In Numbers 8, God claims the Levite tribe of Israel to be His own possession, dedicated wholly to Him as helpers in the work of the tabernacle and assistants to Aaron and his sons, the priests. These Levites didn't perform the actual offerings, or sacrifice the bulls, that was the job of the priests. But they did all of the hard work: setting up and taking down the tabernacle, herding animals, crowd control, dumping out the ashes from the incense bowls. We can safely say that a Levite was God's carny.
The analogy isn't stretched that much, they even set up and took down a giant tent in the desert! If God wanted to have a Tilt O' Whirl or Zany Zipper, the Levites would have operated the rides.
A carny is usually among the dregs of society, an outcast, somebody with a past more checkered than the Daytona 500, felons definitely encouraged to apply. Genesis 34:25-31 and 49:5-7 are all the resume that the Levites needed for the job position.
But the Levites were not any worse than the other tribes of Israel. The entire nation of Israel was a bunch of misfits, grumblers, rebels, and whiners (to be blunt). Randomly point your finger to any verse in Exodus and you're very lucky to not have somebody moaning that the porridge is both too hot and too cold at the same time. Flip eyes-closed to any passage in the Old Testament and God is probably either about to bring Israel to the woodshed, or Israel is returning from the woodshed, backside smarting.
And before us Gentiles get too smug, sneering down our "holier than thou" noses, it is clear that the Israelites were not worse than the rest of the nations. All of humanity is in the dregs, bottom of the barrel. We all are cast out from the garden, wanderers in an alien land, orphaned from our Father in Heaven. Every one of us. Sure, we might not have teeth missing, tats, an original Iron Maiden jeans jacket, and a mobile home in the Bellis Fair Mall parking lot 2 weeks out of the year. But which one of us would like the innermost recesses of our minds broadcast 24/7 for the world to hear, or thought bubbles to appear over our heads for the world to see? Not me because sometimes it's uglier than the Bearded Lady. If not outwardly, then at least in our inner man, all of us are carnies. It's even appropriate that the apostle Paul urges us to avoid the sins of the flesh. In the Greek it's the sins of the "sarkikos" the carnal nature.
Romans 7:14 "For I know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin."
Good news is that once we are saved, God justifies us and sanctifies us as we put off the old man, put to death the sins of the flesh, and put on the new man in the likeness of Jesus. But it is entirely by God's work and grace in us that we have any hope of renewal.
So for any human being to occupy even a cotton candy stand in the carnival of God's kingdom is a huge score. Give me a push broom next to the eternal Fun House or Hall O' Mirrors and I'm good. It's a promotion. Or, as Jesus put it in Matthew 11:11 "I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Anybody up for some bumper cars?
The analogy isn't stretched that much, they even set up and took down a giant tent in the desert! If God wanted to have a Tilt O' Whirl or Zany Zipper, the Levites would have operated the rides.
A carny is usually among the dregs of society, an outcast, somebody with a past more checkered than the Daytona 500, felons definitely encouraged to apply. Genesis 34:25-31 and 49:5-7 are all the resume that the Levites needed for the job position.
But the Levites were not any worse than the other tribes of Israel. The entire nation of Israel was a bunch of misfits, grumblers, rebels, and whiners (to be blunt). Randomly point your finger to any verse in Exodus and you're very lucky to not have somebody moaning that the porridge is both too hot and too cold at the same time. Flip eyes-closed to any passage in the Old Testament and God is probably either about to bring Israel to the woodshed, or Israel is returning from the woodshed, backside smarting.
And before us Gentiles get too smug, sneering down our "holier than thou" noses, it is clear that the Israelites were not worse than the rest of the nations. All of humanity is in the dregs, bottom of the barrel. We all are cast out from the garden, wanderers in an alien land, orphaned from our Father in Heaven. Every one of us. Sure, we might not have teeth missing, tats, an original Iron Maiden jeans jacket, and a mobile home in the Bellis Fair Mall parking lot 2 weeks out of the year. But which one of us would like the innermost recesses of our minds broadcast 24/7 for the world to hear, or thought bubbles to appear over our heads for the world to see? Not me because sometimes it's uglier than the Bearded Lady. If not outwardly, then at least in our inner man, all of us are carnies. It's even appropriate that the apostle Paul urges us to avoid the sins of the flesh. In the Greek it's the sins of the "sarkikos" the carnal nature.
Romans 7:14 "For I know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin."
Good news is that once we are saved, God justifies us and sanctifies us as we put off the old man, put to death the sins of the flesh, and put on the new man in the likeness of Jesus. But it is entirely by God's work and grace in us that we have any hope of renewal.
So for any human being to occupy even a cotton candy stand in the carnival of God's kingdom is a huge score. Give me a push broom next to the eternal Fun House or Hall O' Mirrors and I'm good. It's a promotion. Or, as Jesus put it in Matthew 11:11 "I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Anybody up for some bumper cars?
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