My wife and I read through I Sam 1 and 2 today, and noticed something new to us there.
We read of two major sins of Hophni and Phinehas - treating the sacrifices with contempt, and sleeping with servants at the Tent of Meeting.
After re-reading it a few times, there was a general impression that their sins regarding sacrifices aroused more anger in the sight of God than their philandering with women. Both are mentioned and both bear severe penalties, but God's anger toward them is revealed after only their sins regarding sacrifice are mentioned. The sexual sin is mentioned, but almost as the icing on the cake.
That really struck a chord. We all know that adultery is a sin of severe weight, as it is an assault on the very institution set up to reveal and proclaim God's faithfulness to His people.
If I were confronted with an individual who I knew participated in corrupt or self-serving worship of God, and was also an adulterer, I believe my negative thoughts of the man would focus more on his adultery. If we are reading the passage correctly, that may be wrong. The lawfulness of our worship of God is no small thing, and cannot be treated as a secondary matter - that is, not secondary to anything.
Even among the issues of the highest order, does this account show that our worship is perhaps the most serious?
If attempting to reform a church, do we not inherently place RPW issues on the back-burner until other issues are handled? I think we generally believe so. But is that right? Are we reading too much into this?
We read of two major sins of Hophni and Phinehas - treating the sacrifices with contempt, and sleeping with servants at the Tent of Meeting.
After re-reading it a few times, there was a general impression that their sins regarding sacrifices aroused more anger in the sight of God than their philandering with women. Both are mentioned and both bear severe penalties, but God's anger toward them is revealed after only their sins regarding sacrifice are mentioned. The sexual sin is mentioned, but almost as the icing on the cake.
That really struck a chord. We all know that adultery is a sin of severe weight, as it is an assault on the very institution set up to reveal and proclaim God's faithfulness to His people.
If I were confronted with an individual who I knew participated in corrupt or self-serving worship of God, and was also an adulterer, I believe my negative thoughts of the man would focus more on his adultery. If we are reading the passage correctly, that may be wrong. The lawfulness of our worship of God is no small thing, and cannot be treated as a secondary matter - that is, not secondary to anything.
Even among the issues of the highest order, does this account show that our worship is perhaps the most serious?
If attempting to reform a church, do we not inherently place RPW issues on the back-burner until other issues are handled? I think we generally believe so. But is that right? Are we reading too much into this?