Of Priests and High Priests (Part 3 of 3)

7.  Ananias

In the life of Paul, we find a similar priest, Ananias, whom God specifically sent to ordain him; the first person to lay hands on him, even before the Church at Antioch had commissioned him (Acts 9:10-12; 13:1-3).  Before his meeting with Paul, we had heard nothing of Ananias.  After laying hands on Paul and having him filled with the Holy Ghost, he disappears back into his high priestly quiver, until the Lord would choose to shoot him out again on another ‘special mission’ (Isaiah 49:2).

Ananias was no mean man.  He was a man of prayers, who could clearly hear God’s voice and hold conversations with God, yet he was simply called a “disciple.”  No glamorous titles.  It seems he had been raised for that one moment, to be the one to ordain the man who should write a third of the New Testament, turning the world “upside down,” according to his enemies (Acts 17:6).  John the Baptist was to Jesus what Ananias was in a way to Paul.

8.  Queen Esther

Queen Esther is another Old Testament type of the ‘high priestly’ minister, who served from her ‘holiest place’ in the palace, not the temple.  What put her name into the scriptures was not thirty years of ministry; it was not the lepers she healed or the manna she called down from heaven; it was three days in her life that she, with her maids, gave to fasting and prayers, and by which she secured a political intervention that saved her generation of Jews from extermination.  Whatever she was before then was merely preparation; whatever she became after that was simply jara, a bonus.

It appears Esther was raised especially for those three days of her life.  Mercifully, she did not miss it, thanks to an uncle who was a wise discerner of times and seasons and mandates, who let her to know that the crisis that then threatened her people was what she had been anointed for, but which, if she missed, Destiny was going to provide a crude replacement, for “thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this” (Esther 3:14).

What chance has such a three-day minister got on our scales, compared to holy men like Daniel who, like her, was also a minister in exile yet served for over seventy years?  How will she fare with just three days of service in the house of the Lord, compared to someone like David who, like her, was also a minister in the ‘holiest place’ of the palace, but served for forty years?  How frequent into the holiest place for how long makes one a priest indeed?

9.  Conclusion

Are some priests ordained to serve daily in the house of God, but others to serve in the same ‘house’ only for once in the year?  Are there others still who might serve only once in that temple in their entire lifetime?  Is someone less spiritually effective because their priestly roles do not demand as frequent a presence in the temple as other Levites do?  How many years of ministry or how much activity validates a ministry or a minister?  By how much work and noise does one earn divine approval as priest indeed?

Two women were at a service where Jesus preached.  One woman sat down to hear Him while the other busied herself with domestic chores for the benefit of His hospitality.  When a dispute later arose about which of the two roles Heaven approved, the one who sat in His presence, apparently ‘doing nothing,’ was strangely commended as having made a “good” choice, while the other was politely scolded as a “troubled” soul.  Presence with the Master seemed to have mattered more then than service for Him (Luke 10:40-42).

The priests attend to the sacrifices OF the people, the high priest attends to sacrifices FOR the people, but each is important for the other to be effective. If all were priests but no high priest, there would be none to take our sacrifices into the holiest place.  If all were high priests but no priest, there would be a barren holy place, affording no reasonable connection with the holiest place; a priestly holy place without the reinforcing fragrance and flames.  God has not put all priests in the same place, and quantity of activities does not say who serves better or more.  Some are “accomplishing the service of God” going “always into the first tabernacle,” and others serve no less, going into the same house only “once every year.”  Amen.

From The Preacher’s diary,

October 24, 2025.