Christians, should this verse in the bible be taken literally, or not? [Leviticus, chapter 20]?

Question

"If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. The man who lies with his father’s wife has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them."



If you are going to follow what the bible says, we have to kill half the people in America. Are we supposed to kill everyone who has cursed his father or mother, everyone who has committed adultery, and every homosexual?

Or is this one of those cases where you just ignore God's will?

So you are telling me that the old testament is invalid? That is crazy! Do you know how hypocritical you folks are. Yet you still say the earth was created in seven days? (Old Testement) Who decides what to omit?

You talk about these "events" in the bible as if you had first hand knowlenge, like you were an eye witness. Give me a break and start thinking!

Answer 1

Oh, no! He's right! He's got us trapped into a no win situation!

Fortunately for many, this is no longer the case, because the law was fulfilled in Christ. Otherwise, there'd be a lot of dead people.

Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I didn't come to destroy them, but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not one letter or one stroke of a letter will disappear from the Law until everything has been accomplished." (Matthew 5:17-18)

What is the role of the Law for today? It is a teacher. It teaches us what God demands, and it teaches us that there is no way we can follow them. That is why we need a Savior. One who is perfect and did fulfill all of the requirements of the Law.

As Paul says, "And so the law was our guardian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that this faith has come, we are no longer under the control of a guardian." (Galatians 3:24-25)

God even says this in the Old Testament through the prophet Ezekiel,

"I also gave them laws that were not good and laws they could not live by; I let them become defiled through their gifts - the sacrifice of every firstborn - that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD. (Ezekiel 20:25-26)

Jeremiah teaches that the Old Covenant would pass away.

"'The time is coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will ot be like the covenant I made with their forefathers....'" (Jeremiah 31:31-32)

So, these are just a few examples of why we "ignore" God's will from the Law of Moses.

Answer 2

I think these kinds of punishments for sleeping around are only imposed nowadays in Muslim countries under strict sharia law. Christians disregard them yet still claim to regard the Bible as the word of God. To judge from some earlier answers,belief in the Bible is conveniently selective. You can apparently believe what you like. This part of the Old Testament doesn't apply any more, we are told, but creationists, for example, invoke another part of it, Genesis, to explain how the world was created, and claim that that part is the literal truth. I hesitate to call this self-serving hypocrisy or benighted stupidity, as many otherwise reasonable people swear by this self-contradictory book, but there does at least seem to be a great deal of intellectual confusion here.

Answer 3

This book (Leviticus) is from the old testament. The old testament was written prior to the birth of Christ. Prior to Christ's crucifixian, the only way to heaven was to live as sin free as you could. If you DID sin, the way to forgiveness was to offer sacrifices to god in repentence however, there were SOME sins at this time that were "non-negotiables" in the eyes of the big G. In this part of Leviticus, the one saying these things was the voice of god talking directly to Moses and laying down the law and letting him in on his "non-negotiables" so he can let the people know of it. When he is saying "they shall be put to death" he's saying that "Yo, if you do these things, there's no redemption and nothing can resecure your afterlife in heaven. Not that you'll be put to death on Earth but to eternal death in banishment from god. Basically he's saying: If you do these things you're going to earn yourself a non-refundable ticket south. This is the reason that God SENT Jesus to Earth. As man became more and more wicked, it became clear to god that man needed a savior / scapegoat. This is why he sent his son Jesus to Earth to pay the ultimate price of all the sins in the world.

So no. It doesn't mean that people who do this should have been put to death and since we're after Christ's death, if one were to perpretrate one of these sins he or she can be redeemed by asking forgiveness in the name of Christ who already ante'd up for the sins of the world.

Answer 4

That was the old law that was rarely carried out. If you remember Jesus talked to a prostitue women
It was a set of laws that if you broke it you should be put to death it was emphasising the nature of how wrong it was.
the main idea was don't do that.
The first part about Molech we inforce today. They threw their first born baby into a fire to sacrifice to a false god.
today they would get a death sentence.
In those days they didn't have social security and children were expected to take care of the parents in old age. Support feed and cloth and give medical help to. That was why the ten commandment said, honor them. In some societys old people were killed or put on the ice or force to fend for themselves.
That was saying don't do that, now we have social security that takes care of old people. To kill them you have to catch them in the act and by two witnesses. I doubt they did it openly.

Answer 5

I'm trying not to "group" anybody, but...

Those who use verses from Leviticus to condemn homosexuality seem unsurprisingly silent. It's like someone said, some Christians use the bible like a salad bar, they pick and choose what they support or not, depending on their own agenda. Which is not a bad thing if you're alright with shaping your religion to your own morals.

People should realize that the bible has gone through many translations from the original Hebrew. Unfortunatly the translators colored their own biases into their translations. Thus the utter condemnation of homosexuality, when said passage has been taken out of context. Many take these passages out of context.

The bible has been used to protest against women's rights, to support slavery, and protesting homosexuality is the recent thing. I'd like to believe that the spirit of the religion is to love and accept one another, but some Christians conveniently forget that.

Answer 6

Jesus came to fulfill the law. Leviticus is before Christ. After Christ died for our sins, we were then under the grace of God, as we still are.
That was the law of the land then. That's why we don't stone people now. Remember? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. If those laws were still in effect, why was there a need for the ten commandments? God's wrath was swift for abominations, Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? All before Jesus came to die for our sins, and fulfill the law.
I'd have to say, that if we were not under God's grace, we wouldn't have to put those people to death, God would have killed them long ago.
So this is not a case of ignoring God's will, but following it.

Answer 7

I remember asking the same kinds of questions long ago, before I had much to learn about what Christianity teaches. The answer (I learned) is actually fairly simple. That's Old Testament Law, which was definitely done away with for Christians. That point is made throughout the N.T. I know it looks inconsistent, but the Law is one of the things that has been "consistently" done away with. Especially when it comes to that kind of "case" law.

Answer 8

Keep in mind, the Israelites had just come out of a pagan nation for which they have been captive for 400 years! They brought with them a pagan Egyptian mindset. Therefore, a theocracy needed to be established to teach the people GOD's will for them. These Laws were for their benefit. Laws needed to be very harsh, because, they would not take "verbal warnings" seriously.

It should be noted, that these Laws still apply to us. The punishment, would not.

Leviticus 20 should teach people not to take GOD's Laws lightly!

Answer 9

God will carry out judgment on these sins if the individual does not repent and pray for forgiveness.
We have an opportunity to repent because of Christ's Death, burial and resurrection. We are under Grace because of the Faithful work of Jesus Christ to save us from death and eternal punishment if we believe in Him and are Born again.

Answer 10

Leviticus is in the Old Testament, where there are a lot of references to blood sacrifices, penalties and retributions. Christ eliminated that. His sacrifice takes the place of this and gives us the opportunity for forgiveness if we will accept and follow His teaching.