Leprosy–and members cutting each other off

The analogy between classical leprosy (Hansen's Disease) and the effect of unresolved bitterness between members of the Body of Christ. Both cause members of the body to lose sensation and be vulnerable to infection and death. "Cutting off" members only accelerates this.

Leprosy is the paradigm for ritual uncleanness throughout the Old Testament.

Unclean people could not enter the community but had to live outside it. They were cut off by their uncleanness. Leviticus 13:45-46; Numbers 5:1-3.

People unclean due to leprosy also could not enter the Tabernacle or Temple–except to show themselves to a priest when they believed their leprosy had been healed. Leviticus 14:1-7. They could not join in communal worship.

The various conditions which could lead to a determination of leprosy are described in Leviticus 13. They include a number of conditions which are clearly not classic leprosy (Hansen’s Disease). But they also include Hansen’s Disease, which was the most feared among them because of what it did to the body of the sufferer.

Hansen’s Disease is a mycobacterial infection that slowly destroys the peripheral sensory nerves. mostly in the extremities and face (though also occasionally the optic nerve or sensation in the trunk). This causes the body to gradually lose sensation, first usually from small patches of skin-where it also affects blood circulation (hence, Leviticus’ instructions that the priest should look for white or raw patches)–which slowly grow in area and proliferate. Because the patient can no longer feel first patches of skin, then whole appendages or limbs, the patient does not know when those areas have been injured or strangulated from blood flow, and opportunistic infections by other organisms set in. These opportunistic infections, or strangulation of blood flow the patient can’t detect anymore, may cause body parts to be lost. They may also cause gangrene, which can be fatal. Left untreated–and there were no treatments in Bible times–leprosy will usually disfigure, then kill, the sufferer over a period of years, sometimes as many as 20 or 30 years. It was a slow, painful, and humiliating way to die, lived out alone, in isolation from the community and all loved ones.

The analogy between leprosy gradually destroying the body’s ability to “feel” some of its members and the effect of unresolved offenses, which gradually destroy the ability of the affected members of the Body of Christ to “feel” other members of the body, should be obvious!

The results are essentially similar, too. The affected members, which can no longer “feel” or be “felt” by the Body, become vulnerable to strangulation from the life of the Body and opportunistic infection by further bitterness and/or false teaching.

The practice of privately “cutting off” other members only accelerates this.

The only treatment for Hansen’s Disease is antibiotics which kill the causative mycobacterium.

The only treatment for spiritual leprosy is reconciliation, which kills the causative bitterness resulting from the offense.

But remember, I am only an old fool, not a medical doctor or a Levitical priest. And I do not speak for any church or other organization. I only tell it as I see it in my pure folly.

What Does the Lord’s Table have to do with this?