"Do not touch my anointed ones, and do my prophets no harm!"  (Ps. 105:15)

If I were a contemporary with Martin Luther and close to him,  I would doubtless have some bones to pick with him.  (At the moment I´m being blessed with his biography).  But I must remember that he was one of God´s anointed prophets in the spiritually enslaved Europe.  That doesn´t mean that Luther was untouchable, but he should be "touched" or dealt with in a loving spirit without doing him harm.

Sometimes Christians deal with one another in a carnal way and as was the case in Paul´s life, harsh fellow believers treated him cruelly or as he put it, "to add afflictions to my chains"  (Phil. 1:16).  And yet they were, theologically speaking,  not "false teachers", but preached Christ, and in that Paul rejoiced at least, v.18.  Indeed, what a humble spirit!

In my very young days at a mission training center in PA we had a concept called "personal ministry".  The idea was that if we saw some fault or even a flaw in somebody´s life we should "minister" direct to him/her about it.    The principle was right, but in practice it tended to make us "fault hunters", thus  promoting an unhealthy, legalistic bind.

And yet we should be faithful to one another directly instead of speaking ill of one another.  So "personal ministry" was in itself good, but should always aim at pointing to Christ and His grace in all its beauty.

So the anointed David was not untouchable.  He needed the faithful Nathan.  The anointed Peter needed the "ministry"  of Paul (Gal. 2:11), and I´ve felt a similar need myself , i.e. the faithful wounds of a friend (sent by God) which can be a blessing rather than having it all smoothed over by the deceitful kisses of an enemy.  (Prov. 27:6).

July 12, 2016 - jn