In chapter 18 God gives some important instructions about the priesthood. The priests are to be a connection between God and humans, and they are to be alone in this. The command is that a certain family (namely the sons of Aaron) are given this ministry as a gift of God. I’m not going to make a big deal about it today, but once again, God operates by grace.
The priests are doing an important job for the Israelites – namely they are to take charge of the Tabernacle offerings and the Tent of Meeting. In verses 5 – 7, God makes it clear that the reason He wants a particular caste of priests to do this work is so that it gets done correctly – to avoid further outbreaks against the people.
Also, the other Levites are there to assist the Priests so long as they don’t touch the things they shouldn’t touch.
In return for the service that these people are to render, the priests are given:
- The remains of all offerings, whether animal or grain. Anything that isn’t burned up.
- All wave offerings, the best new olive oil, the best wine, the firstfruits of the harvest.
- The redemption price of every totally devoted gift (from humans or animals).
- The meat of all firstborn sheep, goats and cattle (after the fat has been burned and the blood splashed on the altar).
Now, right up to this point the job of Priest isn’t looking too bad. But then God does something which might surprise you – he bans the priests from owning property[1]! Suddenly it’s looking shaky. If this doesn’t seem a problem to you, remember you live in an urban society, where it’s quite easily possible to live in a rental property because of specialist farmers producing easily and cheaply available food. But even though (as I have said in previous chapters) the people of Israel are living lives of equivalent complexity to any city, they are perforce an agrarian society, and to not have access to land is to make survival difficult.
No wonder God makes sure that the Priests receive the best of everything – they need to rely on God’s gifts for their livelihood! In turn, God wants to ensure that they have no reason to regret relying on Him.
In addition, the tithes of the Israelites (i.e. a tax of 10% of their income) are to support the Levites.
It is interesting to compare and contrast this attitude to those in full-time ministry with the way that Christian workers are treated today. By and large, Christian workers are paid poorly and given little reward. There is a general feeling among many Christians that wealth is unspiritual, and we aspire to ensure that our ministers are as spiritual as it is possible to make them.
To their credit, few complain. But it should give us pause to look at how God sees things. Does God skimp on the workers? Not on your life! The full-time religious workers are given the best of everything! It is true that they are not permitted to own land, but this is because they are to implicitly trust God for everything they need.
Do we believe that our Christian workers do valuable work?
If we do, then maybe we should demonstrate it by paying them well. In any other area of life, we expect that a good worker will be paid a good salary. Why should someone be denied this if they choose a career with eternal significance?
[1] We know that they often ignored this rule in later days – Barnabas, a levite, owned a field (which he sold, giving the money to the Disciples), and Caiaphas, High priest at the time of Jesus, owned a PALACE. That’s right, a freakin’ PALACE. So much for not even owning a small plot of land!
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