[OBW]

Where do we arrive at a directive to first minister to the Lord and then to the House? Or, as the woman (M.E. Barber?) suggested, to get to be ones who minster to the Lord and not to the Temple?

The passage (Ezekiel 44) was a directive as to the dealing with Levites who themselves, or their ancestry, had been involved in bringing idols into the Temple. One clan within the Levites was considered cleared and therefore able to serve before God. The others had to stay out in the sanctuary or outer courts and serve the people with their sacrifices.

This was a penalty on certain clans of Levites due to prior sin. It was not a prescription for an order of service. Yes, there is a directive concerning clothing worn by the preferred clan when they serve "before Me" rather than just serving in the sanctuary.

The problem I find in Nee's assessment of its meaning is that its meaning to us in the NT age is simply stated as some fact. But how is it that this is the "correct" determination? Because Nee, as he has said in other places, sees things that no one else can see?

By 1900, seeing something new that has never been seen before should be suggesting "danger! Will Robinson!" It is one thing to point to things that have been found before (by more than one or two writers at the margins) but that have fallen in disfavor for various reasons. At some level, the very way that so many of us "do church" in evangelical/fundamental and (even LRC circles) is "new" and we tend to disparage things about the way church was "done" for centuries past, virtually all the way to the first century. And for the most part, even the LRC's version of "back to the beginning" is mostly just a free-form version of modern evangelicalism. Nothing old or "from the beginning," but rather fairly new.

I can appreciate that there was something specific being mentioned about "ministering before Me" not being human work. And I find that the most clear parallel is with our corporate worship. But I really don't see how it is "first." It is different.

And even though the penalty to the "deficient" Levite clans was to only be able to serve out in the Temple and the sanctuary, that did not make their service unimportant or the content of that service "second." It was clearly important service. It would appear to require many more people engaged in that service because it dealt with the people. In other words, they still served the people.

So, while I recognize the difference between service to God and service to the people (the Temple/sanctuary), the significance within Ezekiel is not (that I can see) a direction to an order of importance, but a penalty to some of the Levites. Seems that most of the issues when "pictured" forward to the NT age does not translate into an order of service. Rather it differentiates the focus of the service.

When we come together to "worship," it should not be full of our efforts, but our repentance, prayer, and praise. And when it comes to an order, the only thing I see as clearly "first" would be our repentance unto salvation. After that, it is all important to the ongoing life of the Christian. We are to both come before God and to go out "for" God.

I will admit that it is possible that Nee has written something true in this little booklet. But it is not simply obvious. It is not true because the verses say it. Rather, it would more likely be like a lot of the unstated things that many of us differ about. It is unstated because that is not the purpose of the passage. And when the passage doesn't actually say it, no amount of "it's like" or insistence upon the meaning of externally supplied metaphors or stories will make it clearly true.

And given the number of places that Nee has said X is really Y, I am not ready to give him the benefit of the doubt and just take his word for it. I need for the text to confirm it. Not an overlay on top of the text. The text.