Meditation for Monday
And Moses said unto the congregation, This is the thing which the Lord commanded to be done. Leviticus 8:5
A young man was helping his wife prepare to cook their supper, whose main course was to be ham. As he lifted the ham to place it into the pot to be cooked, his wife interrupted him, and placed the ham onto a cutting board, where she carefully trimmed one end of the ham before placing it into the pot. When he asked her why she cut off one end of the ham, she replied that that was how hams were to be cooked. When he asked why, she said that was what her mother taught her. Still curious, the young man asked his mother-in-law why the end was to be trimmed from the ham before cooking it. She replied that that was how hams were to be cooked. But why, he wanted to know. She replied that that was how her mother had taught her. So the young man went to his wife’s grandmother to ask why the end was to be trimmed from a ham before cooking. The older lady told him the end must be trimmed, otherwise the ham would be too long to fit into her cooking pot. Are dogmas around us today based on such outdated reasons?
Moses was about to consecrate Aaron and his sons for the priesthood. Some of his actions during the consecration process would be hard for the Israelites to understand. In hindsight, we can draw wonderful instruction from this consecration ceremony, lessons that would have been lost on the Israelites. But Moses had an answer for anyone who challenged the process: this is exactly what the Lord has commanded us to do. You and I also have such a perfect answer for many of the things that we do as God’s Assembly and people. Commands such as baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and obedience are clear and definite. We cannot mistake those. But what about those things that don’t have a direct command from Scripture, are we being obedient or are we simply trimming the end off the traditional ham?
Many years ago, good and godly students of the Word faced the same question. As they considered the operation of New Testament Assemblies, they realized that beyond some clear scriptural direction in specific matters, many of the activities and details of Assembly life are not clearly defined or specifically stated in the Bible. So, in Godly fear and in a desire to fulfill God’s purposes for his people, they slowly worked their way through these matters and laid down for us patterns and helps. They had scriptural considerations behind their direction, and the years have proved them to be wise and correct. We discard their direction at our peril.
The functioning of God’s Assembly has many traditions, but they are clearly based on rational, godly thinking, and not on whims or outdated ham trimmings. – Jim MacIntosh