ABRACADABRA!
Fifth
of five in Wholesome Series
Leviticus
13:20
“The
priest is to examine it [a boil], and if it appears to be more than skin deep
and the hair in it has turned white, the priest is to pronounce him
unclean. It is an infectious skin
disease that has broken out where the boil was.”
Every kid has grabbed a stick and waved it over
something, commanding, “Abracadabra!” to make magic. Abracadabra is maybe the world’s most famous
incantation; [in-kan-TA-shon] is a (magic) chant that orders something to
happen. While it’s a fun child’s play,
“Abracadabra! is really God speak.
Historians believe the chant
originated from two Hebrew words, abra
kdabra. These two words mean “I will
create as I speak.” If spoken words
truly create, this is not child’s play.
This five part Wholesome Series is all about the consequences of spoken powerful
words. We learned that gossip in the Old
Testament was speaking harmful words about someone about what was only seen on
the surface. So a skin disease was God’s
punishment for gossip.
Gossip can be seen as coming from a
bad tongue. The Hebrew language for “bad
tongue” is lashon hara. Lashon
hara includes any negative speech that brings harm or draws negativity into
the world. This negativity reflects back
on the speaker—who suddenly comes down with a skin disease. Biblical skin disease, tzara’at, is usually called leprosy..
Skin disease has spiritual
roots. God commanded a priest, not a
doctor, to assess the ailment and prescribe the treatment for it. Whenever a bad thing was spoken about
another, is as though God’s positive life-force was withdrawn. So it was fitting that the speaker developed something
opposite to life—a disease that leads to death.
The area of skin affected with tzara’at
was white—devoid of color—as though all life was drained from it.
The priest would prescribe the
diseased person a week of isolation from people. God did this so that person would think about
the poisonous words said, and repent for saying them against another child of
God. If repenting was sincere, the
person’s skin disease healed. Healed to
wholeness. We learned from this series
the seriousness of the spoken word. Now
we learned that spoken words actually do create! It’s not magic; it’s God!
Take
Home Nugget
If negative words create suffering,
the good news is that positive words can create blessings! God spoke the world into existence (Genesis
1). God spoke the words and creation
happened. People’s spoken words have
power too: We can create good things in our lives. Encouraging words create positive
people. Every spoken life-enforcing word
brings blessings into the world.
Wholesome speech from wholesome people is where the
real magic is found!
J.D. Griffith
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment