Infectious Enthusiasm - Phinehas

The LORD said to Moses, “Phinehas son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest has turned my anger away from the Israelites by being as zealous among them as I was.”

Numbers 25:10-11

Eugene Ormandy, the world-renowned violinist and conductor, was well-known for his enthusiasm for music. Ormandy was so zealous that he once dislocated his shoulder while conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.

An Old Testament character named Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron the priest, demonstrated this kind of zeal for God.

Phinehas had seen the immorality going on around him. His people committed sexual acts with the women of Midian, and many of them had begun worshiping the Midianites’ false gods.

Phinehas could not stand idly by and allow his people to defile themselves. Neither could he allow God’s judgment to continue falling without trying to bring it to an end. He had already seen twenty-four thousand of his brothers and sisters die, and it broke his heart.

Finally, Phinehas had his “last straw” moment, and it was time for him to act.

When Phinehas witnessed one of his Hebrew brothers shamelessly taking a Midianite woman into his tent, he had seen enough. His zeal for God kicked in, and he passionately executed the man who had so openly sinned against God. In doing so, he distinguished himself as a man who was willing to take a strong stand for what was right. Because he did so, the people of Israel were spared, and Phinehas’s descendants received God’s special blessing (see Numbers 25:12-13).

God doesn’t want you to take the law into your own hands, but he challenges you to approach your relationship with him with Phinehas’s zeal.

When you are enthusiastic about your relationship with God, you are bound to affect those around you. Your family doesn’t need to see you acting out of vengeance, but they need to see you as a man of passion for God.