOCIAL CIRCUMSTANCES - EVEN IF THAT IS NOT THE PRIMARY STATED PURPOSE OF LEVITICUS 18.
Where sex is restricted to a husband and wife alone, it will be easier to expose and condemn situations in which the more powerful abuse the less powerful (see David’s abuse of Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11-12). However this is not the primary focus of Leviticus 18. This chapter is written as a warning to all who might themselves choose to engage in the sexual immorality of Egypt and Canaan.

[Note: the idea that Leviticus 17-20 are laws that reflect God’s own character is especially clear in Ch17 & 19, & in 18:1-5]

As God's faithfulness leads to the fruitful multiplication of blessing, so sexual faithfulness is at least partly ordered towards procreative "fruitfulness" and the nurturing and growth of communities.

It is worth noting to begin with that while intercourse with someone of the same sex is explicitly identified as sexual immorality in the New Testament, sexual intercourse during menstruation is not mentioned at all. How are we to understand these two prohibitions from Leviticus?

Homosexual intercourse signifies a structural rejection of sex’s given ordering towards fruitfulness, while intercourse during menstruation may run the risk of becoming a refusal of the divinely appointed rhythms of fertility. Leviticus’ prohibition seems to perceive such a practice could reconfigure sex as something that serves only the interests of a husband's desire or satisfaction. I suspect that Leviticus is warning against such a disordering of sex. This same concern also likely lies behind the prohibition of Leviticus 18:23.

This perhaps raises legitimate questions about modern practices of contraception and vasectomies. Might contraception (like Leviticus’ warning about sex limited to the menstrual period) risk uncoupling the practice of sex from a proper ordering towards fruitfulness?

This is a legitimate concern. In many cases the growing effectiveness of contraceptive practices HAS begun to disconnect a couple's sexual practice from its inherent potential to multiply life & fruitfulness (at least in our modern imagination). Contraception has made it easier to reframe and reimagine sex as something that serves only those directly engaging in it.

This does not settle outright the question of whether the use of contraception is always wrong. Sex is certainly not only about procreation - indeed there are many times of the month in which conception is unlikely, and God himself seems to have orded sex that way! We can not go as far as saying every act of sex ought result in conception. Sex serves good purposes in addition to procreation. Indeed, in a world frustrated by the fall of Genesis 3 there are many things that might understandably limit the capacity of a couple’s sex life to be fruitful; old age, physical and mental health, perhaps past traumatic experiences of either husband or wife. These limits do not make the practice of sex meaningless! Procreation is not the ONLY good to be pursued in sex.

Yet even sex itself may not always be possible within a marriage. Christianity has always taught that chastity is possible - for those who are unmarried, for those who are widowed, for those who are same-sex attracted. Sex is not a "human need" that it is impossible to live without for a period of time when necessary; when a wife is unwell, a husband is suffering from chronically poor mental health, when one's spouse is recovering from some trauma. Might the avoidance of conceiving life in such instances be a considered act of careful stewardship? [Note: 1 Corinthians 7:5 is speaking against illegitimate "spiritual justifications" for a prolonged withholding of sex from a spouse. Paul is NOT suggesting such restraint is impossible in marriage].

However, contraception is never simply a neutral action that we can simply affirm without consideration. It HAS changed the way we tend to think about sex, and sometimes for the worse. It is worth Christians reflecting on how our expectations of sex may sometimes sit uneasily with Scripture’s picture of marital life as generative of more than just our own fulfilment & satisfaction.

If you would like to consider the question of contraception further THIS ARTICLE published on a Matthias Media web page explores what place contraception might legitimately have within marriage.
For a different approach to discussing this question see THIS YouTube PODCAST (especially from 56min) between Preston Sprinkle and Matthew Lee Anderson. I’d encourage us to grapple with positions on this question that don’t simply affirm our own current position.