Numbers 1:47-54

The Levites. .. were not numbered.

The Levites and their service an illustration of the Christian ministry

The Levites were exempted from military service, and set apart for the service of the tabernacle. In any wise arrangement of the affairs of human society provision will be made for the requirements of the spiritual nature of man.

I. The true christian minister should manifest some fitness for the work before he is designated thereto. In determining the trade which their sons shall learn, wise parents will consider their respective inclinations and aptitudes. An artist would perhaps make a poor minister; a successful merchant might utterly fail as a barrister. Is there less aptitude required in the work of the gospel ministry than in the other pursuits of life? Adaptation of voice, of mind, of character, &c.

II. The true christian minister is called of God to his work.

III. The work of the christian minister demands his entire devotion thereto.

IV. A faithful discharge of the duties of the christian minister is essential to the well-being of society.

V. Personal holiness of heart and life are essential to the faithful discharge of the duties of the christian ministry. Levites separated from other tribes for sacred work. Their outward separation intended to show separation from worldliness and sin. They who have to do with holy things should themselves be holy. (W. Jones.)

The Levites not numbered:

We shall see them afterward numbered by themselves, but they were not put in the common reckoning, because God had chosen them to be His possession, and separated them from the rest of the people. And lest any man should think that Moses did ambitiously prefer the tribe of Levi, whereof himself descended, he showeth he did it not of his own head, but by the special commandment of God. Their office is declared--to take the charge of the Tabernacle and worship of God, that when they were to take their journey they should carry it, and when they were to stay and pitch their tents they should set it down and look to it with all diligence. And as God would not have them encumbered in affairs unproper to them and impertinent to their calling, so He would not have others that were not of their tribe and family to break into their function, as it were to invade another man’s possession; nay, He denounceth death to such as were strangers from that tribe that should presume to meddle with those holy things, or set their hands unto them. An example hereof we have in Uzzah (2 Samuel 6:1.).. We learn from hence that it is the duty of the ministers of God’s Word to exercise themselves only in things of their calling; they must wait upon the office to which they are appointed. They are not to be distracted from their calling by worldly matters that no way belong unto them (Numbers 3:6). And doubtless it is great reason that they should content themselves with their own callings, that so they may please Him that hath called them, and forego all that may disturb them in the course whereunto they ought to tend. We must be like soldiers that are called to bear arms. The reason and comparison is pressed by the apostle to this purpose (2 Timothy 2:3). Secondly, the multitude is great, and the difficulty much of those things which are required of the minister, belonging rightly and duly to his calling, in regard whereof we may say (2 Corinthians 2:16). Were that a wise servant, who having both his hands fall, and more than he can well do, should, besides his master’s work, undertake a new and another burden of some other man’s business, which of right doth not belong unto him? (W. Attersoll.).