Wednesday, July 31, 2013

The Privilege of Ministering to the True Ministers

Numbers 16:10 KJV
And he hath brought thee near to him, and all thy brethren the sons of Levi with thee: and seek ye the priesthood also?

Korah was not satisfied with the role God had given him.
  • He looked for advancement
  • He wanted the honor of the very priesthood and perhaps
  • He sought for himself the office of the high priest
Moses' first rebuke was to remind him of the honor already awarded him, that of being a minister in the tabernacle and to the priests. 

I am reminded that in this New Testament day the priesthood belongs to every Christian. Those who are the saved are the priests. Those who have been called into the ministry have been given the joy of ministering to the priests (who are the true ministers). 

But some have not been satisfied with that role. They have created a new priestly office and elevated themselves above the congregation of priests of God.
  • We, of course, see this in the Catholic Church
  • We find a likeness of it in almost every Protestant Church, especially the mainline ones but
  • We are often dangerously close to it in many Baptist circles

The denominational Baptists have surely created a priestly class of those who presume to supervise local churches. It happens in the independent Baptist churches, when certain well-known pastors and Christian leaders become elevated in the eyes of other pastors into a status that has nearly an unquestioned following. We revere them because of
  • Their skill
  • Their influence and
  • The size of the churches they lead
and often we pay little attention to their doctrine and practice because, well, they are beyond that. They are above that. Whatever doctrinal differences they might have with our own understanding of the Bible can be easily overlooked because
  • They are close enough to our doctrine (we suppose, sometimes we don't really know, and they often urge us to overlook differences in favor of being their follower)
  • They are successful and because
  • In our hearts, we want that much influence, skill and size of the congregation.

Not being satisfied with the honor of ministering to the priests, we have often unwittingly grown our own priestly system. 

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