Leviticus 19

v1-10: God is a holy God, therefore His people should be a holy people. God had set apart Israel “from all other peoples by special laws and customs” and this “was intended to teach them real separation from the world and their sinful nature,” and to “be completely devoted to God.” For us, who follow this God, we must, “according our ability, be set apart for God’s honour and conformed to his nature and will.”

v11-18: We are “to rebuke our neighbour for their sin against God, because we love our neighbours.” This is one of the means which God has given “to bring them to repentance, so that their sin may be forgiven, that they may turn from their sin and may not suffer its consequences.” Love does cover “sin from others, but it should not cover sin from sinners themselves.” A danger is that we don’t tell friends their faults because we think it is unloving to “make them uncomfortable,” but the opposite is true. We should “love them enough to tell them about [themselves].”

v19-29: These laws forbidding mixed breeding, sowing two different kinds of seed, and wearing clothes made of two different kinds of materials are “to show how careful the people should be not to associate themselves closely with the ungodly or to try to weave any of the [world’s] customs into God’s ways.” This principle still stands.

v30-36: Laws are given concerning the time and place that was set aside for the worship of God. Israel was to observed the Sabbath, and to take care to be present at the tabernacle with “humility, uprightness, and diligence.” These law reminds us that when we gather with God’s people on the Lord’s Day, we are to “come with a proper sense of awe and respect” because we “have the promise of Christ’s special presence” with us.

v37: We are not allowed to pick and choose which of God’s laws we do, and which we do not do.