you are a royal priesthood

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:9 | NIV

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I'm one of the members of the worship team in my home church and often find myself in meetings where the team is being prayed for. And it's often the case that when people pray for us they refer to us as Levites and focus on two things:

1) The Levites went ahead of the Israelite army into battle
2) The Levites were responsible for music and the singing of the psalms and songs in the temple.

Both of which are absolutely true.

It's rare, though, for anyone to mention the other activities the Levites were involved in. They seldom mention filling the water basins, stoking fires, sweeping up, and acting as ushers and doorkeepers. There were real extremes in role of a Levite: they were required to keep guard of God’s dwelling place AND to do the heavy work in temple (Ezra 3: 8-9). It's rare, too, for people to mention the fact that Levites prepared the sacrifice but could never officiate at the ceremonies and rituals because only the Priests did that. All Priests had to be Levites, but not all Levites were Priests.

Levites were not just responsible for marvellous ministry - one of my friends calls it the "shiny stuff" - they also had to manage the mundane.

It must have taken extraordinary character to be a Levite. To be responsible for both the marvellous and mundane. And to understand that they were set apart for both.

Of course, under the New Covenant the delineation between Levite and Priest doesn’t exist. The New Testament is clear we are all priests and so we all share the responsibility for keeping guard of God’s dwelling place and for doing the heavy work along with the whole of the rest of the church.

Which, I think, is particularly true when we’re leading something. Like the Levites we may well find ourselves preparing the sacrifice, but we have to accept it could be someone else who brings other people to the altar to worship. It may be the worship team that brings people to a place where they can hear from God, but it could be the preacher, the ministry team member, the prophet or the friend who hugs them after the service who really seals what God wants to say to them. We need to understand that as we minister, God will choose for himself how he works and through whom he works. And it's a team effort.

It's helpful, as well, to remember we need to ask God to help us develop extraordinary character knowing that, to him, who we are when we’re sweeping the floor is just as important as who we are when we are on the stage. To God, how we work with the other priests is more important to him than what we’re doing for ourselves.

We may not have the title Levites any more but we still have responsibility for the marvellous and the mundane. And the responsibility to serve God really well in both.

Until next month.

L x