A Curious Medley

Judges 18:19-20 KJV

And they said unto him, Hold thy peace, lay thine hand upon thy mouth, and go with us, and be to us a father and a priest: is it better for thee to be a priest unto the house of one man, or that thou be a priest unto a tribe and a family in Israel?

And the priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the graven image, and went in the midst of the people.

Here is, as one commentary puts it, "a curious medley of low morality and deep religious feelings". Such is often the case of man. Our nature, though corrupted, is a spiritual one and seeks a means to worship even in the most debased of lifestyles. Many of the worst offenders in sin have been church-going and often respectable church members. Sometimes, as in the case of this priest, they are in the ministry, but for all the wrong reasons. 

We experience in our day a sad number of men who see their calling, not to faithfully minister to those God puts in their lives, but to build up a ministry; to advance in the ministry. Because they seek to advance, nearly anything that leads to such advancement is considered to be of God. They will gladly take from another ministry and view it as a gift from the Lord, seeing that it makes their own ministry seem more successful. To steal a family from one church to add that family to his own is to not only steal the family but the tithes, the spiritual gifts and the time that God had given to the other church. These, who see no authority over their lives but that of success, happily take what belongs to another as their own, calling it the blessing of God. 

And if they are challenged for their theft, as Micah challenged these thieves? They chide him as a fool and urge him to keep silence. They might do him worse harm than just the loss of God's gifts if he pursues in his quest to see those returned.