Theological Commentary: Click Here
It is
chapters like this that ultimately are why I am no longer in the professional
ministry and instead focus on mentoring and discipleship as a calling and not
an employment. To understand this, look
at the issue that God has with the priests.
They are getting fat off the people rather than doing their job. They are more concerned about the happiness
of the people, because happy people bring good sacrifices for the priests to
live off of.
The problem
is that if human beings are genuinely sinful, then the goal of the priests shouldn’t
be keeping them happy. The goal of the
priests should be keeping them righteous and challenging their sin. However, when one’s livelihood depends on the
happiness of the people, this gets horribly muddled. It still does to this day. It’s still hard to tell people the truth when
if they get mad it matters if they take their checkbook with them.
For the
record, you’ll notice that Jesus never once advocates any of his disciples
become connected to priestly nature. Instead,
Jesus recommends they teach others much like He taught them: for free. Jesus recommends teaching any who are willing
to listen and not really caring about their wallet.
I think we
should take God’s criticism seriously here.
When evaluating spiritual leadership, we should always do as God does here: evaluate how concerned the
leader is with the financial state of the person they are leading. It is always important to determine whether
the leader is pursuing the heart of the people or whether they are pursuing the
wallet of the people. As Jesus is prone
to teaching, you can’t serve two masters.
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