Todd has submitted this article, with some excellet questions, as part of our conversation here. Thank you, Todd!
When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the LORD, as prescribed by David king of Israel. With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD :
“He is good;
his love to Israel endures forever.â€And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away. — Ezra 3:10-13
I’ve read these verses before with my young, selfish and proud eyes, applauding the younger Israelites for being forward-thinking and not satisfied with looking back or longing for yesterday. These “others†shouted for joy at the sight of the new temple – the new incarnation of their relationship with God – and looked to the future for what God was going to do in their midst. These “others†weren’t around in the days of the older temple, they didn’t see the glory of the former, they only knew the excitement of the present and the possibility of the future. The “others†were right while the old priests and Levites were wrong.
While I still have young, selfish and proud eyes, today I’m reading the verse in a different light. I still applaud the “others†for their progressive view, but I’m softening my stance toward the older individuals in attendance. What if these priests and Levites are mourning not because of the “inferiority†of the present, but because of the road the Israelites had taken to arrive at the present situation? What if they’re weeping not because they want to go back, but as an admission of their failure to be God’s people as God commanded?
What if discernment blogs and ministries took this approach to their criticism of today’s church? What if rather than condemn the new on the mere fact that it is new, they critiqued the new in light of their (the Church’s) failure live the way God commanded?
For example, today’s seeker sensitive churches are certainly sacrificing some reverence for relevance, but today’s seeker sensitive movement is nothing more than an attempt to meet people where they are. The reason it has moved so far from the traditional, “orthodox†way of doing church is because the traditional, “orthodox†method refused to even take a step toward people, instead requiring the non-believers to make the first steps. If discernment ministries would weep over the fact that today’s incarnation is flawed because of the Church’s past failures, I believe their criticism would be infinitely more beneficial to the Church at large.
5 Comments(+Add)
This is a great insight. Movements such as PDL or the Emerging Church do not happen in a vacuum. They are in large part responses or corrections to past issues.
I see a correlation to a phenomemon that I see a lot in campus ministry. Every now and then, a parent (or grandparent) will corner me or my wife and complain to us about their son or daughter not being involved in our ministry. They ask us to invite them to events or Bible Studies, etc. (which most of the time has already been done). Nine out of ten times, though, the kid will never show up. A minority of them get involved with other Christian groups, which is awesome, but most of them want to get as far away from the Church as possible. Then parents come and blame ministry leaders for their children not being involved. These kids did not grow up in the wild (although, with some that’s questionable); they lived in their parents house for 18 years or so. Yet, the parents many times want no responsibility.
Now, I realize that even the best parents can have rebellious kids, but in many cases parents are just reaping what they’ve sown. The same can be said for churches.
This is a great question. I used to believe the old men were weeping because they had seen the glory of the former temple and did not like this new one. But if we read the context we see that God promised that the glory of this latter temple would exceed the first.
The temple in question would see Jesus circumcised and teaching the doctors of the law. It would eventually witness the Lord’s judgment and eventual crucifixion. This new temple was to be used greatly of God in the midst of much compromise, hence the cleansing of the temple.
I agree with Todd, the old men wept they didn’t spit.
I’ve heard the claim made which goes some like that, ‘the people involved in the way God worked years ago will cry the loudest against those involved in the way God works today’. I’m not sure I buy that, as those who say that are usually the ones claiming to be involved in some ‘today’ work, and it bypasses the question of whether what they are doing is really of God or not.
After all, the church has been hurt plenty by people claiming to be doing God’s work, but aren’t really.
Assuming that people of years ago made mistake, and it’s a safe assumption, and assuming the people today are making mistakes, and again that’s safe, is it still really a good excuse to say that “Believers today go too far one way because people years ago went too far the other way”? Isn’t that kind of like falling off of a horse on one side, then falling again on the other because one was trying to hard not to fall of on the same side?
If we need a correction today, do we need an overcorrection? Is the emphasis more on doing right then one trying to separate oneself from what was?
What if they wept because they never thought that they would see the foundation of the temple laid again in their lifetimes?
That is the way I always teach this passage.
Yea, Chris, that’s also legit. Something was going on since the old guys wept and the young guys rejoiced.