You don’t have to be a pastor to have a relationship with God.
This is one of the central themes of my life and to me it is one of the most important things that Christians need to learn.
I’m not going to go into all of the teaching here, I might do that another time but it comes down to this:
1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
No matter whether you have a pastor, priest, bishop, vicar, reverend or whatever you may call them, we tend to think in terms of two-class Christianity.
One class is the leaders (pastor, priest, bishop etc etc) and the second class is everyone else. Try as we might, we all too often think in terms of these classes, creating a ‘priesthood’, whether you use the word ‘priest’ or not.
The problem with a priesthood is that when we have one, we can easily slip into thinking of them as ‘better Christians’ or people who are closer to God. Somehow we think that God listens to members of the priesthood more or that he speaks to them and not to us.
The verse from 1 Peter above blows that idea out of the water. It is written to all Christians. All Christians. That means YOU.
You are part of the royal priesthood. You are a priest of God. You have a direct connection with Jesus Christ. There is no-one who should try to come between you and God, it is your right as a born-again child of God to be able to talk with Him directly.
I was reminded of this when I read this comment by Ruth on The 12 Days of Christmas Challenge:
Ok to be honest, I have been thinking about this and not praying about it. I really want to do it, but it’s so scary. I will be praying to ask if it’s what God wants of me, which now that I say that it’s kinda funny to even ask God if He wants you to do what He already told us to do in the Bible. So I’m in, but I will be praying that God will guide and direct me to where He wants me to help and give.
She didn’t need a priest or pastor to reveal to her that the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge is nothing new, it’s just what God has already instructed us to do in the bible, the Holy Spirit helped her see and understand it directly.
You can hear from God too. You don’t need someone else to tell you what God has to say to you – He wants to talk to you personally.
That doesn’t mean that God cannot speak to you through other people. He definitely gives people things that He wants them to pass on to others – we mustn’t place limits on what God can do or how He can do it. What’s is important though is that you reaize the wonderful position that you are in, the wonderful gift that you have been given.
You have been made a child of the Most High – and who doesn’t want to have personal relationships with their children?
I try to think of these as categories, not classes. That sounds too much like one is more important than another. I also try to use servant as a modifier for leader. It is when leaders in the church forget they are servants that troubles begin.
Andy,
Thanks for the comment. You’re right, categories is a better word than classes.
Unfortunately though you can still have the problem of people thinking that God speaks differently to people in a different category to them – that one category is for people who are more ‘Godly’.
I’m not sure what the answer is except for, as you say, the leaders to keep remembering that they are servants and for them to keep reminding everyone that God loves us all equally and wants us to give Him a chance to communicate with Him directly!
Man, you hit it on the head. So many people live their lives stuck in this sort of ‘lower level’ Christianity – the type that never really has life breathed into it, the kind that replicates among others. They think they don’t have ‘the gift.’ Fact is, no one has ‘the gift.’ Everyone looks to someone who is ‘more gifted.’ But we don’t look to the gift of the Holy Spirit that we all have which empowers us all.
I love that verse. It is so packed full of holy goodness. Too much to unpack just now since I need to send my husband off to work soon. But I remember the feeling I had the first time I read it and understood that it meant me not the pastor or the priest or the dude with the seminary education. I am meant to step into the gap as well. Love it…
Very true, Peter!
It was never God’s intention to have members of His Church place so much dependance on the priest that they would put him in a position of infallibility. Indeed, that is a dangerous state to be in as it suggests that whatever the priest tells you to believe is what you must believe. Thus it encourages people to move away from the study of the Bible, as it is assumed that the priest is the only one who can understand it because he is supposedly more connected to God than everyone else is.
It is a shame that so many people have fallen into that snare!
Thanks for putting things into their proper perspective by disclosing that we are all a part of a holy priesthood.
I actually put up a post some time ago addressing the concept of the priesthood of believers to which we are all a part of. Perhaps you will find it to be enlightening. Here’s the link to it: The Priesthood of Believers
Blessings to you…
Chris Esty
The Bible Post