Tent Maker Ministry 2

  

The Priesthood of all Believers in Context of Presbyterial Ministry 

1 Peter 2:4-5 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house[a] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

The priesthood of all believers is the framework through which all ministries, whether lay or ordained, are exercised within the context of the church and its ministry in the world. Central to this ministry is making the gospel credible and thus enabling people to believe that 'the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross.'

Furthermore the Good News, the Gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. If the location of this priesthood is considered to be the whole church in the world and that being the church, whether at work, play or worship, is its reason for existing, is it not also true that ordained ministry should be assessable, enabling and sustaining this work? 

Central to ordination within Methodist Church is what the Statement on Ordination (1974) calls the focal and representative nature of this ministry. Some would say that through ordination the ministry of the whole people of God is focused and represented. 

Whilst I go some way in agreement with this concept I do not feel that this belongs exclusively to the ordained ministry. After all, the word minister, often translated as presbyter in the New Testament, has also been translated as ‘huperetes’ meaning an under-rower - one who helps other crew members to row in unison so as to propel the ship. Paul used this to describe himself in Romans 1:1 signifying that ministry is wider than leadership in the traditional sense. 

The concept of the representative, focus and priesthood is often misunderstood when applied to ordained ministry. 

Depending upon a Christian's tradition, the image of the priestly office will differ greatly. Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I, understood the word priest to have its root in the word presbyter (an office bearer who exercised tracking, ministerial and administrative functions). This word became interchangeable with ‘prester’, possible after John Prester, a legendary Christian King and priest of the Middle Ages. Through usage, the word Prester eventually became Priest. 

However, Michael Harper, an anglican minister who eventually joined the Orthodox Church urges the need to drop the term priest and restore the presbyterate to its rightful scriptural position. 

The presbyter’s ordination does not in itself indicate a greater degree of holiness but through Christ's call given in a particular gift, further enables the whole church to exercise the common priesthood. I recall Rev’d Dr David Hewlett, principal of the South West Ministry Training Course preach on the subject of three Vocations. He claimed that every one had a Sunday Vocation, a Monday to Friday Vocation and a Saturday vocation. Sunday our call to worship God in the name of Christ. Monday to Friday - to exercise our faith and ministry through our day to day activity and Saturday our calling to rest and recuperate. That’s not a bad rule of thumb for all Christian Ministry whether lay or ordained, is it.

Lord, my God and my loving Father, you have made me to know you, to love you, to serve you, and thereby to find and to fulfil my deepest longings. I know that you are in all things, and that every path can lead me to you.

But of them all, there is one especially by which you want me to come to you. Since I will do what you want of me, I pray you, send your Holy Spirit to me: into my mind, to show me what you want of me; into my heart, to give me the determination to do it, and to do it with all my love, with all my mind, and with all of my strength right to the end. Jesus, I trust in you.   Amen

Tomorrow - Pastoral Ministry Outside the Fold