The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The title of the sermon is Teaching Priests, and the scripture reference is 2 Chronicles 15, verses 1-3. The occasion for this sermon was the meeting of Province 2 leaders held in Albany, New York on July 9-11, 1981. 

2 Chronicles chapter 15. 
It's during the reign of Asa, king of Judah, somewhere around 900 B.C. It says, The Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Oded, and he went out to meet Asa, the king.

And he said to him, Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you.

But if you forsake him, he will forsake you. For a long time, Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law. I want you to think about the impact of those words.

Israel had all of the paraphernalia. They had their worship, they had their temple, they had their sacrifices, they had their priesthood, they had their ceremonies, they had their festivals. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Azariah and he says, for a long time Israel was without the true God.

They went through all of their worship. Who were they worshiping? They were without the true God.

What God was it that they were worshipping? And without a teaching priest. Now they had priests.

They had priests and scribes and they had all manner of helpers. The Levites were around to care for the temple. What was going on?

They had priests, but they had no teaching. priest. And because they had no teaching priest, they therefore had no law.

I mean, they had the law, but they didn't have the law. Nobody was expounding it. Nobody was bringing it home to the people.

There was no exposition of God's word under the anointing of his Spirit. And because of that, though they had the form, they had lost the reality. Can you imagine?

for a long time. This wasn't just a moment in their history. For a long time.

This was the devastating condition of Israel going through all of the proper motions and no God. And they didn't even realize it. I think that's a devastating comment.

Do you understand that it's possible to go through the motions, to have a service that is orthodox. And something very, very basic is missing. And I suggest to you that it is related, perhaps this isn't the whole story, but that it is related to the middle clause here, they had no teaching priest.

They had priests, but they didn't have any teaching priest. It's not a phrase that we hear with great frequency in the Old Testament. but it's taken for granted that this word is going to be understood that there needs to be within the priesthood there needs to be a ministry of teaching of exposing God's word and where that's absent we risk running away from his statutes from his ordinances from his covenant from our relationship with him and the net result of that will be that we'll be godless for all of our right ritual will be godless.

Look over in Jeremiah about the middle of the Bible. Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah 23 in verse 16.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds not from the mouth of the Lord. they continually say to those who despise the word of the Lord, it shall be well with you.

And to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, no evil shall come upon you. We're considering the ministry of Jeremiah this morning and that he was indeed a prophet of God calling his generation back to what God had said and he was virtually unheeded. But there were other people who were also preaching and prophesying.

and their message was as different from Jeremiah's as it possibly could be. Jeremiah said, if you don't repent, devastation is going to come upon you. And the other prophets were going around saying, everything's well.

It's fine. Everything's well. He says, don't listen to them.

They're preaching to you. They have all the guise of preaching, of prophesying, of speaking the word of the Lord. But in fact, it's not the word of the Lord at all.

It's their own word. When preachers preach their own word rather than God's word, they confirm people in stubbornness and disbelief, and the end is destruction. There's a far more devastating passage than either of those.

The last book of the Bible. Sorry, the last book of the Old Testament. The last book of the Old Testament, chapter 2.

And now, O priests, this command is for you. Some of you will pay special attention. Now, O priests, this command is for you.

If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. indeed I have already cursed them because you do not lay it to heart I would say that probably you could sum up the role of the priest what the priest is supposed to do in all the rest of what he does is to bring God's blessing to the people you know there may be repentance there may be exhortation there may be any number of things but the net result is His ministry is aimed to bring God's blessing to the people. A priest stands up and gives the blessing.

The Lord bless you and keep you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, be blessed. Can you imagine God saying, When you bless, I will curse.

When you pronounce the blessing on your people, I'm going to curse them. That's what he's saying. If you do not give glory to me, if you do not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you.

I will curse your blessings. Can you imagine anything more devastating for the ministry, for the minister, for the priest, for the bishop, than to have his or her blessings turned into God's curses? There's a thread that runs through these three passages.

There was no teaching priest. Nobody was expounding God's Word. And the net result was godlessness.

Then there were those who were expounding words and saying they were of God, but they weren't of God. And that confirmed people in rebellion and stubbornness, and the net result was destruction. And God says, if you will not honor My name, If you will not bring glory to that in which I invest my glory, I'm going to turn your ministry into a curse.

This mentality carries right over into the words of Jesus. Matthew chapter 5. It's so often said, it continues to be said, you hear it all the time.

Jesus did away with the Old Testament. Jesus instituted something brand new. We don't have to pay any attention to the Old Testament.

Jesus says, Matthew 5, verse 17, He says, Think not that I've come to abolish the law and the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Truly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

You can think of that. The way Hebrew is written is that there are no letters for the vowels as we know them. There are points that are added to the consonants.

You could think of it this way. Not the tiniest point would be taken away from what God's word is written. Jesus says, don't think I've come to do away with that.

Not an iota, not a dot will be taken away until all is accomplished. We've already heard two of the most powerful passages in the New Testament. St. Paul writes to the young man Timothy, who's about to enter into major responsibility of ministry.

This may be the very last thing from Paul's pen, just before he was martyred. And he says to Timothy in chapter 3, he says, verse 16, All Scripture is inspired by God. And that word, inspired, has the same root as the word respire, respiration.

You could translate that all scripture is God-breathed. God-breathed it. Men wrote it down.

God-breathed it. What is the scripture he's talking about? Paul's talking about the Old Testament.

All scripture is God-breathed. Okay? And it is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.

It's given, it's not only authoritative, it's not only God-breathed, it has a purpose. God gave us the scripture for teaching. What is it we teach?

Where do we get our teaching? I wonder as I travel around where some of the folks that I hear preaching are getting their preaching from. You know, I hear front page of the New York Times, New Yorker magazine.

I hear three out of five dentists surveyed. You know, I mean, where are they getting it from? It says God gave us this book for our teaching.

That's its purpose. What right do we have to be teaching what God didn't say? That's its purpose.

For teaching, for reproof. That's a negative word. That means you're wrong.

Well, who am I to say you're wrong? I didn't say it. God said you're wrong.

How do I know? He said so. For reproof.

For correction. God doesn't stop with saying you're wrong. He says, here's how to make it right.

Here's how to make it right. And for training in righteousness. For inculcating my life into your life until it becomes second nature.

until it becomes natural to you. That's what this word is for. For teaching, for reproof, for correction, for inculcating my righteousness into your lifestyle.

That the man of God, that the woman of God, that the child of God might be complete, equipped for every good work. You could translate that completely equipped for every good work. Do you hear what God is saying to us through St. Paul in that passage?

That this book is given to us that we might be completely equipped for every contingency. There will never befall us a situation in which we will be unprepared if we've got this book inside of us. Do you believe that?

I wonder if you do. A lot of people don't. Do you know what I hear? The Baptists have the Bible, and we've got this book.

I want to say a couple of words about this book. I pointed you to the preface yesterday. Let's take another quick look at it.

It's a most invaluable part of that blessed liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, that in his worship different forms and usages may without offense be allowed, provided that the substance of the faith be kept entire. They're telling us that it's permissible to change the forms of our worship so long as the substance of the faith be unchanged. You can express it in a variety of ways so long as you're expressing it.

It seems to me that too much heat has been generated over the question of the form, and too little regard has been paid to the substance. It says, provided that the substance of the faith be kept entire. And in every church, what cannot clearly be determined to belong to doctrine must be referred to discipline.

We have doctrine and we have discipline. Doctrine is the substance of the faith. the teaching.

Discipline is how we do things. That which does not belong to doctrine must be referred to discipline. Therefore, by common consent and authority, discipline may be altered, may be amended, may be abridged, enlarged, or otherwise disposed of.

Discipline can be changed according to the various exigency of times and occasions. It goes on to say that we believe in putting together the book of common prayer that there's nothing in it that is contrary to the word of God written. That's what it says in the preface.

That's what we believe, said the framers of the book of common prayer. We may be wrong, okay? If we're wrong, we want to be corrected.

But we believe that we've put together this book and nothing in it contradicts this book. Look over at page 184. you don't have this with you some of you do I'll read it to you this is proper 28 it's often said that the Episcopal Church prays its faith it prays its faith I want you to hear one of the most beloved prayers of our church and you tell me what the faith is according to this prayer blessed Lord who hast caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning grant that we may in such wise hear them read mark learn and inwardly digest them that by patience and comfort of thy holy word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.

If we're praying our faith in that prayer, what is our faith? Blessed Lord, who has caused all Holy Scripture to be written for our learning, grant that we may in such wise hear them, read them, mark them underline circles and arrows notes in the margin learn them and inwardly digest them this book is given that we might be completely equipped for every good work and that's what we pray that used to be the second collect for advent it's now proper 28 on page 513 a man who is about to be consecrated bishop promises this in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit I, chosen bishop of the church solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God and to contain all things necessary to salvation, and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church. I do solemnly believe that this book is the Word of God written.

The bishop is then asked, will you be faithful in prayer and in the study of Holy Scripture that you may have the mind of Christ? How does the bishop have the mind of Christ? By studying this book.

It says, will you boldly proclaim and interpret the gospel of Christ enlightening the minds and stirring up the conscience of your people? Boldly proclaim and interpret the gospel, having studied it, learned it, marked it, inwardly digested it, made it your own, been nourished by it. Will you now proclaim it?

And he says, I will in the power of the Spirit. Every priest makes identical promises. Every deacon makes identical promises.

Page 853. In the catechism, we ask, what are the Holy Scriptures? It says, the Holy Scriptures commonly called the Bible are the books of the Old and New Testament.

Other books called the Apocrypha are often included in the Bible. It says, how do we recognize the truths taught by the Holy Spirit? We recognize truths to be taught by the Holy Spirit when they are in accord with the Scriptures.

Have you heard it said that the Episcopal Church is not a Bible church? This book says it is. In 1968, at the Lambeth Conference that was held that year, the bishops gathered in London issued this statement.

it said the church is not over the holy scriptures, but under them. In the sense that the process of canonization, in other words, deciding what gets into this book, the process that the early church fathers had to go through of deciding what gets into the two covers of this book, the process of canonization was not one whereby the church conferred authority on the books. It was not one whereby the Church conferred authority on the books, but rather one whereby the Church acknowledged them to possess authority.

And why? The books were recognized as giving the witness of the apostles to the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of the Lord and the interpretation by the apostles of these events. And the statement of the Lambeth Conference 1968 ended with these words, To that apostolic authority, the church must ever bow.

To this biblical apostolic authority, the church must ever bow. We sometimes have to remind their lordships of what they said and call them to it. But I share this with you because it seems to me that if there's one single factor that we need to make absolutely central under the lordship of Christ, it's the teaching of this book.

It's the teaching of these scriptures. The word that we heard this morning was preach my word, proclaim my word to those dry bones. And it's my prayer that especially the clergy here will go out re-inspired to become students of this book.

I mean, we praise God for the experiences that we have, right? I mean, praise God that he's moving in marvelous ways in our midst. But the thing that we've got to bring back to our people is God's word written.

That's the thing that he has promised to bless and to honor. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. That the man of God, the woman of God, the child of God will be completely equipped for every good work.

John Rogers at Trinity Seminary says that, you see, the problem with the seminaries is that we've devised a manner of studying the Bible in which we learn everything about it except what it says. and most of my brethren don't know how to teach the scriptures because they've never been taught the scriptures we can tell you who wrote it under what condition in what form and how therefore to do away with it we can't tell you what it says Paul said this in another place study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that doesn't need to be ashamed, that rightly divides the word of truth. There's no shortcut to that.

Study the book. Study to show yourself a workman that has no need to be ashamed, who rightly divides, who rightly exposits the book. And brethren and sisters, I challenge you to go out and study this book and learn how to share it with your people.

And as you bring them this word, God will bless it. He's promised to bless it. He's promised to honor it.

Become teaching priests that will have the true God in our midst, that will have the law written on our hearts, that will be nourished for His kingdom. Amen. Amen.