{"id":7529,"date":"2016-04-22T00:05:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T07:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=7529"},"modified":"2016-04-21T10:52:30","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T17:52:30","slug":"priestly-misconduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2016\/04\/22\/priestly-misconduct\/","title":{"rendered":"Priestly Misconduct"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man of God came to Eli and said to him, \u201cThis is what the Lord says: \u2018Didn\u2019t I reveal Myself to your ancestral house when it was in Egypt and belonged to Pharaoh\u2019s palace? I selected your house from the tribes of Israel to be priests, to offer sacrifices on My altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod in My presence. I also gave your house all the Israelite fire offerings. Why, then, do all of you despise My sacrifices and offerings that I require at the place of worship? You have honored your sons more than Me, by making yourselves fat with the best part of all of the offerings of My people Israel.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, the Lord, the God of Israel, says:
\n \u2018Although I said
\n your family and your ancestral house
\n would walk before Me forever,
\n the Lord now says, \u201cNo longer!\u201d
\n I will honor those who honor Me,
\n but those who despise Me will be disgraced. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Look, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your ancestral family, so that none in your family will reach old age.\u2019\u201d (1 Samuel 2:27-31)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eli thought he loved his sons. But his choices showed he loved neither them nor God. Eli did nothing to change things. He criticized his sons and told them they should change their behavior, but he did nothing more than talk. Though he had the power to strip them of their position and to replace them with others, he abdicated his responsibility as a priest and as their father. He allowed them to continue serving.<\/p>\n

God therefore told Eli that he would do what Eli wouldn\u2019t: he\u2019d remove Eli\u2019s sons from their positions. This couldn\u2019t have come as a surprise to Eli. Two of Aaron\u2019s sons, Nadab and Abihu, had died simply for offering \u201cunauthorized fire\u201d (see Leviticus 10:1-2). Eli\u2019s sons were guilty of far worse: greed and idolatry. <\/p>\n

Although God had promised Aaron\u2019s grandson that his descendents would always serve as priests, God was forced to make a modification to his promise. Although God\u2019s gifts, his promises are irrevocable (see Romans 11:29), the contracts he makes, like any contract, can be modified. There were other descendents of Aaron, others who could be priests. Just the one piece\u2014Eli\u2019s piece\u2014of Aaron\u2019s family would be cut off.<\/p>\n

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A man of God came to Eli and said to him, \u201cThis is what the Lord says: \u2018Didn\u2019t I reveal Myself to your ancestral house when it was in Egypt and belonged to Pharaoh\u2019s palace? I selected your house from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7529"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7532,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7529\/revisions\/7532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}