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Day 36 or February the 5th. Keep an eye open for any elephants.

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Our thoughts today are rooted in Leviticus chapter 11 verse 2. Say to the Israelites,

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of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat.

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First the big picture surrounding this verse. Many Jews today still follow the kosher

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laws of their ancestors and prepare their food as ancient Jews did. We have to remember

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that these people who were being led by Moses were from the most sophisticated country in

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the world at that time, Egypt, so they knew nothing about living as nomads. They needed

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all the help they could get so they wouldn't eat the wrong things as they wended their

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way to the promised land. These rules, like so many others that God gives us, are not

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to impair our progress but to help us to achieve success and keep us safe. Rules about circumcision

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of baby boys are specifically recorded too. Circumcision must be carried out on the eighth

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day after the birth, and an appropriate offering made following the period of purification,

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which varied depending on whether the child was male or female. It is very likely that

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the eighth day is the ideal one, as the congealing quality of blood is at its best by then. The

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timing was critically important, so God was really precise.

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And now our action step for today. These early dietary laws were well known to Jesus and

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will have been in his mind in Matthew chapter 23 verse 24 when he said, blind guides, you

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strain your water so you won't accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel. Of

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course, swallowing a small insect wouldn't harm them, but they needed to strain out the

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gnat because it was not kosher, as this part of Leviticus makes very clear. The point Jesus

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was making was that we often fail to see the elephant in the room, to use a modern analogy.

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We concentrate on the minutia and leave the big things to dominate our lives, usually

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to our detriment. Why not step back occasionally and see if there are any elephants in your

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life? See any yet?