Redemption: The Kinsman-Redeemer (Lev. 25:25-55)

11/12/2008 8:32 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                    Focus:  Redemption:  the kinsman-redeemer

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Leviticus 25:25-55

            Message of the verse:  I will again break up this section into the different sections that Dr. Wiersbe has made in his book, but will take more than one section for today’s SD. This entire section has to do with poor Jews and what would happen to them and their property and their land and houses if they did not have the funds to care for them.    

            The redemption of land, verses 25:28.  “25  ‘If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold.  26  ‘Or in case a man has no kinsman, but so recovers his means as to find sufficient for its redemption,  27  then he shall calculate the years since its sale and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and so return to his property.  28  ‘But if he has not found sufficient means to get it back for himself, then what he has sold shall remain in the hands of its purchaser until the year of jubilee; but at the jubilee it shall revert, that he may return to his property.”

            This section tell of a person who cannot afford to keep his land and so if he has a kinsman who wants to purchase it that person can do so, and the first owner can then buy it back from his kinsman, but the price would be adjusted as to how close it is to the year of Jubilee.

            The redemption of houses (vv. 29-34).  “29  ‘Likewise, if a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, then his redemption right remains valid until a full year from its sale; his right of redemption lasts a full year.  30  ‘But if it is not bought back for him within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city passes permanently to its purchaser throughout his generations; it does not revert in the jubilee.  31  ‘The houses of the villages, however, which have no surrounding wall shall be considered as open fields; they have redemption rights and revert in the jubilee.  32  ‘As for cities of the Levites, the Levites have a permanent right of redemption for the houses of the cities which are their possession.  33  ‘What, therefore, belongs to the Levites may be redeemed and a house sale in the city of this possession reverts in the jubilee, for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the sons of Israel.  34  ‘But pasture fields of their cities shall not be sold, for that is their perpetual possession.”

            There is a difference between the sale of houses in a walled city and an un-walled town or village.  If a person has a house in a walled city and needs to sell it that person has one full year in order to buy it back, and if they do not acquire the funds to do so within that year that person cannot get that house back.  The reason for this could be that if a family is moved into a house in a walled city that they would not want to move away for it, or think that at any time the person would have the funds to buy the house and then have to move his family away, that would not be fair.  If the house was in an un-walled village then the person could purchase it back, and if he could not do so then that house would revert back to the original owner during the year of jubilee.  There was still another situation for the Levites because they did not have an inheritance like the other tribes, but they did have forty-eight cities to live in.  If the Levite had to sell his house he could purchase it back at any time or the house would revert back to him during the Year of Jubilee. 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I think that one has to follow these laws for them to be a blessing to that person, for in the case of the children of Israel they never kept any of these rules as the Lord had intended them to, and thus they were not given the blessing of keeping them.  The same holds true to me in all areas of my life, for if I follow the principles and commands that are for me to follow in the Scriptures I will be blessed because of that, however if I choose not to follow these principles or commands because I know better, then I will miss the blessings of following them. 

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.    Jesus says that if you love Me you will keep my commandments, and I should keep the Lord’s commandments out of love for Him, because He first loved me.  I should also keep them because I will be blessed by keeping them. 

Memory verses for the week:                                  Romans 6:1-5

1. What shall we say then?  Are we to continue to sin so that grace may increase?
2. May it never be!  How shall we who died to sin still live in it?   
3. Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we to might walk in newness of life.
5. For if we have been untied with him through the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.

11/12/2008 9:32 AM