6 This incident inaugurated the formal prophetic role in Israel, as evidenced by Moses’s exclamation in verse 29, “Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!” The anointing of the prophetic office is also evidenced through other instances like Elijah and Elisha (1 Kgs 19:16).
Moses’s anointing, though no oil is used, is implied from the wording of Numbers 11:17 where it is said that “the Spirit was on him” and that this anointing would be spread to the seventy elders. The Hebrew verb itself (מָשַׁח, the origin of the word “Messiah”) initially appears in Genesis 31:13 concerning the rock which Jacob covered with oil, meaning literally to “smear” or “anoint.” 5 The first biblical examples of the anointing of persons are Moses and Aaron. The act of anointing with oil consecrated specific people for service. Throughout the Old Testament, anointing primarily pertains to leadership over God’s people, in some formal capacity. We need to correctly diagnose the misunderstandings which undergird our proclivity for “anointing” and warn against the consequences from such a misuse of terminology. Anyone like myself who would dare to voice caution is silently branded at best “stuck in his ways” or at worst “anti-Spirit.”īut is the clamor for anointed leadership a biblical concept? In the pages ahead, let us recall the Old Testament background and the New Testament concept of Spirit-anointing. Appeals and references to anointed men of God are aplenty. The rest of the visible church around the world is not immune to this inclination. Evangelical seminarians, thanks to the encroachment and infiltration of Neo-Pentecostal teachings, have embraced these new pneumatological terms and ideas. 3Īs a seminary instructor in the Global South, I have observed this pursuit of anointing firsthand. Jakes) boasts concerning one of their leaders, “The fresh anointing on Bishop Joby Brady, complemented with an insight in the revelation of God’s word, is touching the hearts of people around the world.” 2 If someone is not sure if they have received anointing, they do not need to worry since articles like “5 Things Anointed Leaders Have” are aplenty online. For instance, The Potter’s House North Dallas (affiliated with T. 1 Innumerable church leaders have staked their claim to the anointing, which supposedly sets them apart from lesser leaders. “Your church needs more than called leadership it needs anointed leadership!” Such catchphrases are proliferating throughout contemporary Christian circles. Furthermore, the obfuscation of Spirit-anointing has incurred significant harm to the practices and doctrines that relate to local church leadership. This misapplication of Old Testament texts denigrates the Holy Spirit’s expanded role of inhabitation in the New Testament era.
The misuse of the term “anointing” arises from a recast of Old Testament pneumatology as post-Pentecost. This article aims to clarify the role of Spirit-anointing in the Old and New Testaments, with special attention to texts that are explicitly relevant to the church’s experience (i.e., 2 Cor 1:21–22 1 John 2:20, 26–27).
the Pastor or his designee calls the service to order and gives the Invocation.A typical Sunday (morning or evening) service goes something like this:
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