Yesterday I asserted that your average Christian’s level of Scriptural understanding was the equivalent of a junior high schooler.
It appears I was met with violent disagreement as evidenced by the following comments I received:
“I vehemently disagree that the average Christian knows the scriptures as well as a teenager in High School. Neither of them know the scriptures, AT ALL!”
Or this one:
“The average Christian has a less than a kindergarten equivalent knowledge of the Bible.”
Or this one:
“The average Christian church teaches at the 3rd grade level or lower and expects you to check your brain at the door.”
And this comment was quite informative:
“That is being pretty nice, because when you add in cultural, language, idoms, etc most believers as men would not pass the bar-mitzvah test Jesus/yeshua had to go through at ten years old. The average jew could read, write, three languages. could recite the entire OT by heart. Students of Gamiliel the first memorized by heart all the jewish writtings of the sages by 12 years old.”
Now after reading all of these comments and others, you know what?
I have to agree with them.
And I agree the most with the first comment.
The truth is your average Christian’s understanding of the Scriptures is closer to ZERO than anything..
As I already said, their knowledge of the Bible isn’t really based on Scripture.
It’s based on doctrines that are supposed to be based on Scripture…
But really aren’t…
Now in case you’re wondering what this discussion has to do with 1 Samuel…
The answer is EVERYTHING homie!
Gross Scriptural ignorance was a problem in Paul’s day…
It’s a problem in our day…
And it’s the exact same problem we encounter in 1st Samuel.
Keep in mind that by the time of Samuel, the Torah was now 400 years old!
Which means it’s older than my country (the United States of America).
The exodus from Egypt…
And the 40-year wilderness journey…
Those events were now ancient history to the Israelites during Samuel’s time.
Just like incidents such as the Boston Tea party, the Revolutionary War or the perilous trip the Pilgrims had to make across the Atlantic to get to the New World are ancient history to us.
As far as the priests and Levites were concerned, the ancient Laws of Moses no longer mattered to them…
They seemed all fine and dandy living in their current state of Scriptural ignorance.
It was almost as if they needed a rude wake-up call.
Which is exactly what they got when the Ark came into their midst.
Ever since before the time of the Othniel (Israel’s first Judge), the Levitical Priesthood was becoming more and more careless and corrupt.
The priests had begun setting aside the purity of God’s ways for their own man-made traditions.
This included mixing in worship of Yahweh with rituals from Egypt and from the Canaanites religions around them so that their pagan neighbors wouldn’t judge them (boy, does this ever sound familiar!!!).
This sad journey away from the ways of the Lord continued until we arrive where we’re at are now in our studies:
To a bunch of Levites at Beit-Shemesh who had no idea why the Lord had suddenly killed their Levite brothers.
After the tragedy, the men who were supposed to be Israel’s spiritual advisors and religious experts ended up asking themselves dumbfounded…
“Who can stand before Adonai, this holy God?
To whom can we send it, to get it away from us?”
Why didn’t they know the answer to those questions?
Because they never bothered to investigate God’s Word…
Instead they substituted their own fleshly wisdom and manmade rituals for the truth of the Torah…
And thought everything was gonna be cool because they had good intentions.
Boy, doesn’t that one also sound familiar?
Look, ignorance of God’s word is fine for uncircumcised unbelievers because they don’t know any better.
But for God’s chosen people, it spells pure disaster.
And for at least 70 Levites at Beit-Shemesh who paid no attention to God’s Laws and started carelessly partying around the Ark…
Their Torah ignorance cost them their lives.
Also, notice how Samuel became the highest religious authority in Israel…
He may have been a Levite but he definitely didn’t come from a priestly line.
The truth is per the Torah that shouldn’t have happened man!
Whatever happened to Eli, the High Priest’s replacement?
And how come there’s no mention of the Tabernacle?
Or the location of the Brazen Altar?
What a mess!
The takeaway for today is as clear as the blue sky on a bright sunny day.
There’s a lot of things in this life we can be ignorant about and not pay such a big price for our stupidity.
But God’s Word is NOT one of them.
When dealing with commands and principles delivered to us from heaven…
Not only our earthly lives…
But our souls are at stake…
The Levites touched God’s property when they were not authorized to do so…
Had they taken a peek at the Numbers scroll, they would have known that only a specific clan of Levites were allowed to directly handle the Ark or even lay eyes on it.
Instead, in a form of religious piety, they lit a fire and sacrificed the two cows who had brought the Ark to them.
And then while they were celebrating and shouting heartfelt praises to God, they were immediately struck down dead.
It didn’t matter how sincere they were…
Disobedience was still disobedience…
Whether done out of sincerity or ignorance…
They assumed for whatever reason the Law no longer applied to them.
They were WRONG.
Let’s not make the same mistake with the areas of spiritual authority the Lord has granted us in our lives.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“Don’t think that I have come to
abolish the Torah or the Prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to complete.
Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven
and earth pass away, not so much as a
yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah—
not until everything that must
happen has happened.
So whoever disobeys the least
of these mitzvot and teaches others
to do so will be called the least
in the Kingdom of Heaven.
But whoever obeys them and
so teaches will be called great
in the Kingdom of Heaven.
For I tell you that unless your
righteousness is far greater than
that of the Torah-teachers and P’rushim,
you will certainly not
enter the Kingdom of Heaven!”
-Matthew 5:17-20
Good stuff.
We can also see what happened much later when David brought the ark- the first time- to Jerusalem. Uzzah saw the cart holding the ark (wrong from the start!) stumble and when he reached out and touched the ark to steady it…WHAM!
No more Uzzah!
David should have known better, and I can only account for his lack of proper handling of the ark to his enthusiasm for bringing it to the tent he made in the city of his name.
As Shaul (Paul) told the Galatians- zealousness is good, when the purpose is good, but David’s purpose seemed to be a little more prideful than worshipful, and that cost the life of a man who was just trying to do the right thing, but he did it the wrong way.
Great points! Thanks for sharing your thoughts as always!
Somebody douse Rich with a bucket of water — he’s on fire today!!
Seriously – not trying to make light of it – you nailed it to the wall with this post. Good reminder to me and all of us.
Thanks Eric! Be blessed!