Year 1, Day 119: Numbers 4

Age Discrepancy

I found something strikingly interesting today.  In other passages where the fighting men were counted, we often see the tally include men from 20 years old and up.  But in this passage, speaking in terms of temple/tabernacle service and as well as the tabernacle movement, the age requirement goes up to 30.  The question then is, why?

I think it points us to a need for maturity.  If we are going to be spiritual leaders, we must have a sense of maturity.  Ever meet someone who makes all kinds of promises yet never acts on them?  Ever meet someone who makes all kinds of claims of faith but never puts any into motion?  Ever meet someone who puts forth all kinds of grandiose claims for belief and religious understanding but never follows through?  These are all problems of maturity.  A mature person knows that simple promises and faithful adherence are much better than grand statements with little follow-through.  God is telling us quite simply that anyone can pick up a weapon and fight in battle; it takes a mature person to be a priest for God.

Why Is Maturity Important?

I don’t think we should cruise over this point so simply.  We in the church are very good at training people to “talk the talk.”  I know; I was there.  For many years of my life I talked a talk that would have anyone convinced I was a true believer. 

But when you look past my works, what did you see?  A person looking past my works would see someone who was just like everyone else in the world.  I played my video games, listened to my secular music laced with its drug culture, sex culture, and me-centered innuendoes, and didn’t give God the time or focus that I should.  I was all about TV, bank accounts, and popularity. 

Sure, I could talk the talk.  I could even quote Bible verses – all those memory verses I learned as a child!  But I was a fake.  I was a fraud.  Hear that statement well.  

I was fake.

I was nothing.  I was not mature enough mentally and spiritually to actually believe in having my actions match my talk.  I’m still not where I want to be, but at least now I am wise enough to see the problem and do something about it.  Maturity doesn’t grant perfection, it grants recognition of problems and motivation to at least try and correct them.

I think this is one of the marks of maturity.  A spiritually immature person can’t admit what they don’t know.  The truth is that they are not even consciously aware of what they don’t know.  The spiritually maturing person is at least aware of what they don’t know and what they spiritually cannot do.  The spiritually mature person is aware of what God wants them to do and does it.

The Task of Moving the Tabernacle Through the Wilderness

When it came time for God to lay out the tasks of the tabernacle and its function, God gave the tasks to those who were supposed to be mature enough to handle it.  I think we would be wise today to pause and ask ourselves this same question.  Those of us old enough to know better, are we mature enough to be given the tasks of the church?  Are we mature enough to uphold those responsibilities?  Or do we shirk them off and convince ourselves that God’s work – and a relationship with him – really aren’t as important as all the other things we occupy ourselves with in this world?

Yet, God still set limits.  The Levites were to carry the instruments, curtains, and structure of the tabernacle.  But they still are not to go in and see anything until the priests have made it ready.  Even when the tabernacle was pulled apart, people had their tasks and their prohibitions.  We all have a job to do.  We also all have jobs that God asks others to do.

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