Many churches are going through difficult transitions, whether due to the graying and silvering of their constituents, the changing demographics of their neighborhoods, the scheduling demands of a time-shifting society, a change in leadership, a change in vision, a merger with another congregation, or a need to start a mission effort outside the four walls of the church. Fortunately, such shifts or crises afford us an opportunity to examine who we really are as the people of God.
Now, a lot of you are going to think I’m crazy for going to the Book of Numbers for insight on this. Some ignore this book because it’s full of a lot of details that seem far removed from anything that could possibly be useful to modern believers. Some ignore it because they think God’s New Covenant in Jesus has set aside so much of God’s Revelation in the Old Covenant that we don’t have to bother. Even evangelical Christians who claim to believe the whole Bible often go through their entire lives without considering these chapters. But what’s the use of believing in the value of a book if we don’t bother to consider it, if we never listen to what it might say to us? So, I feel led to point out a few things about the People of God in the Old Covenant in order to allow God to speak to us about what it means for us as the People of God in the New Covenant.
The New Testament writers perceived the church as the New Israel, as did many of the early church fathers. So, if Israel is a picture (however limited) of the church as God’s People, what can we learn from them? First, we can look at the way the book opens. It opens with God telling Moses what to do and Moses organizing the people to do it. God commands a primary leader to organize the people for survival in the midst of their enemies and before they’re through, God has had a say in everything down to the building and grounds committee and the handling of the Old Testament equivalents of offering plates and Lord’s Supper dishes.
So, this immediately causes me to wonder, “What kind of say does God have in our churches?” Do we really look to God’s Word to determine how to organize? Do we look to the latest corporate model and see how we can fit it into our church structure? Do we really ask what God wants or do we settle for denominational tradition? Do we ask God to show us the needs we are to meet and organize for that mission or do we ask ourselves how we can staff an organization for our convenience? Do we have people in church offices because we’ve always had them or because some book says we need them or do we have offices and positions because God has put a desire to minister in our hearts? Are we serving because “somebody has to do it” or because God called us to do it?
In the Hebrew text of Numbers 1:2, God’s command has the literal idea of “Lift up the heads of all the congregation of the sons of Israel.” Now, of course, that literal idea means to take a census in our vernacular and most translations use that verb. But I kind of like the literal sense of going out among all the people and seeing who is WILLING to stand up and be counted. Find out who is willing to stand up for God.
You see, I don’t think there’s any chance for us to function as a church until we give people a chance to stand up and be counted for God. In the old days, people in my denomination literally let people stand up and be counted. We had attendance boards at the front of our churches, we kept records on who studied their Sunday School lessons and who did their Daily Bible Readings, and we asked folks to total up the number of contacts they made every week. There was accountability and there was an expectation that we all had responsibilities.
In our text, the men of Israel were expected to stand up according to their tribal affiliation and their extended families (father’s houses). Frankly, this wasn’t like the old roll calls we used to have on the first day of school where the teachers would call our names in alphabetical order and we’d respond with: “Present!” “Here!” or “Yo!” (depending on our level of respect for the teacher or the process). This census was actually draft registration. God wanted the people to know how big their clan militias could feasibly be.
Now, I realize it was only a little bit ago that I preached on David making a bad decision to take a census, so I’d better clarify the difference. In II Samuel and I Chronicles, David takes the census because HE wanted to know what kind of military resources he had. Here, God orders the census so the people can plan for their defense. I think we can clearly see that when David decided to have a census taken on his own (and was warned against it), he expected Israel to rally around him as the king. In Numbers, as God orders the census, we quickly see God direct the layout of the camp around the ark of the covenant—the physical symbol of His Presence in the Old Covenant.
I believe the New Testament version of this census is organizing not according to tribes, but according to spiritual gifts. I don’t think we are primarily to count numbers (though I don’t think it hurts to use numbers as measurement and a way to assure accountability), but to engage in a search to discover the spiritual gifts within our congregations. I think this because we don’t win the spiritual warfare in which we’re engaged with swords and spears, we conquer (as John tells us in I John) because of the Holy Spirit within us. In fact, isn’t that the way that New Testament Christians put God in the center of their “camp?” We cannot really be the people of God without discovering God in our midst and the resources (spiritual gifts) God has given us.
Now, just because I bring up the requirement of spiritual gifts doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in being organized. I’m not talking about chaos, some touchy-feely idea that we’re going to have mystical experiences that will structure our church organizations.
In short, I’m suggesting that even in the discovery of spiritual gifts and giving people a chance to stand up and be counted, we should give everyone a chance to discover their spiritual gifts, but we still need to listen to God and prayerfully consider how we assign tasks and positions in the church, even as God develops the marching order and camp arrangement of Israel in a different way than the census order.
Another thought that comes to mind as I look at God’s command to take a census is that God wanted His People to know that they were to live on a wartime footing. The tribes and permanent residents all around them were going to be threatened by Israel and would be hostile to them. They would be unwelcome in the land God has promised them.
Today’s believers also need to recognize that we live in a hand where lots of people are threatened by us. Being unhappy themselves, they are threatened by the inexplicable joy of the Lord that we demonstrate. Feeling unfulfilled in life themselves, they are threatened by the sense of mission and purpose, as well as the joy of fulfillment, that Christians demonstrate. So, we’d better be on a wartime footing. Sneak attacks, ambushes, and frontal assaults will all come our way from our enemies, but the only thing that can guarantee victory for us is the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in our midst. But I wonder, “Do the folks in our churches know that we’re supposed to be on a wartime footing?”
Since Israel was on a wartime footing, the arrangement of the camp served two purposes. The most immediate and obvious was protection. If you look at the census numbers from Chapter One and the camp/marching arrangement from Chapter Two, you’ll see that the arrangement provides for leading out to the east with almost 190K fighting men (Judah flanked by Issachar and Zebulon), 150K fighting men on the northern side (Dan flanked by Asher and Naphtali), 150K fighting men on the southern side (Reuben flanked by Simeon and Gad), and 110K fighting men on the west (bringing up the rear or reserve as they broke camp—Ephraim, flanked by Manasseh and Benjamin).
It is interesting to note that the center of the formation on the east side is Judah, not the tribe descended from the firstborn son of Jacob/Israel, but the ancestor of kings. Of course, most primitive cultures placed special spiritual interest in the East because of the importance of the sunrise. The East was often considered to the abode of the gods. So, when Judah gets the preeminent place to the east of the camp, it was quite significant. It foreshadowed the fact that the Davidic line (and, of course, our Messiah, Jesus Christ) would come out of Judah.
It makes one ask the question, “Why wasn’t Reuben centered on the eastern side?” and “Why didn’t kings come out of the line of Reuben?” After all, that was the way things were done in the ancient world—favoring the firstborn. There are actually two answers to that. First, Reuben disqualified himself by committing adultery with his stepmother, one of his father’s concubines—an act for which his father still hasn’t forgiven at the time of his last will and testament in Genesis 49:3-4. Second, it is a reminder to us that God doesn’t choose the EXPECTED candidates to be his leaders. God doesn’t necessarily choose the oldest, wisest, smartest, best-looking, or even most spiritual to be on the front line and lead God’s people.
It is interesting to note that the four tribes which hold the center positions (Judah, Reuben, Ephraim (also the younger son of Joseph), and Dan) are all identified with certain symbols: Judah has the “royal” lion (see Genesis 49:9-10), Reuben has the sign of the human, Ephraim has the symbol of the ox (Genesis 49:24?), and Dan is represented by a serpent (Genesis 49:16). Later, Dan is symbolized by a scale and eventually, by an eagle. In the same way, we often see Mark as the lion, Luke as the calf, John as the eagle, and Matthew as the human. Also, if you look at the imagery of Ezekiel 1 where the four living creatures surround the throne placed on the wheel within the wheel, you see the face of a bird, a man, a bull, and a lion—the flying creatures, the humans, the domesticated creatures, and the wild creatures. It was Ezekiel’s way of saying that God is Lord of All. Anyway, I try not to throw in too many irrelevant bonus points in my sermons, but since these chapters are rarely studied, I couldn’t resist.
There is a slight relevance, however. As Ezekiel’s creatures surrounded God’s throne, moved mysteriously in any direction by the Spirit of the Lord and the living creatures, so do these tribes of Israel surround the tabernacle with its precious ark of the covenant, God’s footstool/throne. In point of fact, all the people of God were to surround the camp with God in its center. And that’s relevant. If we are to be the people of God, we have to center upon God. We have to make sure that we keep God in our midst.
But Chapter 3 gives us more detail. In chapter 3, we discover that the Gershonites (Numbers 3:25), one group of Levitic descendents, were to camp immediately to the west of the tabernacle and that they were responsible for all the cloth materials of the tent when it was time to pack up and move. On the south side, the Kohathites (Numbers 3:31), another group of Levites, were to camp and, when it was time to pack, they took care of the sacred furniture (altar, ark, table for the showbread, menorah, and sacred vessels). To the north of the tent, the Merarites (Numbers 3:33-37), another branch of the Levites, were to camp immediately north of the tabernacle and, during the march, were to be responsible for the framework of the tent—the stakes, the frames, the doorways—anything wooden. What does that leave for the east side? Moses and Aaron, of course! The high priest and the charismatic leader are in the place of preeminence, right next to the tabernacle.
Again, this suggests three things to me. First, it suggests that the Levites and the leaders had to provide a buffer for the protection of the people. The idea was that God was so holy that one didn’t want to just barge into the temple by accident so that God would have to strike one down. There is always a tension between the accessibility God has given us to come into the divine presence and the otherness (transcendence) of God that we can’t comprehend and might even be dangerous to us. Second, it suggests that God’s people need to guard against desecration. This buffer protects the naïve and unwary from committing sacrilege by wandering in and protects the tabernacle itself from desecration (even though we know that God CAN protect Himself and His own reputation—we are allowed the privilege of standing up for Him when attempts are made to desecrate His name.) Third, it suggests that God’s People need leaders who spend time with God, are able to explain a vision of what they’ve experienced with God, and aren’t afraid to lead people as God commands.
Yet, just in case we don’t quite get it, there’s an added feature to Chapter 3. Verses 1-5 give us the odd warning about Nadab and Abihu. Verse 4 tells us that they died when they offered “strange fire” before Yahweh. The word for “strange” is pronounced “zah-rah” in Hebrew. Later, we are told that one of the purposes for the buffer zone is so that the “stranger” (pronounced “hah-zahr” in Hebrew) would not come near the tabernacle and would be put to death (Numbers 3:38).
The idea here is that God didn’t want His mystery, His otherness, His presence, to be compromised by the pagan cultures and ideas. Nadab and Abihu were either careless in their service to God or they were committing some type of syncretistic sacrilege. I think, judging from the same root of “strange” being used both to describe the fire and the would-be violator of the sacred space, that it was probably the latter.
So, what does that say to us? Is it our job to protect the church from the sinners who might show up? Are we supposed to establish higher barriers between the secular world and ourselves? No, I don’t think so. I think we have to avoid “strange” fire lest the “stranger” condemns himself/herself.
What would strange fire be for the modern church? I believe it would be anything that waters down the whole Word of God. To never preach about judgment and never touch on sin would be to offer strange fire because it would mislead people with regard to God. To preach a gospel that teaches that we know of another way of salvation than through Jesus Christ our Lord would be to offer strange fire because it presumes upon God’s grace in a way the Bible doesn’t allow us to presume. To engage in flagrant and obvious sin in such a way that we turn people off to the church would be to offer strange fire.
So, I truly believe these neglected chapters teach us something important about the People of God. 1) To be the People of God, we need to hear God through prayer and attention to God’s written word. 2) To be the People of God, we need to find out how God wants us organized, not the way everybody else does it, and to know this will require prayer and discovery of our spiritual gifts. 3) To be the People of God means to be on a spiritual warfare footing. We need to remember that we are engaged in a battle with an unseen and vicious enemy and we need to stand on guard for each other. 4) Within the People of God, our Lord almost always chooses the unexpected to be our leaders. 5) The People of God need leaders to clarify the vision and unify the people in action. 6) We need to beware of offering strange fire that might endanger the outsider or stranger, keeping them from safely entering God’s presence through Jesus Christ. If I’m right in understanding the relevance of these chapters, we’ve got a long way to go before our churches truly act like the New Israel the early church expected them to become.
