Armed priests - a new leadership style?

Numbers 25:6 Then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand 8 and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of them—through the Israelite and into the woman's body.

This sounds so brutal! The priest killed this couple in the tent. I wonder if they were on their guard, or if they were uh, shall we say, "otherwise distracted?"

In any event, they had to be close together at the moment of death since the spear went right through them both. So why do I want to blog about this act which on the surface seems to be not something a loving God would send His priest to do? Because I am afraid that we do not take sin seriously enough these days. Oh yes, myself fully included here. In fact, when I think of the damage sin can do in my life, I don't know why God has chosen to STOP doing this type of simple law-enforcement.

A friend and I were talking about a couple of christian people we know who smoke and drink. We opined that if you are going to stand up as an example to young people, you ought to think twice about allowing these behaviors into your life. We fully realized that there is no list of sins in the Bible which specifically says not to smoke or drink - not specifically. But my friend took it a step farther, and asked, "so which sin is the greatest - smoking, drinking, porn, simple anger..." and he went on to list a few others I can't remember just now. I guess I finally answered with some quip, because we were not being all that serious. But I woke up this morning thinking about it very seriously. God does NOT joke around about sin. If it exists in our lives in secret it will be brought to light. If we nurture it, feed it, keep it as a pet, it will destroy us. God promises that.

So, back to our priest with the sword: how does that reflect a loving God? Easy. Look at story: Moab had "seduced" Israel and the men of Israel had taken wives. Not just that, but read verse 1, " While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, 2 who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods. 3 So Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor. And the LORD's anger burned against them. "

So - this private sin had become very public all by itself. And the Lord was doing a job of cleansing his people. He loves them, and wanted them to remain pure. This is not a one-time teaching, the people of Israel had to lose a lot of friends and relatives to get this lesson learned. And Jesus spoke about it later, during His time on earth. So - what did the priest accomplish by killing the sinning couple? I believe he showed the nation how seriously God take sin. And, he saved a lot of lives, because in the second part of verse 8 and on into verse 9 we see this: "8b Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped. 9 but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000."

Sin kills. Purity is very difficult. But God commands it - and He gives us the tools we need to live it.