The Importance of Melchizedek

Tonight during the college Bible study I have been attending on Sunday evenings we came to the reading in Genesis 14 where it talks about Melchizedek. We were all kind of stumped about this person. He kind of comes out of no where in the Bible and then he is not really mentioned to much after words, and yet in Hebrews and Psalms he is spoken of as though he is a household name. We even talk about him during our liturgy today. We just wanted to know why he was such an important guy. Finally a few of us decided to pull out the cell phones and call whoever we could think of that would know the answer. One person ended up getting hold of Fr. Mike and another one got to talk to Dr. Ken Howell. Basically what both of these two men told us was that the importance of Melchizedek is the fact that there really isn't much facts about his life that we know about. During the times of Abraham priests were always decided through lineage and not a calling, whereas Melchizedek did not come from a lineage of priests whatsoever. He was this higher up person that was supposed to kind of help portray how Christ would be. Another thing about this passage is that it mentions how Melchizedek offered Abram whatever he needed, but Abram had enough respect for this man that instead he gave him 1/10 of his belongings and did not take a thing. That passage is where we now get the whole tithing thing. It was very interesting to learn about!