Look, I get it. I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. I mess up. I don’t always say/do/think how I should. But I pray that at least when I notice it—my error, I mean—I fess up and make it right. That’s what Leviticus 4 is about: unintentional sins.
That being said, how does an entire congregation commit an unintentional sin?! Doesn’t someone out of the few million people in Israel notice it?
As it turns out, the answer isn’t as difficult as you would think. All you have to do is hide the truth from people.
Take 2 Kings 22, for instance. In verse 8 of that chapter, Hilkiah the High Priest finds the book of the Law hidden in a dark corner of the Temple. And the only reason Hilkiah finds it is because Josiah is taking Israel through a financial audit to collect resources to rebuild the Temple, which is in complete disrepair.
In a sense then, the physical state of the Temple reflects the spiritual state of the people. The Temple is broken, the Law is forgotten, and the people are lost as a result. In just one generation, Judah will be taken into Babylonian captivity.
To Josiah’s credit, his response is exactly what it should’ve been. When he finds the book of the Law, he “tore his clothes” and realizes that nobody has kept God’s Word for generations. No Passover, no sabbaths, no real understanding of sacrifices. They’re going through the motions of religion with no understanding of what they’re even doing.
I feel like that describes a lot of churches today. We sit in comfortable church buildings today and have the Bible told to us, instead of actually cracking it open for ourselves and doing real actual Bible study on our own. We follow the herd; if our friends in that building say it’s okay, who am I to question it?
Knowledge is power. But to gain that knowledge, we have to take responsibility for our own spiritual life, regardless of what any person in your life wants you to think. YOU are accountable for understanding the Bible. It is your soul, after all.
The good news is that ignorance can be temporary. We can all exist in a period of spiritual stupor, but just like Josiah, when we learn the Truth, we become accountable to follow the Truth. Or we can close our eyes and go down the wrong path. The choice is quite literally ours.
