Stephen Terry, Director

Still Waters Ministry

 

The Role of Stewardship

Commentary for the March 10, 2018 Sabbath School Lesson

 

 

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28, NIV

For thousands of years the speed of travel on land was limited to the speed a horse could gallop. A global culture developed based on ways to efficiently utilize the horse’s capabilities. Bridles, saddles and eventually stirrups made it possible for the rider to maintain control of his horse and remain firmly seated, even at break-neck speed or during the melee of combat. In order to speed cargoes and more than one person about, various wheeled conveyances were invented that could be hitched to horses, either singly or as teams for larger and larger loads. Even the horses were altered to handle increased loads, creating the mule. That fact featured prominently in the television program “Death Valley Days” of half a century ago. The logo for the show’s sponsor featured wagon loads of Borax being hauled by a twenty-mule team. The cleaning product Twenty Mule Team Borax is still available today. While horses are no longer a principle means of travel, the wheel remains an integral element of transportation in modern cars and trucks.

As our lesson points out, wheels of ancient times usually consisted of a wooden rim attached to a central hub with wooden spokes. For reinforcement the rim would be fitted with an iron band to decrease wear. While leaf springs were invented to lessen the shock of these wheels traveling over a solid and rocky surface, the ride remained very rough compared with what we are used to today. The lesson author sees in these wheels an allegory for our faith, stating that the unique Seventh-day Adventist Sanctuary Doctrine is the hub supporting the spokes and ultimately the rim, implying that if the doctrine were to be altered in any way, the entire assemblage would collapse. Perhaps this is an overstatement. Well-meaning though it might be, it assumes that our faith is static and that there is no more possibility of progressing to deeper understandings. It begs the question about what we are going to do for eternity with all those years of life to educate ourselves when all the truth has already been determined, sealed and set in concrete. There may be some justification in challenging this lesson’s wagon wheel paradigm.

First of all, in the old Encounter Bible Study Series that made use of Dukane Projectors and film strips linked to audio cassettes, they used a similar allegory. But instead of using it to make the Sanctuary Doctrine central to our faith, the hub was Jesus Christ, and we were the spokes. The lesson then offered that as we move closer to Jesus at the hub, we also move closer to one another. Unspoken were several other implications. For instance, if we were not getting closer to one another, then likely we were not moving toward Jesus, and if Jesus was not our focus at the center of it all, then like the Sanctuary Doctrine allegory, the entire assemblage would be unable to maintain its integrity. Perhaps considering how Seventh-day Adventist dogma has evolved for over a century and a half, we might be safer having Jesus as the hub of that wheel than one of our doctrines. We can trust in His steadfastness in securing our salvation and the consistency of our faith. If we could not have this trust, then the 23rd Psalm[i] would seem to be pointless. Besides, there are some questionable assumptions with the Sanctuary Doctrine that have dramatically affected our understanding of Christ’s role as high priest.

Perhaps the most egregious is the effort to comingle type and anti-type as though they were exactly the same. However, they are not. The type was the wilderness sanctuary (later the temple), served by the Levitical Priesthood. Their service was a continuous round of sacrifices following an annual cycle culminating in the Day of Atonement. Although continuing, their priesthood was never meant to be eternal, culminating instead in the anti-typical, sacrificial love offering of Jesus on the cross. If there was any doubt of that, it was punctuated with the rending of the curtain between the holy and most-holy chambers of the temple, opening what had previously been hidden to the eyes of everyone present. But in spite of that, even the Apostles failed to grasp the significance until decades later when the temple sacrifices were forcibly stopped by the Romans in 70 CE. Even Paul, the prolific writer and author of grace-based theology was slow to grasp the point. He was still making offerings at the temple when he traveled to Jerusalem.[ii] Even he apparently found it difficult to abandon the type in favor of the anti-type. It should be no wonder then that we might fall short in that area as well. In fact much of our doctrinal base is founded on the assumption that we are still operating under that former typical system.

We see in our clergy, if not the continuing embodiment of the Levitical Priesthood, at least its apparent reincarnation. The elements are hard to miss. Those ordained within the Seventh-day Adventist Church must be male and are to be supported by the same tithing system as the Levites. The system we call Financial Stewardship is a continuation of the old sacrificial offering system, cleansed of the original gore. Although the official line is that these are love offerings, guilt plays a major role in motivation with accusations of robbing God, etc.[iii] These “freewill” offerings play such a major role in church administration that I doubt anyone has been promoted to either a lay or a clerical position of responsibility based on their sterling character and largesse to the poor without also their financial contributions to the organization, perhaps the latter being more acceptable without the former rather than the other way around. Also, like the Levitical Priesthood, women are disenfranchised from the rewards of power and prestige that come from ordination and advancement to positions of greater responsibility. When local church administrative structures attempt to right that wrong, such as with the appointment in 2013 of Sandra Roberts to be Southeastern California Conference President, the world church, heavily invested in the perpetuation of the Levitical Priesthood, has continued to do all in its power to unseat and chastise those involved.

However, we may need to re-evaluate our understanding of the Sanctuary Doctrine which equates Christ with the Levitical Priesthood. We are told by the writer of Hebrews that Christ is not Levitical. He is Melchizedekian.[iv] This is a profoundly different, anti-typical priesthood, an eternal one, and just like the Melchizedek that Abraham met when returning from battle, the King of Salem, the priesthood is a royal one. No one from the tribe of Levi was a priest-king. Perhaps this is why Jesus descended from the royal line of Judah and is called the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah.”[v] This royal line replaced the Levitical line. What is more, we are all ordained into that universal, eternal priesthood. Peter confirms it by his reference to us as royal priests.[vi] That this appellation is universal is shown by his use of the term to refer to an entire nation, an entire generation. This does not sound like the gender-based caste system of the Levitical Priesthood. Instead it sounds more like Paul’s egalitarian proclamation above in Galatians 3:28.

Another factor supporting that we are included in the anti-type rather than the type is the eternal nature of the Melchizedekian Priesthood. In order to function effectively in such an office, the priests must have eternal life, and indeed, that is what is granted through Christ’s intervention on our behalf. The inclusiveness of this ministry is astonishing in comparison to the type prior to the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus. How can such inclusiveness then not be a part of proper priestly behavior? To not be inclusive would seem to be operating in direct opposition to everything Jesus’ priestly ministry in heavenly places is about. It would be like the spokes of the wheel attacking one another and holding each other back while at the same time professing to be reaching toward Jesus at the center.

If we were to ask the wagon master which spoke of the wheel is most important, he would likely tell us that every spoke is equally important and should be protected against breakage. Unfortunately, we get caught up in matter-of-life-and-death defenses of doctrinal positions and place those doctrines, which are only interpretations hardened into dogma, over the lives and well-being of the very ones Jesus came to save – the sinners.[vii] We are all ordained to that work with Jesus leading the way both by example and by instruction. Stewardship is more than faithful and proper utilization of the money God has entrusted to our care without squandering it. It also means we should not squander the people whom God has called into ministry. We may wish to embrace the anti-typical model lest when Jesus asks us to give account of those individuals entrusted to our care, we respond we buried them because you are a demanding Master and we feared to offend you by ordaining a woman. This is the scenario of the Parable of the Talents, or as the NIV puts it the Parable of the Bags of Gold. How does that apply? Simply this, Jesus would not have died on the cross for a bag of gold, but He died for you and me. If the parable is talking about bags of gold, then how much more so for how we treat those whom God has called? It is time we opened the ministry to all whom God has called. There is no excuse for burying that treasure.



[i] Psalm 23

[ii] Acts 21:26

[iii] Malachi 3:8

[iv] Hebrews 6:20

[v] Revelation 5:5

[vi][vi] 1 Peter 2:9

[vii] Luke 5:31-32

 

 

 

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