Thought from today’s Bible reading from 1 Chronicles 6.
“The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath and Merari. The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel. The children of Amram were Aaron, Moses and Miriam.
“And the sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar” (1 Chronicles 6:1-3).
Aaron was chosen to be the priest of God for the people of Israel. He, and his sons, were of the tribe of Levi which had been set apart by God to do His work. It was a special privilege to be born into such a group. But while the passage above lists all of Aaron’s sons, the one below singles out one of them – the one who would be his successor as high priest.
“But Aaron and his sons offered on the altar of burnt offering and on the altar of incense, for all the work of the most holy place, and to make atonement for Israel, according to all that Moses the servant of God had commanded.
“These are the sons of Aaron: Eleazar his son, Phinehas his son, Abishua his son…” (1 Chronicles 6:49-50).
This list was not just about lineage (though that was certainly part of it), but it was about those who would do the work of the high priest. Eleazar succeeded his father, while Nadab and Abihu were passed over. Why? They were dead. But why had they been killed? Remember what happened:
“Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
“Then Moses said to Aaron, ‘It is what the Lord spoke, saying, “By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.”‘ So Aaron, therefore, kept silent” (Leviticus 10:1-3).
We may have certain advantages over others simply because we are born into a better situation. But in the end, lineage means nothing. What matters is that we treat God as holy and honor Him. We do this by carefully obeying His word.
Tomorrow’s reading: Psalm 81, 88, 92-93
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
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