Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? 1 Corinthians 9.13

We’re looking at some examples of how to read, understand, and apply the Law of God in our situation today. We’ve seen that the Law of God serves as the basis for the office of pastor in the Church. What else does it teach us about this important role?

Unlike the other 11 tribes of Israel, the tribe of Levi was assigned no permanent home territory. The priests and Levites were distributed throughout the land of Israel, living among the people in towns, cities, and villages of every sort, where they were available to perform many of the spiritual functions for which they had been appointed shepherds. They owned no land of their own; they were permitted to work a few fields, assigned to them as part of their allotment in the cities where they lived.

While the people of Israel worked to provide for their needs in the fields and shops of the nation, the priests and Levites attended to the spiritual needs of the people. They served both locally and, as it appears from Luke 1, according to a schedule that rotated them into Jerusalem to serve the sacrifices and offerings. Their material provision came from the people in two ways: as part of the regular tithes and offerings, and as a share of the sacrifices which they facilitated for the people.

Thus, the Law of God, which established the pastoral office, also established the means by which those shepherds were to be supported. Every Israelite child, growing up in his home, would have understood the important role that priests and Levites played, and would have observed that the families for whom these shepherds cared were to be the means of their material provision.

The system did not always work well, of course. At times priests and Levites were greedy and robbed God and the people of their portions of the sacrifices. At other times the people neglected their tithes and offerings, meaning that priests and Levites had to spend more time meeting their own material needs and less time in the work for which they had been ordained. As a result, the spiritual needs of the people often went unmet because the people had not been obedient in caring for the material needs of their shepherds.

But the Law of God established both the office of shepherds and the means of their support, thus clearly outlining, and helping to facilitate, the kind of love for God and neighbors that is at the heart of all the Law of God. We’ll see a bit more about this later on.

T. M. Moore

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