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Pastor's Kid Does it Again

If anyone tells you that the book of Numbers is just about counting the Israelites, don't you believe them. Not now. Not ever. Oh, and if you catch my kids, pastor's kids, doing some crazy things, please know they have not yet trumped this story from Numbers 25.

Phinehas (not the brother of Ferb) runs into a tent where two people are committing adultery and...well, maybe I better let you read this description straight from the Bible. It's worth the read, unless you're faint of heart.

1-3 While Israel was camped at Shittim (Acacia Grove), the men began to have sex with the Moabite women. It started when the women invited the men to their sex-and-religion worship. They ate together and then worshiped their gods. Israel ended up joining in the worship of the Baal of Peor. God was furious, his anger blazing out against Israel.

4 God said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of Israel and kill them by hanging, leaving them publicly exposed in order to turn God's anger away from Israel."

5 Moses issued orders to the judges of Israel: "Each of you must execute the men under your jurisdiction who joined in the worship of Baal Peor."

6-9 Just then, while everyone was weeping in penitence at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, an Israelite man, flaunting his behavior in front of Moses and the whole assembly, paraded a Midianite woman into his family tent. Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw what he was doing, grabbed his spear, and followed them into the tent. With one thrust he drove the spear through the two of them, the man of Israel and the woman, right through their private parts. That stopped the plague from continuing among the People of Israel. But 24,000 had already died.

10-13 God spoke to Moses: "Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has stopped my anger against the People of Israel. Because he was as zealous for my honor as I myself am, I didn't kill all the People of Israel in my zeal. So tell him that I am making a Covenant-of-Peace with him. He and his descendants are joined in a covenant of eternal priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the People of Israel."

~Numbers 25:1-13, The Message

God ended the plague and blessed Phineas because his zeal matched God's zeal.

Wow.

Think about that for a second. Phineas matched God in zeal. The God who hates sin. The God who can't be in the presence of sin. The God who would go to all lengths to break the curse of sin. God is zealous for us. God is zealous against sin. Phinehas matched that.

What if we matched God's zeal?

It seems to me that Phineas matched the zeal of God in the same manner in which God was revealing Himself in the OT. In the New Testament, God has revealed Himself with selfless love, sacrificial love. We should be doing the same.

God said that love is our rule. He's even commanded us to go forth with this rule. I think on most days we would rather grab a spear. But that is not our given task. We should be running throughout our camps when we see people in need of love. We should be as quick as Phinehas was to take action.

It doesn't take a pastor's kid to get this job done. We should all be as zealous as Phinehas, who was as zealous as God.
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