Aspiring to be a scribe

Avoiding the temptations of any other self-appointed role

I have been reflecting on what roles we are to aspire to as servants of the Lord.

I am aware of cautions. James 3:1 says, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.” When the imprisoned apostle Paul, knowing he was nearing the end of his life, wrote to Timothy, his child in the faith who would take up his ministry, he instructed him that he might “know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). In this instruction about the life of the church, Paul includes this controversial statement: “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet” (1 Timothy 2:12).

When I’m tempted to bristle about what I can and cannot do as a servant of the Lord, I am reminded of the Levites, an entire tribe set apart by God from the nation of Israel for the service of the priests and the tabernacle as a tithe for all the firstborn of Israel that the Lord sanctified to Himself at the first Passover (Numbers 3:5-13). Might they have bristled by this constraining role appointed to them by the Lord? Korah definitely did. He accused Moses, appointed by God to lead the nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to the land He had promised them, and his brother Aaron, appointed by God to serve as His priest, saying, “You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?” (Numbers 16:3). Before God dramatically confirmed His choosing of Moses and Aaron, by having the earth swallow up Korah and those associated with him and by having a rod representing Aaron bud with blossoms and almonds, Moses asked Korah,

is it not enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to Himself, to do the service of the tabernacle of the LORD, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them; and that He has brought you near, Korah, and all your brothers, sons of Levi, with you? And are you seeking for the priesthood also? Therefore you and all your company are gathered together against the LORD; but as for Aaron, who is he that you grumble against him? (Numbers 16:9-11).

Aaron, with his sister Miriam, had previously learned this lesson when they spoke against Moses, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?” (Numbers 12:2). The “anger of the LORD burned against them” (Numbers 12:9). He “came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent” and audibly reprimanded Aaron and Miriam, before making Miriam leprous for a week, requiring her to live outside the camp and preventing the nation of Israel from journeying on (Numbers 12:5-15). I’ve noticed that Aaron became much more humble after this event. The man who had sinned greatly by making a golden calf for the sons of Israel to worship (Exodus 32:4) became the man who joined Moses in falling on his face before the LORD when the nation of Israel sinned (Numbers 14:15, 16:22, 16:45, 20:6).

We are blessed in our era with powerful tools for study of the Word of God. I regularly use Blue Letter Bible. I can look at translations, definitions of words, and scriptural cross references. I can also search for specific words when I am contemplating a subject. This particular reflection, on the roles to which we are allowed to aspire, inspired my searching the Word of God for the words “appoint,” “appoints,” and “appointed.” I recommend the exercise. This search yielded the following verses in 2 Corinthians:

Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues. All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they? All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? But earnestly desire the greater gifts (2 Corinthians 12:27-31).

These gifts are addressed in 2 Corinthians 12:4-11 and include the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, effecting of miracles, prophecy, distinguishing of spirits, various kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. “But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good….and one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills” (2 Corinthians 12:7,11). I can desire gifts of the Spirit, but it is LORD who gives such gifts according to His will. It is His to appoint me to my role. It is not mine to claim it out of my own desire.

I’ve become intrigued lately by another role named in the Bible, that of “scribe.” Searching for this word reveals its first instance under the reign of King David, when “Sheva was scribe” (2 Saumuel 20:25a). As King David’s reign transitioned to his son Solomon’s, we learn “Jonathan, David’s uncle, was a counselor, a man of understanding, and a scribe” (1 Chronicles 27:32a). A number of other scribes are mentioned in the Old Testament, but the one we learn the most about is Ezra, after whom the book of Ezra is named.

Ezra was a descendant of Aaron the priest, Moses’ brother, so would have been the rightful priest to serve in the temple in Jerusalem had it not been destroyed and the kingdom of Judah exiled to Babylon. Despite exile, “Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it” (Ezra 7:10a). I have come to meditate on this description of what it likely means to be a scribe, “to study the law of the LORD and to practice it.” That was not a role to which Ezra had to be appointed. For much of his life, he was not able to practice the role to which he was rightfully appointed. He “set his heart,” however, to the role of scribe. I’m inspired that we can all set our hearts to this role.

Ezra did also set his heart “to teach [the LORD’s] statutes and ordinances in Israel” (Ezra 7:10b) and, if you read Ezra and Nehemiah, you’ll learn his desires were fulfilled. I’ve also meditated much on what it means to teach, especially given the Biblical cautions I mentioned above. Moses, in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, written by him, spoke and taught the very words given to him by God. Numbers 12:3 says, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.” He did not aspire to teach his own words or ideas, or his own interpretation of the words of God. He taught the words of God. Those words were the foundation for the rest of the life of the nation of Israel until the New Covenant established through the sacrificial blood of Christ. After Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, it was the responsibility of Jesus’ apostles, by revelation from Him through His Holy Spirit, to teach what it means for all of us, both Jew and Gentile, to live under this New Covenant. This, too, required much humility. There was no equivalent “Torah” written yet to determine how to live in that era of the early church. The ministry, teaching, and writing of the apostles, inspired by Jesus’ teaching in His lifetime and His revelation via His Holy Spirit after His ascension, resulted in the New Testament, so we do now have the entirety of the Holy Scriptures, “Old” and “New,” to access as authoritative teaching. Any “teacher” must humbly submit to this authority, setting their heart, like Ezra, to teach only what the LORD taught. New Testament cautions against aspiring to teach are because it’s incredibly tempting to “go rogue,” and teach one’s own ideas or interpretations. A scribe will teach the words of the LORD because they have set their “heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it.”

This notion that a scribe’s role is to faithfully represent what the Word of God says, and not act as an authority over it, is demonstrated in the crowd’s reaction to Jesus, “for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:29). Jesus had harsh words for scribes and Pharisees who had “seated themselves in the chair of Moses” (Matthew 23:2b) and hypocritically taught and enforced the Law of God but did not follow it: “all that they tell you, do and observe, and but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them” (Matthew 23:3). In His criticism of the scribes and Pharisees of His day, Jesus quoted from the Old Testament, pointing out an error that remains a temptation of many since the time of Moses, “teaching as doctrine the precepts of men” (Matthew 15:9b).

And Jesus said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and and old” (Matthew 13:52).

We can be both scribes and disciples of the kingdom of heaven, mining the Word of God, both Old and New Testament, for its treasure. When called to teach, may we abide by Jesus’ Great Commission and teach to observe all that He commanded (Matthew 28:19-20).