Be careful not to neglect the Levites
“Be careful not to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.” (Deuteronomy 12:19)
People’s thinking and life of churches in these days seem to be much worldly more than before. Interpreting the Bible as one thinks is the criterion for judging secularization. The matter of the sacrifices done by Israel in the Old Testament is hard to interpret. Subjectively interpreting difficult content of Bible puts faith in danger of going wrong. The Levites were a special tribe among all tribes, and they had played a role for the work of the Lord’s temple. They didn’t get the land distributed, but just had been got the castle for them to live in there. For that reason, God instructed the other tribes to eat and enjoy themselves with the Levites. God told them not to be careful to neglect the Levites.
In Christian history, it was a big case the separation of the Protestant Church from the Roman Church. The difference in faith between people of Catholic and Protestant seems not to be significant these days. But at the time of the Reformation there was a clear confrontation of issue between faith and reason in the interpretation of the Bible. The Roman Church has treated the Bible with reason above faith, and the people of reformed faith have valued faith over reason. Even if you’re a member of a Protestant church, if you value reason over faith, you will be secularized like a Catholic attitude of faith. If you think that the authority of the Old Testament was completely abolished even if the New Testament era now, it is also a secular attitude of faith. It is true that Jesus Christ had completed the subject of the Old Testament, but that did not make the content of the Old Testament meaningless totally.
Creation and salvation in the Old Testament are the basic message of the eternal gospel. But only, the Old Testament tells of prophecy, and the New Testament tells the achievement and completion of prophecy the Old Testament. The principle of prophecy and achievement is the same in both creation and salvation. The creation of the Old Testament is a creation made from nothing in the first place. But the creation of the New Testament is the creation of a resurrection that makes what had been incomplete complete again. People often think of the creation of Old Testament as the physical, and the creation in the New Testament spiritual. Such point may be some reason in it, but it’s more accurate to interpret it as creation from where it hadn’t existed and anew a creation of something new. Both the spirit and the body show perfection as a resurrection. Since it isn’t the elements of the Old Testament have disappeared, it has to be interpreted it anew from the perspective of the New Testament.
The Levites of the Old Testament are no longer useful in the era of New Testament. However, the role of sacrificial rites done in the temple of the past has been given to the Levites of the New Testament. The holy church of Christ had become a temple, and church workers in charge of the gospel ministry took on the work of the Levites. The sacrificial rites done in the temple of past was completely solved by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Therefore the repeated sacrificial acts of the Old Testament are no longer necessary, but the spiritual worship of faith looking at Christ on the cross is always necessary. Yet the meaning of the word, “But you must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water,” in Deuteronomy 12:16 remains unchanged. Blood means the life of the body, which means that the life of the body belongs to the Creator’s authority. Though those who like food made of blood like to eat fresh liver as raw stuff, but Christians must not be harmed life itself.
He who is devoted to the gospel does not work basically for living of the body. It’s not because they don’t want to work, but because they have to devote themselves to the gospel ministry, they can’t work first to get food for body. It’s not that none of the gospel’s workers are activating for eating, but only they work for themselves as a way of doing the gospel ministry, not just for a living. That’s what Paul the Apostle in the Bible lived. The people of other tribes, except the Levites, were able to get their own income by using the land they were distributed. And they had rejoiced celebration the harvest happily. But the Levites couldn’t have that pleasure or satisfaction. Because God made them not to have land in the first place. So God commanded other people to eat and enjoy with the Levites.
“Be careful not to neglect the Levites,” this is the strict command God gives to all Christians. “the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor,” in Galatians 6:6, this is same command to that. If you believe in Christ, you must share the burden of the gospel one another. Either a pastor or layman, those are the same Christians in Jesus. If so, we would have to try together to give and receive help in delivering Christ’s name.
(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on June 11th 2023)