Lev. 10:1-3, Nadab and Abihu die

Only three verses today. Why? Because what happened to Nadab and Abihu has caused some of the most absurd sermons and commentaries it has been my opportunity to read on the net. In the past couple of hours of reading, I have read where they are associated with the evils of Christian rock music, where they show you can lose your salvation by disobeying God, where they have had imaginary conversations, where they wanted to kill Moses and Aaron and take their places…

Incredible stuff.

But there was one bit of analysis done by a Church of Christ minister which I thought was excellent and totally biblical. It is here:

http://www.zianet.com/maxey/Sermon5.htm

He shows, using only biblical material, that Nadab and Abihu were in flagrant and careless disobedience in a number of areas, essentially insulting God by taking Him lightly and disregarding His commands.

One point he brings out that I keep thinking about is that the ‘strange fire’ was a fire not given by the Lord, as the first sacrifices were lit by a fire from heaven, and it was this fire that Moses was commended to tell Aaron to keep burning day and night. And I started thinking about our lives, and how we are so willing to ignore what the Lord has given us in knowledge and talents and use other, from the world, and then, in a sense ‘offer’ it to Him, with phrases like “all truth is God’s truth,” and such.

Please read the linked essay. Just ignore the last sentence before the Bible reference reading at the end, please. I’m not sure what he meant by it, but it could be awfully easily misconstrued. The rest of it has really started me thinking in a number of areas and I don’t think anything I could write about these two sons of Aaron would come close to the information and biblical referencing done by the author above.