“ … not discerning the Lord’s body.”
(1 Cor 11:29b, NKJV)
It is important to now keep in mind the bigger picture of what we’re currently discussing in these teachings. After we covered the outer court and the holy part of the tabernacle (excluding the altar of incense), we reverted back to the outer court, as to the Biblical pattern. We are currently thus back at the sacrificial altar, focussing specifically on the horns of this altar. Within this delineation we have spent quite a while discussing the various false horns of the altar. The smaller sub-theme is of course related to the history of Korah and the inherent flaws of the current church system to which we’ve grown accustomed to over the years, which we’ve discussed in the light of why it feeds rebellion. Korah presented three complaints, and we looked at the first three in detail. Following this we examined the deceiving role our thoughts concerning denominations and churches play in the limiting of the kingdom of God.
To thus sum up the first complaint from Num 16:3: churches acknowledge people as authentic members and grant them access to the sacraments and fellowship without them being born again. Within this false thought construct the church is deceived into believing all kinds of assumptions relating to the building, authority and leadership. On account of this the church has often turned into a social club and hence has lost the fear of the Lord within the fold. Then we dealt with the accusation that “All the members of the community belong to the LORD, and the LORD is with all of us.” We clearly saw that this was not the case.
The second complaint Korah and company voice in Num 16:3 is: “You take too much upon yourself.” This is obviously a very real problem within organised religion. Based on the artificial distinction between God’s ordained clergy and general laity, we find a wrongful distribution of responsibility and subsequent tasks. Alas, we find that Korah is not wrong in his assumption – most of the work that organised religion entails, is done by the reverends and pastors and church councils and synods, and ordinary church members need to unquestioningly go along with this. Webster’s describes the clergy in the following terms: “The body of men set apart, and consecrated, by due ordination, to the service of God, in the christian church; the body of ecclesiastics, in distinction from the laity.”
This sounds beautiful, but is unfortunately not true and Christ never meant for his church to be divided along these terms. It is exactly this inherent flaw of the New Testament church which, again, feeds rebellion in the church! (The clergy is also so often overworked and burnt out that they cannot fulfill their God-given calling in the first place! See Ex 18:18. This also brings about a passivity amongst believers, which does not serve the Kingdom of God either – Heb 5:12.)
The misguided understanding of priesthood in the church today is the basis of this unbiblical system of church functioning, because we are unable to discern the Body of Christ.
- Sela: Are you, within your church, part of the unbiblical delineation between clergy and laity?
- Read: 2 Kings 13; Jer 14; 1 Cor 13
- Memorise: 1 Cor 13
- For a deeper understanding: Read chapter 13 in Juan Carlos Ortiz’s book Disciple.
