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July 29, 2008 | 3:48 pm

Join the 30-day Levicitus challenge

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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A.J. Jacobs living biblically

When I read A.J. Jacob’s “The Year of Living Biblically,” I wished I had thought of spending a year living like an ancient Israelite. But the book had already been written, and I didn’t know an adulterer to stone, so I moved on to other odd makeovers, like growing a mustache. What then does Daniel Harrell hope to gain from his 30-day Leviticus challenge?

“I needed to attempt a sermon series from Leviticus. But rather than preach it straight up (and risk an exodus), I decided to teach it the way I imagine the earliest hearers learned it—by living it out,” Harrell writes in Christianity Today. “I would preach a reality sermon series. I got the idea from A. J. Jacobs’s book The Year of Living Biblically. Jacobs, a self-described agnostic Jew, determined to abide by all the strictures of Scripture as literally as possible for an entire year, just to see what would happen. Unlike Jacobs, however, my approach would not be an agnostic one; I would live out Leviticus fully believing that its teaching still applies. But also unlike Jacobs, I wouldn’t do this by myself. Leviticus was addressed to an entire community, not discrete individuals. So much of what it commands can only be experienced in community. I would need others to live Levitically with me.”

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“What then does Daniel Harrell hope to gain from his 30-day Leviticus challenge?”

Oh, I don’t know, “It would not be enough to figure out what Leviticus meant. You had to live it—which went a long way in helping to clarify what Leviticus must have really meant… One woman remarked how getting dressed each morning suddenly became a very slow and intentional process. “Fast girls aren’t holy,” she discovered… Because holiness can be difficult, we default to simply admitting we’re miserable sinners, get our grace, and then get on with living our lives the way we were going to live them anyway. As one participant put it, “I never before realized just how good I am at detaching God from my day-to-day life.” ... The experiment underscored the power of experiential learning. Study after study shows that active doing rather than passive listening ensures higher retention and application… A small group of women were so affected by the way their Sabbath observance reordered their priorities and made space for their friendship that they dedicated themselves to its continuance. Others saw how deliberate attention to food and clothing could take on a spiritual dimension. Everyone was surprised on one level or another at how the practice of simply “doing what the Bible says” led to insights as to why some of the more obscure laws made it onto the books to begin with… all of a sudden I knew that I was in a really good place and I did not want to muck it up anymore. ‘Okay God,’ I prayed, ‘this is fantastic. I want to stay here. Whaddya want me to do?’” Needless to say, reading through Leviticus again looked so different in the light of grace.”

Well, only twenty enturies to get to this point. I would recommend reading Deuteroomy 4 as a companion piece to this http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0504.htm

Comment by Ben Plonie on 7/30/08 at 12:23 pm

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