45 For I am Yahweh who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.’” Leviticus 11:45 (LSB)
The resistance in today’s version of the Church of Jesus Christ to commands such as the one above is rooted in rebellion. Yes, I know that is a blunt statement. Yes, I know that there are huge segments of the church in America that believe that the Old Testament is not for them. However, the truth does not stop being the truth simply because people refuse to believe it. I run into this quite a bit. I teach something or write something that is a clear command of God that we must obey and someone will say or write something like, “well everyone knows that that can’t mean that because God isn’t like that.” Excuse me but since when does what people believe about God change what God is like or diminishes the veracity of His commands?
Some “so-called Christian leaders” have been teaching that the Old Testament is not doctrinally important for Christians. Andy Stanley made a statement like that. He has backtracked some since then because of the level of criticism he received, but that does not change the fact that he still sees the Old Testament as irrelevant for Christians compared to the New Testament. Because of this type of thinking, that is, that people can make up their own ideas of what doctrines they will believe and which they won’t, comes the mindset that they can also frame their own concept of God that they believe that is not in any way Biblical. From this they enter that slippery slope of unbelief and they will find that they now believe that God’s commands to be Holy are irrelevant for the New Testament believer because that was Old Testament.