Jehoash Repairs the Temple

 2 Kings 12:4-16

 

October 7, 2021

 

 

 

Jehoash Repairs the Temple

Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money of the holy things that is brought into the house of the Lord, the money for which each man is assessed—the money from the assessment of persons—and the money that a man's heart prompts him to bring into the house of the Lord,  let the priests take, each from his donor, and let them repair the house wherever any need of repairs is discovered.”   But by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, the priests had made no repairs on the house.   Therefore King Jehoash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and said to them, “Why are you not repairing the house? Now, therefore, take no more money from your donors, but hand it over for the repair of the house.”   So the priests agreed that they should take no more money from the people and that they should not repair the house.

 

Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in the lid of it and set it beside the altar on the right side as one entered the house of the Lord. And the priests who guarded the threshold put in it all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord.   And whenever they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king's secretary and the high priest came up and they bagged and counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord.   Then they would give the money that was weighed out into the hands of the workmen who had the oversight of the house of the Lord. And they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who worked on the house of the Lord,  and to the masons and the stonecutters, as well as to buy timber and quarried stone for making repairs on the house of the Lord, and for any outlay for the repairs of the house.   But there were not made for the house of the Lord basins of silver, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, or any vessels of gold, or of silver, from the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, for that was given to the workmen who were repairing the house of the Lord with it.   And they did not ask for an accounting from the men into whose hand they delivered the money to pay out to the workmen, for they dealt honestly.   The money from the guilt offerings and the money from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the Lord; it belonged to the priests.

The first eight verses remind me of a joke that I hear told on how different religious leaders handle the offering given to God.  Each one had a way they used the offering, but when it came to the Jewish rabbi, he said we of the Jewish faith handle the funds a little differently from you, we throw it up in the air and God takes what He wants.   No one of the protestant or Catholic faith would ever have a joke told about them like that, but I often wonder if they ask God about how to spend those funds entrusted to them.  

 

The King was very patient with the priest, but after 16 years of no action on the temple, he change the rules, and the temple began to be repaired.  Could it be that we need Pastors and Church leaders to ask the LORD how we used God’s money to fulfill the mission of the church?  Or the programs of your Church meeting the Great Commission?  It started in Matthew 28:18-20, And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.   Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

 

Yes, we the Church have been given direct orders, like loving your neighbor as yourself and taking care of Widows and Children.  King Jehoash would tell us to stop all else and get about repairing a Church that has lost its mission.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice