How does our recruitment of pastors and ministers stack up against God's?

Numbers Chapter 4: The Organization of Priests – Part II

Numbers 4:1-49 The Ministry of the Levites and the Census of Working Levites

Day 37 of self-isolation. Life continues. We all have more time to reflect on what really matters – our relationship with God, our family, our health, and our service to others. Hope you are all painting a beautiful ‘landscape’ as to what your future will look like once this pandemic is over. There is no doubt that while the world would have evolved under normal circumstances, the human powers that be are taking advantage of the coronavirus to expedite changes – some of which we will not be too comfortable with, but nothing that God is not aware of and warned us about in His Word. And thus we continue to study it. Hang in there.

The Passage

Verses 1-20 are instructions to Moses to take a further census of the descendants of Kohath that are thirty years old and up to fifty years old and who “enter the service to do the work in the tent of meeting.” And then their work is described in detail.

Verses 21-28 do the same for the sons of Gershom. And the same is true for verses 29-33 for the sons of Merari.

The last section of the chapter (verses 34-49) provide the findings of each of the above counts and their total.

Thoughts on the Passage

Now I am sure many of you are saying, “Hey, can there be a more boring and repetitive chapter than Numbers 4?”  Well, I don’t know; I can’t remember. We’ll find out. But maybe, just maybe, there are some gems in this one too.

To begin with, we wonder how these sub-censuses were done in each case since Moses already had a census of those one month and up (chapter 3). Perhaps those under 30 years of age and over 50 were subtracted, or maybe they did recount. Afterall, what else was there to do in the wilderness?

But why between ages 30 and 50?  Remember, for all the other tribes it was 20 and over – those able to fight in a war. But here for the Levites, it’s between 30 and 50. Matthew Henry writes:

The service of God requires the best of our strength, and the prime of our time, which cannot be better spent than to the honour of him who is the first and best. And a man may make a good soldier much sooner than a good minister. Now, 

·       1. They were not to be employed till they were thirty years old, because till then they were in danger of retaining something childish and youthful and had not gravity enough to do the service, and wear the honour, of a Levite. They were entered as probationers at twenty-five years old, (chp. 8:24), and in David's time, when there was more work to be done, at twenty (1 Chr. 23:24), and so (Ezra 3:8); but they must be five years learning and waiting, and so fitting themselves for service; nay, in David's time they were ten years in preparation, from twenty to thirty. John Baptist began his public ministry, and Christ his, at thirty years old. This is not in the letter of it obligatory on gospel ministers now, as if they must either not begin their work till thirty years old or must leave off at fifty; but it gives us two good rules:

o   (1.) That ministers must not be novices, (1 Tim. 3:6). It is a work that requires ripeness of judgment and great steadiness, and therefore those are very unfit for it who are but babes in knowledge and have not put away childish things.

o   (2.) That they must learn before they teach, serve before they rule, and must first be proved (1 Tim. 3:10).

·       2. They were discharged at fifty years old from the toilsome part of the service, particularly that of carrying the tabernacle; for that is the special service to which they are here ordained, and which there was most occasion for while they were in the wilderness. When they began to enter upon old age, they were dismissed, 

o   (1.) In favour to them, that they might not be over-toiled when their strength began to decay. Twenty years' good service was thought pretty well for one man.

o   (2.) In honour to the work, that it might not be done by those who, through the infirmities of age, were slow and heavy. The service of God should be done when we are in the most lively active frame. Those do not consider this who put off their repentance to old age, and so leave the best work to be done in the worst time.

If only we followed these directions of God and thoughts of Henry as we lay hands on our youth to be our pastors.  Oftentimes, we act out of necessity for lack of workers, but we do so at our own peril. Many a young man has lost his way too early in ministry for one reason or another.

As you read the chapter you notice the detailed job descriptions in place for the different descendant groups. Not only what to do, but how to do it, with what to do it, and even what not to do.  For example, in verse 15 and 19, they were not to “touch the holy objects” or they would die. And in verse 20, they were not to even see the holy objects, “even for a moment, lest they die.”

Of interest to me also was verse 18 where Moses is told “Do not let the tribe of the families of the Kohathites be cut off from the among the Levites.” Matthew Henry explains this when he writes:

[This was] a solemn admonition to Moses and Aaron to beware, lest, by any negligence on their part, disorder and improprieties should creep in, and to take the greatest care that all the parts of this important service be apportioned to the proper parties, lest the Kohathites should be disqualified for their high and honorable duties. The guilt of their death would be incurred by the superintending priest, if he failed to give proper directions or allowed any irreverent familiarity with sacred things.

The family of Gershom was responsible for the curtains and their hangings (very elaborate as we remember from earlier descriptions of the tabernacle).  Finally, the family of Merari was responsible for the safe moving of all the pillars and the boards of, and around, the tabernacle.

Now I think of father Levite (or his tribe at least) having the world’s first specialized moving company. Maybe, based on this chapter, we could have called it “3 Families with No Vans”.  Instead, in total we are told, there were 8,580 men between the ages of 30 and 50 who, each time the cloud above them moved, took down the tabernacle and safely and properly, moved it to the new location where the cloud stopped.  Can you imagine the packing that needed to be done? Amazing.

David Guzik reminds us that this was not volunteer work. These men were each assigned their duties by Moses and Aaron, or those they had put in there as supervisors.

Guzik writes this:

Each of these had a role to play in doing the work of tabernacle, and God made them all dependent on each other to do that work.

i. "It is worthy of note that these Levites, although they were all equally consecrated to God, had not all exactly the same work to perform. God is not the God of all uniformity. There is a wondrous unity of plan and design in all that he does, but there is also an equally marvelous variety." (Spurgeon)

ii. Paul says the church is to work like a body - many parts, looking different, doing different jobs, meeting different needs, some more visible, some less, but all essential - and all with the same DNA code.

iii. Much trouble is caused in the service of the LORD by those who desire a different calling than they have, or who are jealous of those who have a different calling, or by those who exalt one calling and abase another. Everyone has a place and a job, and all can set themselves to do it.

Robert Jamieson says this about this chapter and its details: “It was a useful lesson, showing that God disregards nothing pertaining to His service, and that even in the least and most trivial matters, He requires the duty of faithful obedience.”

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Consecrated or devoted anyone or anything to God lately? Here's the fine print.

Leviticus Chapter 27: On Consecration, Tithes, and Conclusion

Leviticus 27:1-34

Day 31 of self-isolation. A beautiful sunny, but cool, day here in Toronto. Everyone is hearing rumors of areas in the world opening up again and we’re all itching for our local government to give us the go ahead. In the meantime, let’s take advantage of our ‘downtime’ as best we can. A friend of mine who knows I have been studying Leviticus sent me this picture earlier today, just in time as we look closely into the last chapter of the book.  I knew there was another reason for doing this. 

The Passage

The majority of this passage is about consecration. You would do best to open a modern translation of your Bible and read it for yourself before we dig into it. Alternatively, I have tried to summarize the key points for you below.

Verses 1-8 discusses the consecration of persons. Verse 2 reads: “When a man makes a difficult vow, he shall be valued according to your valuation of persons belonging to the Lord.” Then verses 3-8 go on to describe that ‘valuation’ based on age and gender.
Verse 8 reads: “But if he is poorer than your valuation, then he shall be placed before the priest, and the priest shall value him; according to the means of the one who vowed, the priest shall value him.”

Verses 9-13 deal with the consecration of animals, primarily as offerings to the Lord, making the person presenting the offering ‘holy’. However, if one is not sure it a clean animal, the priest decides, and puts a value on it, which would need to be paid if the one who owned wants to redeem it, and a one-fifth amount of the value would be added to the redeeming price.

A person can also consecrate his house to God and the priest will put a value on it (14-15) and if the person wants to redeem the house – take it back for his own use, he would need to add one-fifth of the valuation price.

Fields could also be consecrated (16-24). The passage talks about how that is done, and how the value varies depending on when it is done. It also talks about the fact that it cannot be redeemed if once consecrated, it is sold. And when the year of jubilee comes around, it does not go back to the one who consecrated in the first place, but rather to the Lord, the original Owner and passed over to the priest. The section goes describes how if someone consecrates a field to the Lord that he has bought, it requires a valuation by the priest and at the year of jubilee returns to the person from whom he bought it.

Verse 25 may stand on its own or may be applicable to all the consecrations identified earlier in the chapter.  It reads: “Every valuation of yours, moreover, shall be after the shekel of the sanctuary. The shekel shall be twenty gerahs.”

Verses 26-27 deal with the commandment that first-born clean animals already belong to the Lord and cannot be consecrated by man. Unclean (first-born) ones (e.g. a horse) can be redeemed and/or sold if not redeemed.

Verses 28-29 is about devoted things: “Nevertheless, anything which a man sets apart to the Lord out of all that he has, of man or animal or of the fields of his own property, shall not be sold or redeemed. Anything devoted to destruction is most holy to the Lord. No one who may have been set apart among men shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.”

Verses 30-33 deal with tithes. This section talks about how we are to tithe on the land and its produce, and the herds or flocks. It also says that if a man “wishes to redeem part of his tithe, he shall add to it one-fifth of it.”

And the last verse (34) closes off the chapter and whole book of Leviticus by stating “These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the sons of Israel at Mount Sinai.”

Thoughts on the Passage

This is a difficult chapter to make heads or tails out of, not only as to what God expected of the Israelites in those days, but what it may be saying to us today. Let’s start off with a modern (Wikipedia) definition of the word ‘consecration’:

Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word consecration literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different groups.

Chuck Smith says this whole chapter is about us “being totally serious” when we commit something or someone (like ourselves) to God. We need to think about it, because going back on that commitment has an incredible cost. Sometimes we dedicate our children or animals and they turn out to be so good in some other area of life, that we want them back for ourselves. I think of parents who dedicated their children to the Lord, and they grow up to be doctors who want to serve in a third world country, but the parents want them to stick near home now that they’re doctors. God says, “okay, but it will cost you a 20% premium.” He doesn’t like this changing of our minds back and forth.

The consecration of persons. David Guzik suggests a person could dedicate themselves to God, or their children. I would assume that the Israelites could dedicate their slaves to God’s work, too. Valuation of those individuals was assigned as per God’s instruction. This was according to their age and general usefulness or potential contribution to society. More importantly, even a poor person could if they wanted to, give their life to the Lord, and the priest would assign a special value for them. I would assume that this value was in case one changed their minds and had to buy back their consecration as discussed above. Matthew Henry seems to indicate that some of the “redemption” may have been due to an over-supply of manpower for the tabernacle. Certainly not the case we find ourselves in today. Also, we note that females were less esteemed in those days, but that changed with Christ and the New Covenant for we know, “in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28).

The consecration of houses. Sometimes people would sanctify their houses to be used for God’s service.

Verse 25 implies a fee of some sort, but little information or commentary can be found on that. [Do let us know if you are more successful.]

For animals and First-born clean animals – see me thoughts in the passage section above.

Devoted things. David Guzik talks considerably about this as he writes:

To devote something to the Lord was a further step than consecration by a vow; it often had the meaning of destroying the item (or executing the person) so that it could not be utilized by anyone else, and all of its [deemed or assessed] value was given to God.  Joshua 6:17 among other passages, translates this word ‘devoted’ with the word ‘accursed’ – because that thing devoted to God would be destroyed, being used for no other purpose. For these reasons, an item devote to God could not be “bought back” by giving its value plus 20% to the tabernacle treasury; it had to be given – and presumably destroyed – unto the Lord. . .. In this sense also, one could not escape execution by being “bought back” from the Lord; they had to face the penalty [that God had set] for their crime.

Tithing. Smith says you need to understand that God just takes claim of one-tenth of everything. There’s no room for quibbling here. Image how much better off the world would be if every person in it just followed that one commandment. And we are not to borrow on our tithes – keep our hands off of it, God says. If you do borrow, you need to add 20%. That’s some interest. What do I mean by borrowing? Well, perhaps for some of us it means delaying paying out title – especially our regular title to our local church. Perhaps this interest penalty should apply to us?  Hey, I’m not making this up – it’s right here in God’s Word and the concept of tithing has not disappeared with the New Covenant.

Last words. Guzik reminds us that these were not mere traditions and customs, though men began to attach traditions and customs to these commandments; these were - and are - the commandments (not suggestions) of the LORD. Woe to us who may neglect the ones that can be and were intended to continue with the New Covenant.

I have found Leviticus to be much more interesting than I expected. I hope you did as well. Next time we embark on the study of what many may consider the least interesting book of the Bible perhaps because of its name – Numbers.  That’s it. Numbers. Well, some people find numbers to be fascinating. Let’s find out.  Thanks for joining me on these studies. Let me leave you and Leviticus with these words from Chuck Smith:

Now as we go through the book of Numbers, whenever you get into the numbers, just skip [them] if you want. It's not required reading. When you get into the genealogies of the families, skip those, they're not required reading. I'll let you off on that, but there are some neat little nuggets buried in some of these genealogies, and truths, and thoughts.

I look forward to finding those gems with you.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

70 Is Not My Golf Score! -- 1 -- October 7, 2017

Introduction

The date is Saturday, October 7, 2017. It is my 70^th birthday. A few years back I had thought of having a big party when this time came to mark the occasion. I was going to call it “My Threescore Years & Ten” celebration. I wanted to let my friends know how blessed I felt. I wanted to thank God for granting me what the Good Book speaks about in the 90^th Psalm, verse 19, where it is written,

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. (King James Version)

A few hours ago I was granted my 70 years. My health is generally good and all else being equal, I will, until I am proven wrong, assume that God will grant me another decade. After all, my father was in his 10^th decade when he died. Yet no earlier generation’s age at death is a solid predictor of the next generation’s expiration.

As I approached this date, I had second thoughts about a big party. What would really be the point? God would know how I felt with or without a festivity. If I had one, people would have a great time and then life would go on. Some would misunderstand the extravagance I went to. It would be over and life would go on.  The feelings and thoughts of the writer of Ecclesiastes were circulating over and over in my head.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 1:2; King James Version)

The plans I had shared with my family and a few close friends for my party were canceled.

For some unbeknownst reason my thoughts and my focus now turned obsessively to how I would spend any free time I had the day I reached 70 (today onward). What meaningful activity besides my ongoing responsibilities would I pursue in my 8^th decade of life, or at least that part of it I would be allowed to experience? I strongly felt the need for something new, something more. I knew getting to 70 was a milestone. I also had recently read that lifespans were getting longer and we would be wise to plan for a retirement that could take us to 100. God forbid. Surely, they jest?  But maybe not, for as I write, my wife’s mother and father are 93 and almost 97, respectively.

I considered what I enjoyed doing, what I could do, and what would be meaningful for me as well as others. Many of my activities already satisfied most of those criteria. But was there something more I could do? In my quiet times with God, I asked Him daily for some clear guidance in this regard. And then it came. It came one night while I was tossing and turning in bed, partially thinking about this yet unresolved question and partly thinking about where I had so cleverly hidden my car keys over a month earlier prior to going on a trip to Europe.

My wife and I have owned a golf condo in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for 18 years now. I still have a half decent set of clubs. I remember my golf performances which often reached 18-hole par numbers after my 12^th hole. I remember dreaming about finishing two-under-par with a score of 70 one day. For some reason, all this came to my mind that night in bed. And then it hit me.

“70 is not my golf score; it’s my age!” The guidance God was giving me said, “Write a book and share your life. Share what you have seen, learned and believed. Encourage your readers with the knowledge that even a very blessed life is, as the Psalmist said, full of labor and sorrow. Share your joys and share your disappointments. Share the knowledge, perhaps even the little wisdom, that you’ve picked up over the years, and above all, give them hope by which to keep on keeping on. Help them find their purpose and pursue it.”

Ask any good golfer and they’ll tell you it takes years to reach a level of play where you can consistently score as low as 70 on your game. And some of us never reach that caliber. Reaching age 70, however, comes easily, consistently, and on time. You don’t even have to work at it. That does not mean that the accomplishment is any less meaningful.  In fact, when one looks closely at the life of any 70-year-old, one will find, sometimes hidden deeply, a story that is rich in experience, passion, thought, struggle, faith, and love.

The living book you are about to read is mainly my story. I also believe it is, to some extent, your story because I have always had this notion that much of what one man (or woman) experiences or ponders is experienced or thought of by many, many others. After all, were we not all created in the image of God? If so, we are bound to have similar thoughts and feelings under similar circumstances. Regrettably most of us, including me for many years, never took the time to record them, fearing we would be ridiculed.

I was no longer prepared to be silenced by any such fear.

Through this writing, I want to share ideas and feelings I believe you will identify with. I hope then you will be encouraged to act on those ideas, or at the very least share them with others in your life.

Please join me in this adventure. You can catch every episode on this blog.  All you need to do is click on the “subscribe by email” button to the right – there is no catch, except to ask you to share ‘our’ story with others.

Until next time, don’t be afraid of 70 no matter how far away it is or how long ago you passed it.
And do tell me what you think.  Writers get their nourishment from their readers.  -- KBG.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Acting: Where Insanity & Vanity Meet

Once in a while we lighten up with a story that is insane. Your age is indeed your age. It is a fact. There are records of it all over the world -- think of all the documents you have signed and all the people you have told in the course of life, business, etc.

Now imagine this: Your mother tells you her age. And you mention it in an interview on TV. Can she sue you? Well, this story is not about a mother -- but it is about a woman (an actress, or 'female actor' as they say these days) -- who had her age "exposed". [It's interesting that most don't mind have their bodies exposed, but heaven forbid you expose their age. But that's another story.]

Anyway, this actor claims when you tell the world she's over 40, you have reduced her chances of getting a role in the movies and thus negatively impacted her career earnings. So, she sued.

I guess I was taught that one is expected to be honest with those that hire one -- even when it comes to the most sensitive topic of age.

But I guess vanity is still alive and well. The sooner people accept how they are and how long they've lived the sooner they'll be happier in their inevitable "old age". I'm there.

Amazon sued over revealing actress's age - CBC News

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