Korah's Rebellion

Numbers 14-27 (6 days in my http://www.bibleinayear.org/ reading plan).

The nice thing about reading through the Bible is that it makes it easier to understand what I am reading through the context of the chapters preceeding. Take Korah, for example, his life story spans from chapters 3 to 26 and it would have been easy to miss the context of his rebellion against Aaron & Moses if I was not reading through the chapters.

Korah was a member of the Kohath clan among the Levites during the time when the Israelites were wandering 40 years in the desert (Numbers 16:1). Korah's clan was 2,750 men strong (Numbers 4:34-35) and their job was to carry (by hand) "the ark, the table, the lampstand, the altars, the utensils of the sanctuary.. [and] the screen" (Numbers 3:31) used in the Tabernacle whenever the Israelites moved. Oxen and carts were given to the other Levite clans to help carry the heavier stuff like the tents, screens, pillars and boards, but Korah's clan was assigned to carry the holy articles in the Tabernacle, and they were to be carried on their shoulders (Numbers 7:1-9).

Numbers 4:5-15 tells us that each time when it was time to move, Aaron and the priests would cover the ark and the instruments in cloth and animal skins. Only after that would Korah's clan move in to carry the stuff. All those years of carrying the holy articles in the Tabernacle without being allowed to see or touch them may have gotten to Korah, because one day, he and his buddies (Dathan, Abiram and On) rounded up 250 of the influential leaders of the Israelite community and rebelled against Aaron and Moses (Numbers 16:1-2). It doesn't pay to rebel against God's appointed leaders of course, and the result was that Korah and his friends were swallowed alive by the earth that they were standing on (Numbers 16:31-33), and the 250 leaders were literally incinerated by God's wrath (Numbers 16:35). In fact, Dathan and Abiram's entire families were also swallowed alive because they did not stand apart from their families (i.e. their families stood with them in their rebellion), but Korah's family was spared (Numbers 26:9-11) because they were not standing united with Korah's rebellion.

This entire encounter teaches me two significant things:

1. We each have our God given ministry and we need to find out what it is and serve. Not all of us will be leaders or pastors, and God certainly doesn't like it when we rebel against the leaders He put above us. This doesn't mean that we should not try to be leaders in our own right, nor does it mean that we are to follow our leaders with blind faith. (In fact, 1 Thessalonians 5:21 warns us to "test all things" we are told/taught.). Instead, we should not take our ministry lightly and think too highly of ourselves, lest we fall into Korah's sin - Korah felt he was literally too good for his ministry and resented the authority of the God appointed leaders over him.
   
2. God judges us by our own sins, not the sins of our family (past and present). Some passages in the Old Testament seem to suggest that God punishes the children of sinners to the 3rd or 4th generation (e.g. Exodus 20:5-6), but if we take into context the entire message of the bible, we will find that God does not visit the sins of our fore-fathers upon us. In this case, it is clear that Korah's family was spared even though he committed a terrible sin, and we can find other passages that similarly support the fact that God judges us by our own sins (e.g. Jeremiah 31:29-30). This is significant for me, because coming from a non-Christian family, many Christian friends have advised me to pray against bondages that my fore-fathers may have placed upon me through the generations of idol and ancester worship. I have always found that hard to accept. Somehow it does not fit in with what I know of Him. And now I know why. Praise God!