Blogging Through The Bible: Hebrews 5:1-6

For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you"; as he says also in another place, "You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek." (Hebrews 5:1-6)


Why don't we have a distinct priestly caste among God's people today?

That certainly is how things worked in the Old Testament and the priests of the Old Testament played a major role in the life of God's people. Moreover they were very clearly distinct in the way they were viewed and functioned within the greater body of God's people. Many groups, from Roman Catholicism with a distinct priestly vocation to mormonism with their aberrant understanding of "the priesthood" to the unspoken but very real clerical class among many Protestants, still retain a vestige of a priestly caste and often turn to the Old Testament for support. Certainly there was a unique group of men known as the twelve apostles, the disciples of Jesus but that seems to take on less importance after the cross as the church spread and elders were appointed from among the Body to serve in the Body. We do see this and it is right and proper to imitate those who have gone before but what we don't see are a distinct priestly class among the church. Why?

The crucial difference is that human priests were just men like anyone else, flawed and sinful. As the writer of Hebrews makes clear, we have a perfect High Priest, one who doesn't have to offer up sacrifice for His own sins and therefore makes His sacrifice available to others. A perfect sacrifice from a Lamb without blemish atones for every sin of His people. The priests of the Old Covenant were a shadow that served a temporary purpose under a covenant that has been made obsolete, just like the temple and the sacrificial system and the nation of Israel.

It is so important to get this. I firmly believe that too many sheep have forgotten that they are just sheep. None of us are called to be above the church, to rule over other sheep. We are all sheep and we have one Shepherd. Many of us, although not nearly enough of us see it, are called to lead by example, to be be encouragers and equippers as sheep who have been following the Good Shepherd longer than newer sheep.

With Jesus Christ as our perfect, flawless High Priest we have no need for human intercessors or priests. Indeed we all minister in different ways as priests, not to offer sacrifices but to serve our God as His ambassadors, doing works of mercy in His name and proclaiming His Son to the lost.

Repost: Tithing, Levites and the New Covenant High Priesthood of Christ

So I looked back to see what I was writing about a year ago today and come across this post, Tithing, Levites and the New Covenant High Priesthood of Christ. Others have examined this topic far better than I have but it is something that keeps coming up, probably because the divisive influence of money on the church is something that likewise keeps coming up. The question I ponder was this: could we use the tithing system under the Old Covenant used to support the Levitcal priests to perpetuate a system of using offerings in the church to pay elders to minister? My answer is below...

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This is going to be kind of a long post because I wanted to provide lengthy Scriptural references so please bear with me.

I was thinking more about the idea of tithing and how that principle has been carried forward and linked into the local church and clergy system. I think a lot of the confusion and misapplication of the tithe to the New Covenant people of God is a result of Christians not really taking the time to examine the whole tithing system, why it existed, what purpose it served and why it has been annulled. Combine that with the general difficulty many Christians have in differentiating between shadow and fulfillment, between the Old and the New, and it becomes apparent why this question of the tithe is so often misapplied in the church.

It sometimes seems that the idea of tithing in the Old Testament is seen as essentially the same thing as offerings on Sunday morning at your local church.

In the Old Testament, God’s people brought their tithes and offerings to the temple and the priests lived off part of that while ministering.

In the New Testament church, God’s people bring their tithes and offerings to the local church and pastors live off part of that while ministering.

Simple, right? That sounds dandy but here is the problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. God commanded tithing very purposefully. It was not done in a vacuum but rather had a substantive purpose for a particular time that was intertwined with the entirety of His commands to His people. The tithe was both a sacrificial act of obedience and served a practical purpose in supporting the Levitical priests.

“The Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the LORD's food offerings as their inheritance. They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them. And this shall be the priests' due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. The firstfruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. For the LORD your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons for all time. (Deuteronomy 18:1-5 ESV)

The Levites of the Old Covenant were a particular subset of God’s people, set apart out of all of the people of Israel for a specific purpose. They were not counted in the census God ordered but instead they were called to serve in the tabernacle:

But the Levites were not listed along with them by their ancestral tribe. For the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Only the tribe of Levi you shall not list, and you shall not take a census of them among the people of Israel. But appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, and over all its furnishings, and over all that belongs to it. They are to carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings, and they shall take care of it and shall camp around the tabernacle. When the tabernacle is to set out, the Levites shall take it down, and when the tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up. And if any outsider comes near, he shall be put to death. (Numbers 1:47-51)

The Levites were not given an inheritance like the other tribes of Israel because the offerings were to be their inheritance…

To the tribe of Levi alone Moses gave no inheritance. The offerings by fire to the LORD God of Israel are their inheritance, as he said to him. (Joshua 13:14)

God did not give the tribe of Levi an inheritance. Because of this, the tithe was given to the Levites and they were largely dependent on the offerings…

“To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting, so that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting, lest they bear sin and die. But the Levites shall do the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, and among the people of Israel they shall have no inheritance. For the tithe of the people of Israel, which they present as a contribution to the LORD, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no inheritance among the people of Israel.” (Numbers 18:21-24 ESV)

The tithe served sort of a dual purpose. It was a commandment, a sacrifice to God and it also served as material support for the tribe of Levi who was commanded to serve God in the tent of meeting. It is a brilliant system.

So all well and good. What is the problem?

Just this minor little point. The Levitical priesthood is gone, done away with, obsolete, kaput! The tithing system where the first-fruits were brought into the storehouse and given to the Levites served the purpose of providing them sustenance as the priests who ministered in the house of the Lord and served as intercessors for the people is over. It was not intended as a permanent system and the old priesthood of the Levites has been replaced by a new, infinitely better High Priest…

Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second… In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:1-7, 13)

Under the New Covenant, Christ Himself is our great High Priest and He has made propitiation for sins, once for all time. He is our intercessor and believers have access to the throne of grace through Him directly without the need for a human intercessor. Because of that the Levitical priesthood has expired and is shown to be a type and shadow of Christ as High Priest. We don’t have a separate, set apart subgroup of Christians who should live off the offerings of the rest. We are all a royal priesthood and the example we have from Scripture is of even the apostle Paul working for a living so he could support his own needs as well as give to the poor.

The tithe and the subsequent bequeathing of the tithe to the Levitical priests was specific to them and it did not transfer to Protestant ministers. How can I make that assertion? Quite confidently as it turns out. There simply is no linkage unless you assume the professional Protestant ministry and then read that back into the text. The New Testament certainly doesn’t make the connection. Even the Apostle Paul in his oft misquoted treatise in 1 Corinthians 9 was more interested in why he did not seek the financial support of the church rather than a defense of why he deserved it and he was an apostle, not a local church pastor!

The world of offerings being brought to a central place and used to financially support that place and those who were “employed” there is from a time and situation that changed forever with the cross, as did so many other practices from the world of the Old Covenant. We force these practices onto the church to our peril and the history of the church has proven this over and over again. Merely teaching Christians that they should tithe because the Old Testament references it, without also studying and explaining the what, how and why of tithing, does a disservice to God’s people.

Tithing is a word that is thrown about and misapplied all the time in the church. Many men in ministry, men who have studied the Scriptures and should know better, frequently use “tithing” to describe giving to the local church, creating an equivalence in the minds of many Christians that is unwarranted. Giving to the needs of others and proper stewardship of money are such vital topics in the church. This doctrine of money deserves to stand on its own and not be blurred by a misapplication of an Old Covenant practice. Honesty and faithfulness to the Scriptures demands nothing less.

Apostles Only?

Felicity Dale posted a fascinating question on her blog yesterday: Was the Great Commission given only to the eleven disciples?

I like her answer!

I believe that all of us are called to be ambassadors, those who represent the Kingdom of God to the rest of the world. Obviously, how we do it, and what motivates us is important too.

I have heard the argument made in the past that the Great Commission was only for the apostles or at least is reserved for a few, properly ordained Christians. When I hear that, I just turn to the New Testament itself for proof that all Christians are called and "licensed" to preach the Gospel. Check out Acts 8:1-4 (emphasis added)

And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. (Act 8:1-4)

Preaching the Gospel is not the privilege of a small sub-class of the church. It is the calling of every Christian. Of course we also have to keep in mind that when the Bible speaks of preaching, it is not talking about sermons delivered to the gathered church. There certainly are men who are recognized as elders who equip believers for the work of ministry so that the less mature become mature by observing the example of servant-leaders in the church. But spreading the Good News? That is for every born-again follower of Jesus Christ.

Don't let anyone tell you that you are not called to preach the Gospel if you are a Christian. Don't let some religious group tell you that you need special education or an ordination certificate or a "license" to preach the Gospel. The mission field is far too vast to have most of the church relegated to being spectators in the Great Commission.

Are you called to the ministry?

That is the question posed by Dr. David Murray of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary on the Gospel Coalition’s blog this morning, Am I Called To Ministry?. I know that the post is speaking specifically of vocational pastoral ministry but the question is an interesting one because I think we often answer it in less than honest way.

Where the question goes astray is the idea of being called to “the ministry”. All evangelical Christians would affirm the idea of the priesthood of all believers. Let me clarify that: we agree on it in concept but in reality everyone knows that “the ministry” is reserved to those few who meet the proper qualifications. Sure we are all called to some sort of “ministry”, but when you add the qualifier “the” to the word “ministry”, it is unspoken but understood that you mean a very specific type of ministry. Now we aren’t talking about “ministry” like helping out in the nursery, we are talking about “THE Ministry”, i.e. ministry of the Word, i.e. pastoral ministry.

This topic gets me wound up and I crab about it constantly because the way it is commonly understood is so damaging to the church. We create a false dual-citizenship in the Kingdom based on extra-Biblical qualifications that serve to create a sense that ministry is something reserved for a special few in the church. The qualifications for ministry are pretty simple. Are you a Christian? If so then you are called to the ministry. I liked this quote from Total Church regarding the “qualifications” for ministry:

Most church leaders today are middle-class graduates who were trained in a college and whose qualification for ministry is a degree. The first apostles were from very mixed social backgrounds, most with no education. They trained by accompanying Jesus, and their qualification for ministry was that they knew Jesus. (Total Church, pg. 120)

As this article from the Gospel Coalition demonstrates, we have strayed pretty far away from what we see in the Bible. Merely knowing Jesus and being known by Him is not enough. For example:

I noticed that one of the recurring gifts in these lists is self-control, or self discipline. This is so utterly indispensable for time-management in pastoral ministry, when we have no boss or professor to keep us on track. If you have a record of being late for work or appointments, or if you are regularly late in submitting assignments, what reason is there to think that you are suddenly going to change when you have to preach a sermon every Sunday at 9.30 am?

Being a good time manager is a great quality in a person but is that what is meant by “self-controlled” by Paul? Here is another one:

Another vital gift is simplicity. Are you able to preach or teach simply? I’m not talking here about “dumbing-down.” I’m talking about taking profound truths and translating them into simple, clear language (as Jesus did). Some men seem to have the opposite gift, the ability to make the simple complicated and confusing. If that’s your gift, then please don’t burden the church of Christ with it.

Being able to deliver a simple but effective sermon weekly is nowhere to be found in Scripture, either as a desired quality or by example. In fact very little of what is described as sign of a call to "the ministry" has any concrete basis in Scripture. The whole blog post by Dr. Murray does sound very reasonable to our ears. It fits with how we understand “the ministry” in the safe, sanitized confines of American Christianity. I wonder how much sense his blog post would make to a believer in China or in India or in Ethiopia?

This was perhaps the most troubling:

When young men are converted, they or others often start talking about the ministry. There are exceptions to this rule, but in general it is best that young men spend some time working as Christians “in the world” before pursuing a call to the ministry. They will develop spiritual maturity there in a way that they won’t by going straight into Seminary. Even a few years of working among unconverted people has a rapid ripening effect on Christian character. It also helps to build empathy with Christians who are called to be salt and light in factories, offices, etc.

Sort of sowing your wild oats among the world before beating a hasty retreat to seminary? That is so contrary to Scripture but yet again it sounds so perfectly sensible to us. The idea that a young man should go out among the world to get a feel for it and then leave the world to go into church ministry is the opposite of what we should be doing. What we should be doing and what Scripture describes is that we disciple young men (i.e. equip them for the work of ministry) and then send them out of the church building to engage in ministry in the world. The world is not some place you go to “put in your time” to see how bad it is before scampering back into the confines of a seminary and then a church. It is the mission field and we should encourage young men to prepare to go to the world instead of hoping they will come to us to hear our nice, simple but well exegeted sermon on Sunday morning.

If you are a Christian, you are called to ministry. Period. It will look and function differently for different people. There are some contexts where some people will minister in different ways based on gifts, on gender, on age, on maturity. Regardless, every Christian is called to ministry and the notion that some are “more called” or “specially called” makes a lie out of the priesthood of all believers and runs contrary to what Scripture explicitly teaches. The Bible knows nothing to two classes of “ministry”: “The Ministry” and “ministry for everyone else”. The basic function, in fact the explicit purpose of leaders in the church is to equip all Christians for the work of ministry (Eph 4:12), not just those with that certain special something that cries out “preacher boy”. It is not a perpetual top-down ministry from one class of ministers to the rest, it is a mutual ministry to one another that will never come to fruition as long as 95% of Christians look to 5% of Christians to do all of “the ministry”. Pastors need to be ministered to as much as any other Christian and they shouldn’t have to look outside of the local church for that ministering.

We have culled certain sheep out of the flock over the years and told them they are to carry the burden of ministry for the rest of the flock. We send them away from their local gathering with a fond farewell. They land somewhere else as strangers in a new church (with a bunch of debt to boot) and are expected to minister to a whole bunch of people and when they inevitably get overwhelmed, they are sent away from their church family to be ministered to at a pastors conference or they go on sabbatical. Another great quote from Total Church captures this:

Many of my "minister" friends speak of church as something from which they must seek solace. They protect their day off and guard the privacy of their home. They feel the loneliness of ministry, looking outside the local church for people who will pastor them and events that will refresh them. For us church is where we find solace. The Christian community pastors and refreshes me through the Word of God. Someone put it to us like this: "if I were to say I needed a weekly day off from my wife and children, people would say I had a dysfunctional marriage. So why, if I say I need a day off from church, do people not ask whether I have a dysfunctional church family? (Total Church, pg. 124 )

The church is by and large a dysfunctional family and the solution to that is not more and more of the same. God created the church and He did so with a Body of sinners but it is inconceivable that He is pleased with the dysfunctional church family we have. Isn’t there a better way? There must be and I believe there is if we will have the courage to let Scripture dictate to us instead of tradition dictating to Scripture.

Ministry is not the responsibility of vocational ministers, it is the high and noble calling of every single one of God’s redeemed sheep.

In defense of dudes wearing dresses

I read an interesting and fun post at Evangel (and that is getting more and more rare, that blog has degenerated into a theological version of fight club with loads of weird posts from a Lutheran guy). The post was a defense of the wearing of vestments, something that I have little use for. Whimsically titled Sartorial Eye for the Clerical Guy the comment section is really the interesting part.

Whether it is a Roman "pope" wearing lavish robes or an Orthodox cleric with a crown or a Protestant minister wearing vestments, it all serves the same purpose: drawing a visible distinction between one set of believers (the ministers) and another set (the laity). Allegedly it is a sign of the "office", but I am afraid there isn't much support for that. I like what one commenter said: What external sign of their office did Jesus and the apostles wear, other than a towel wrapped around the waist of the Savior while He humbly washed the feet of the apostles? It is a striking contrast to think on the one hand of our Savior setting aside His outer garment and girding Himself with a towel to serve His disciples and on the other hand men who dress up in finery while claiming to be bringing glory to God through their opulence and prideful attire. God doesn't need dudes in dresses, fancy buildings or any of the other worldly and costly accoutrement that we fill our churches with (at great expense) allegedly to bring glory to God.

This comes down to one central point. Nowhere do we see a defense of clerical robes in the New Testament via example or command or principle. Quite the contrary, we see that wearing clerical garb creates an unbiblical distinction between classes of believers. That may explain why defenders of vestments invariably turn to the Old Testament for support while failing to recognize that we are not Old Testament national Israel but the church, the people of God and in the church we have but one High Priest and His raiment is exceedingly glorious, putting to shame the filthy rags of man and his self-exalting holy attire.

It strikes me that the wearing of vestments is falling into the same sort of trap we see in many places in the church, misapplying an Old Covenant type to the reality of the New Covenant church. The ceremonial robes worn by the priests in the Old Testament were symbolic of the priests being set apart. As the New Testament makes abundantly clear, that old and inferior priesthood has been done away with in the person of Jesus Christ and His office as our great High Priest.

I guess we could just chuckle and brush it off as just a quaint tradition in the church like so many other traditions we hold to. I have a hard time with that. Traditions are fine in the gathering of the church so long as they don’t interfere or negate the teachings of the New Testament regarding the church. All too often we see traditions in the church being used to divide believers: vestments, titles, stages and pulpits. All of these have the double whammy of having no Scriptural support and simultaneously working against what we see and are taught in the Scriptures. If your ministry is based on your titles and offices and garments, what value is that for the Body of Christ?

The clothes make the man

Someone I know posted this as a defense of ministers wearing robes. Shockingly, I am not a big fan of vestments. That probably surprises you. Here is what one church where the minister wears robes says about it:

First, the white robe, among other things, helps emphasize the office of the pastor and de-emphasize the personality of the man in the pulpit. Sometimes it is hard to be led in worship by an elder or pastor who is a good friend or a peer or even (especially) one who is younger. To help us get over this feeling, the church has traditionally placed special robes on her ministers when they conduct worship. This helps the people to remember that it is not just good old Jeff Meyers up there; rather, the Lord’s ordained minister is leading us into God’s presence and speaking God’s Word to us. Strictly speaking, the worship service is not conducted by Jeff Meyers anyway, but by the robe of office that Jeff Meyers happens to be filling at the current time. We submit to the office, not to the man, during worship.

Interesting that it is hard to be led in worship by a "peer". I guess that implies that pastors are not our peers which makes them...our superiors? I would also agree that it is hard to be led in a authoritarian sense by a friend. On the other hand, I would say it is far easier to be lovingly guided by the men I know and trust precisely because they are my friends instead of some clerical office holder. I guess I would rather be ministered to by (and conversely be a minister to) my friend who I know rather than my friend who is supposed to be transformed into an office based on a robe he wears. I listen to council from my friends like James and Josh and Rick and John because they are my friends and know me, not because they are being paid to "lead" me. Vestments separate people. That guy is the pastor, he has a robe on. You are not, no robe for you! This again lays bare the disconnect between saying we are a priesthood of all believers in theory but have a very distinct priestly caste in practice.

Take off your robes. It is OK to be just a guy, to be the peer of the other redeemed sinners in your gathering. All authority has been given to Christ, not to humans with ordination certificates or seminary degrees or clerical robes.

When proponents on both sides of an issue are both wrong!

I came across an interesting exchange on the opinion pages of the Cincinnati Enquirer regarding women in the Roman Catholic priesthood. The first letter was from Heidi Bright Parales, titled Anti-female priests decree not based on Bible. Here is a sample of her reasoning....

Why does the Catholic Church ban women's ordination? Because Christ chose only men for his apostolate, the pope says.

There are two serious problems with this assertion.

First, Jesus also selected women apostles. In fact, Jesus selected Mary Magdalene for his original apostle. At the tomb scene, Jesus deliberately did not appear to his male disciples, including Peter and John; he waited until they left before appearing to Mary Magdalene (John 20). Then he commissioned her to tell his followers he had appeared, making her the primary witness to the Resurrection. This transformed her into the unique role of first apostle, the earliest person sent to tell Jesus' followers he had risen from the grave. If Jesus could entrust a woman with the status of primary apostle, why can't the Vatican?

Well the glaring issue here is that there is no indication that Mary Magdalene was "ordained" an apostle nor does she act in the capacity of one anywhere in the Bible. Was she a follower, one with a unique blessing of meeting the Risen Christ? Of course, but that doesn't make her an apostle and she has never been considered an apostle by the church.

A second critical problem lies with the Vatican's explanation for excluding women. Even if we were to agree that Christ chose only males for his apostolate, it also is true that he selected only from among Jews. If we follow the Vatican's reason to its logical conclusion, then the church should be ordaining only Jewish men from the Middle East for the priesthood.

What Ms. Parales is missing is that while the Bible does away with ethnic and racial distinctions between believers, it never does away with the explicit command that the office of bishop/elder be held exclusively by males. Fact is, if you are a Roman

On the response was Rev. Kyle Schnippel, director of vocation's for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. His rebuttal is titled: Discipleship, priesthood aren't the same. A sample from the Reverend...

In her "Your Voice" column "Anti-female priests decree not based on Bible" (May 31), Heidi Bright Parales commits a common but serious flaw: She ignores the distinction between the discipleship demanded by all Christians versus the ministerial priesthood bestowed upon the Twelve Apostles during the Last Supper.

All disciples have an obligation to make Christ known through the witness of their lives: Mary Magdalene did in the post-Resurrection accounts in the Gospels; Mary, the mother of the Lord, did in the Nativity narrative; and Peter, John and Paul, and many others, did throughout the Acts of the Apostles.

However, this commission to go forth and preach is quite different from the obligations given to those chosen for a special ministry and passed on through prayer and the laying on of hands: the Twelve Apostles.

He makes a valid point, that being called to be a disciple and being called to the ministry. What is ironic is that both of them are arguing about the ministry and both of them are wrong. The ministry of Christ is not something that is granted just because of a sincere desire but through very specific qualifications, but it is also not the Roman view of a special class above the people, standing in place of and between the laity and God in the place that Christ alone functions in. Both very passionate about their argument, but both wrong because their basic assumptions about the priesthood are wrong.