“Tell Aaron and his sons to treat with respect the sacred offerings the Israelites consecrate to me, so they will not profane my holy name. I am the Lord. – Leviticus 22:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 20. 2012): Leviticus 22

I recently read a report about the management of funds by a number of major non-profit organizations. The conclusion of the report was a little surprising – a number of major charitable organizations had been found guilty of mismanagement of funds. Well, at least they appear to be guilty of mismanagement – and that was part of the problem. The criterion of the mismanagement was curiously missing from the report. The report was loaded with innuendo, but there were very few facts to back up the allegations. The most the reader could say was that the money had not been spent as someone thought that it should have been.

In the non-profit world, we all seem to walk a fine line. I think for most of us, we take the responsibilities that we have to our donors very seriously. I know that for the non-profit that I am connected with we try to go beyond the requirements of the law as we work with the donated money. But there is also a problem. Almost every donor comes with their own list of priorities. And often the priorities are contradictory.

Moses was given God’s priorities and was told to adhere to them. The sacred offerings were to be used for God’s purpose. They were not to be used in any way that could be misunderstood, and the offerings were not given to the priests to use as they saw fit. The offering needed to be directed in a specific way.

A few years ago I was confronted with some donors that felt that the lion’s share of the donations should be earmarked for overseas mission. The group even decided that anything that was spent locally should be termed as administrative cost. But the church’s mission has never been that narrow. And the narrowness of the vision cannot be supported biblically. In fact, as far as the bible is concerned the beginning of our mission is right where we live. For the church, we use our donations to make this world a better place. And by the world we mean our corner of it, and a few corners far away from us as well.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Leviticus 23