2 Kings 12:4-8 - Homiletics

Inconvenience of setting priests and ministers to serve tables.

However convinced we may be of the honesty of the priests and Levites concerned in collecting money at this time for the repairs of the temple, it is undeniable that their proceedings in the matter created distrust and dissatisfaction. We know too little of the monetary arrangements previously in use among the Jews to see with any real clearness what exactly the complaint of the laity was, or how far the priests and Levites had a satisfactory answer to it. Probably the rules given were not sufficiently definite; and it may also well have been that the priests and Levites were not sufficiently versed in business transactions to understand completely what the rules laid down expressed. We must remember that, in the early Church, when the apostles had to occupy themselves with money matters, it was not long before complaints arose ( Acts 6:1 ), and the apostles refused any longer to "serve tables." The very foundation of society is a division of labor. In an organization like that of the Church, whether Jewish or Christian, it is of extreme importance to disconnect the performance of high spiritual functions from the duty of receiving, apportioning, and disbursing large sums of money. This is so—

I. BECAUSE , AS A GENERAL RULE , THE MOST SPIRITUALITY MINDED OF MEN ARE THE MOST INAPT FOR THE DETAILS OF BUSINESS . Different qualities of mind, qualities offering a strong contrast, and very rarely united in the same person, are requisite for success in business and for winning souls to God; also intimate acquaintance with an entirely different set of facts is in each ease necessary. Spiritually minded men are in many instances woefully deficient in worldly knowledge, know nothing of book-keeping by double entry, and even find a difficulty in remembering the multiplication mine. Their faculties are suited for something higher than "serving tables," and to employ them in such service is to waste valuable material in work for which it is wholly unsuited.

II. BECAUSE , IF BUSINESS TBANSACTIONS ARE ILL MANAGED , SUSPICIONS ARISE , AND GOD 'S MINISTERS SHOULD BE ABOVE SUSPICION . A minister's usefulness is gone if once he is suspected in money matters. It is seriously impaired, even if nothing is proved against him beyond incapacity and blundering. Many a clergyman has got into most serious trouble by undertaking work of a worldly kind, which he never ought to have undertaker, and failing in the proper management of it, though his honesty was quite unimpeachable.

III. BECAUSE THE TIME GIVEN BY MINISTERS TO BUSINESS MATTERS MIGHT BE BETTER SPENT IN THE PROPER WORK OF THE MINISTRY . This was what the apostles felt ( Acts 6:2-4 ); they wished to give themselves wholly to "the ministry of the Word and to prayer." Modern clergymen have, in addition, parochial visiting and reading to employ them, both making large demands upon their time, and impossible to be shifted upon others. A congregation will, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, derive far more benefit from their minister having an additional hour a day, or two hours a day, for reading, than from his spending the time in slaving at accounts, collecting the children's pence, looking after clubs, and bargaining for coals or blankets. The study of the Bible, with all the new light which is thrown upon it by recent scholarship and research, is imperative; and it is also essential that a clergy man should hay? such a knowledge of the current and tendencies of modern thought as is only to be maintained by very diligent reading of the popular literature, periodical and other, of the day.

IV. BECAUSE IT PROMOTES HARMONY AND UNION IF THE LAITY ARE EMPLOYED IN THE BUSINESS MATTERS OF THE DISTRICT , OR CHURCH , OR PARISH . In almost every parish or congregation there will be among the laity persons quite fit to undertake the functions whereof we have been speaking. And such persons will in most cases be gratified by being asked to undertake them. They will be glad to be associated with the clergyman in parochial matters, and to relieve him of a portion of his burdens. It will be a satisfaction to them to be doing some work for Christ and his Church, to feel that they are a part of the organization, and that by their gratuitous service they are furthering the cause of their Lord and Master. And the greater intercourse which will thus take place between them and their spiritual guides will foster good feeling and mutual regard and respect.