The Ministry of the Word

Jehosaphat became a great king in Judah. He bravely removed pagan worship sites (high places and Asherim). He fortified the cities. He followed God courageously. Early in his career he organized the priests and sent them out to the cities of Judah.

And they taught in Judah, having the Book of the Law of the Lord with them. They went about through all the cities of Judah and taught among the people. (2 Chronicles 17:9, ESV)

Jehosaphat did this because it is commanded in the Law.

You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses.” (Leviticus 10:10-11, ESV)

They shall teach Jacob your rules and Israel your law; they shall put incense before you and whole burnt offerings on your altar. (Deut. 33:20)

Why did God put teaching the Word of God to all His people as the primary task of the priests? Why did a godly king like Jehosaphat insisted that God's people hear God's Word? What was even more curious, why did a pagan king, Artaxerxes send Ezra, an expert on the God's Word, to Jerusalem to teach the Israelites God's Word and enforce it?

“And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River, all such as know the laws of your God. And those who do not know them, you shall teach. Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment.” (Ezra 7:25-26)

I don't know Artaxerxes's motives for having the Word taught to the Israelites, but one of the reasons had to be with maintaining order and unity. If the Israelites were obeying their law, they would be good subjects. The Word brings unity to a people. Charles Hodge, the great Princeton theologian, noted in his Systematic Theology about the impact the Word of God had in world history.

The Bible ever has been and still is, a power in the world. It has determined the course of history. It has overthrown false religion wherever it is known. It is the parent of modern civilization. It is the only guarantee of social order, of virtue, and of human rights and liberty. Its effect cannot be rationally accounted for upon any other hypothesis than that it is what it claims to be, "The Word of God." (p. 89, Systematic Theology Volume 1

Jotham, a godly king of Judah, is referenced in 2 Chronicles about how the Word of God ordered his kingdom.

So Jotham became mighty, because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God. (2 Chronicles 27:6, ESV)

Jotham was a king so not only did he order his personal life; he ordered his kingdom before the ways of the Lord. God's Word has a ordering and unifying effect on God's people. In Ephesians 4, Paul wrote about how God uses God's Word to mature His people into Christ.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16, ESV)

"Speaking the truth in love" does not mean giving people a painful truth in a "loving" way. Speaking the truth in love is speaking the gospel into lives because you love them. Every member of the body of Christ has the ministry of the Word. The teachers and shepherds are needed to equip us with the tools to minister the Word, but it is up to each of us to speak the Gospel in word and song to one another (Ephesians 5:19). This will protect the body of Christ in sound doctrine and unify us in love and truth to each another.