Malachi's Priestly Smackdown

Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament.  It's the last word we hear for a few hundred years before the story of Jesus begins in the New Testament.  Some of you may be familiar with part of the book because there is a section in chapter 3 about tithes and offerings which is discussed by those who preach the "prosperity" message.  But chapters 1 and 2 deal with Priestly conduct and let's just say Malachi doesn't mince words!  If there was ever an example of God giving a "Priestly smack down" this would be it!

Here are some examples from chapter 1 in The Message paraphrase:

"You Priests have gotten everyone in trouble.  With this kind of conduct, do you think I'll pay attention to you?...Why doesn't one of you just shut the Temple doors and lock them?  Then none of you can get in and play at religion with this silly, empty-headed worship....You profane me when you say 'Worship is not important, and what we bring to worship is of no account,' and when you say, 'I'm bored-this doesn't do anything for me."

Or how about this from chapter 2:

"It's the job of priests to teach the truth.  People are supposed to look to them for guidance....But you priests have abandoned the way of priests. Your teachings have messed up many lives....You fill the place of worship with your whining and sniveling because you don't get what you want from God."

Ouch!  Tough words from God but God never sends a Prophet without words of hope as well.  Bottom line, he is asking the leaders to turn and repent and treat God with respect again.  He is asking them to be true servants again.  Live right.  Serve well. 

Are there parallels with this story from old with our faith story today?  Have we gotten out of whack with our worship?  And I'm not talking about just ministers here, I'm talking about anyone in a leadership position within the church!  Do we give our very best to service?  Or do we worry more about what is in it for ourselves? 

These are tough questions to confront.  We may not like the answers.  That doesn't mean that we shouldn't ask the questions.  Otherwise we may face a Godly rebuke like we see in the book of Malachi.  Let's listen and heed the wise words of Malachi!

Leadership and the Seven Churches of Revelation

I'm going to talk about various things in more detail through this week but here is some things to ponder in the meantime:

From 1 Peter chapter 5 (The Message Paraphrase), Peter is talking about his concerns regarding leaders:

"Here's my concern:  that you care for God's flock with all the diligence of a shepherd.  Not because you have to, but because you want to please God.  Not calculating what you can get out of it, but acting spontaneously.  Not bossily telling others what to do, but tenderly showing them the way."

The Seven Churches in Revelation can be broken down (in my opinion) into three groups:

Group 1:  They "appear" to be churches.  Shells, no real power, gotten comfortable.
Ephesus (Revelation 2:4 NRSV) "...you have abandoned the love you had at first."
Sardis (Revelation 3:1 NRSV) "...you have a name of being alive, but you are dead."
Laodicea (Revelation 3:15,17 NRSV) "...you are neither cold nor hot...For you say, 'I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing."

Group 2:  They believe, um....we're not sure exactly what they believe.  But they have lost sight of the message.
Peragamum (Revelation 2:14-15 NRSV) "...you have some who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and practice fornication.  So you also have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans."
Thyatira (Revelation 2:20 NRSV) "...you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice fornication and to eat food sacrificed to idols."


Group 3:  Small, afflicted, persecuted but hanging tough.
Smyrna (Revelation 2:9-10 NRSV) "...I know your affliction and your poverty, even though you are rich.  I know the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.  Do not fear what you are about to suffer..."
Philadelphia (Revelation 3:8 NRSV) "...I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name."


Does any of this sound familiar?  Could we say the same thing about some of our churches today?  Where does leadership (or lack of leadership) show through in these examples?

More thoughts tomorrow!

Will the Church Make Room for a Prophet?

I have stalled and dawdled as long as I can on writing this blog post because I know I'm going to step on some toes.  Stepping on toes is so not high on my "things I want to do in life" list.  Yeah....here goes....

Let's start with 1 Chronicles 25 which involves the selection of "worship leaders" during the time of King David.    To put it in modern day parlance, you have Asaph who "spoke for God backed up by the king's authority,"  (The Message paraphrase) or in other words his duties might be described in terms of a Bishop's duties.  Then you have Jeduthun who preached and was responsible for leading the thanks and praise to God, or in other words, a modern day minister.  Heman was in charge of leading the singing and providing musical accompaniment in the work of worship in the sanctuary of God.  Heman is also noted as being the king's "seer" or prophet in modern day terms.  Asaph coordinated and led the activities at the temple, like a Bishop.  Jeduthun coordinated, taught and led the service, like a minister and Heman was the prophet and led the worship team.  It goes on further to say that Heman was assisted by his sons in his "divinely appointed work."

Interesting.  In 1 Corinthians 12 "prophet" shows up right after "apostle" on the list of spiritual offices.

So if prophets existed in old testament times and prophets existed in new testament times, where are the prophets today?  Why are we not hearing their voice?

I have no doubt that prophets exist today.  Real prophets, not like what we saw a few months ago with the "world is going to end at such and such a time" chatter, but real, genuine bonafide prophets who have a message for the church and for believers.  I don't think the problem lies in having a lack of prophets, I think the problem lies in the fact that the church would prefer that they not be heard!  (See I told you I was going to step on toes!)

The church would prefer that we believe that our leaders are our modern day prophets and visionaries.  In their way of thinking it is much easier if we accept that  the Bishops are our prophets, or, the ministers are our prophets.  They're not, they are never going to be and the reason is really simple-they were never called to be prophets!  Their job is to coordinate, to lead and to teach. That is what they are gifted to do and that is exactly what they should be doing.

So you may conclude from the example I gave that the worship leader should be considered the modern day prophet.  Not so fast!  Prophets are called, sometimes rather reluctantly, and an underlying characteristic of a   true prophet is as a defender of God.  They tend to call out groups and individuals (leaders in particular) who either abandon their religious faith or attempt to adopt practices that are not compatible with their faith.  In other words, they are not exactly popular and they tend to call you on the carpet for something that you already know you're doing wrong, you just don't want to hear about it!  Ideally, the worship leader as prophet would be nice because they are responsible for "right worship" but that doesn't necessarily hold true today.  I have seen some people leading worship who are very technically gifted but not necessarily spiritually gifted.  (Again, toe stepping-I'm going to tick folks off across the board.)

The General Board of Church and Society says that the Social Principles are the prophetic voice of the church.  Paul, felt that prophecy needed to be discerned-it needed to be looked at closely and it had to line up with what the church believes AND it had to be backed up in scripture.  If you read my earlier post about Social Principles and Theology then you know that I don't feel that some aspects of the Social Principles meet this criteria.  So, no, one board is not the prophetic voice of the church. (There goes another set of toes.)

Bottom line to all of this-I think the church needs to bring back the voices of the prophets.  I think we need to listen to what they have to say, look at it closely, see if it lines up with church beliefs and scripture and, if so, act upon their messages.  But will the church as a whole be willing to make room for a modern day prophet?  I'm not so sure.  Doing our own thing is very comfortable and we have been doing it for a long time so it would be a hard habit to break!  They may say something we don't like.  They may call us on the carpet for doing something that we have gotten very comfortable doing.  They may remind us of what we are expected to do as a church.  I doubt they would be very popular.  Maybe, just maybe, we need to be confronted.  We all say we want to see the church reach out to the world more, to grow and to be a blessing.  Yet, everything we try seems to fail.  Why?  Let's find a prophet and see if we can get an answer!  Let's hear the message from the Lord!

Meanwhile, I'm going to go duck and cover...