Tag Archives: Institutional Church

Chapter-a-Day

The Priest Paradigm

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But you are God’s chosen treasure—priests who are kings, a spiritual “nation” set apart as God’s devoted ones. He called you out of darkness to experience his marvelous light, and now he claims you as his very own. He did this so that you would broadcast his glorious wonders throughout the world.
1 Peter 2:9 (TPT)

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve found that the definition of “priest” is not commonly understood, and yet I find it to be absolutely critical to my understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

The classical definition of a priest is that of a conduit. The priest is a go-between and represents others before God and represents God to others. In the Mosaic system, there was one high priest and he was the only one who could enter God’s presence in the Temple each year. Priests had to be descendants of Aaron, and they were the only ones who could offer sacrifices. It was an exclusionary position, and the only way an everyday person could get to God was through this representative.

The exclusionary paradigm of the priesthood was one of the entrenched religious practices that Jesus and His followers blew up. Paul explained this to Timothy:

For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

1 Timothy 2:5-6 (NIV)

This was one of the most radical pieces of the early Jesus movement. Jesus was the High Priest who made one final sacrifice for all and became the eternal conduit through which every person has direct access to God. Man, woman, child, adult, sinner, saint, or scumbag can reach out to God at any time from anywhere. No more human go-betweens are necessary. No more need for human representation to access God and His forgiveness or blessings for us.

If you were raised in the Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox or Episcopal traditions, then you’re probably saying, “Wait a minute!” Yes, many Christian traditions still maintain the old priesthood paradigm. But, that structure developed only after the early Jesus movement became Christendom and the Holy Roman Empire. Institutional Christendom suddenly had both religious and civic responsibility to control the masses. What better way to do so than to return to the old exclusionary system in which the common man is dependant on a priest for access to God?

For the first three centuries, the Jesus movement was made up of a loose organization of tens of thousands of local gatherings meeting in people’s homes across the known world. Even Peter, who is writing his letter to all of the exiled believers scattered across many nations, writes this open letter to explain that they are all a “royal priesthood.” Peter, the designated leader of the Jesus movement, tells all believers that they are the priests.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself contemplating the fact that Peter didn’t say the priesthood was obsolete, it simply became universal to all believers. As a follower of Jesus, I wear the mantel of a priest like everyone else. Every believer is a representative of God to the world, as Peter put it “broadcasting his glorious wonders to the world” through our love, self-sacrifice, and the fruits of the Spirit.

I’m trying to embrace that reality each and every day of this earthly journey.

Chapter-a-Day

The Maverick

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I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
Galatians 1:11-12 (NIV)

Note to my regular readers: Our local gathering of Jesus’ followers is  spending most of an entire year (Sep ’18 through Jul ’19) studying the book of Acts (which we just finished blogging through yesterday). In conjunction with this study, I’ve decided to blog our way through all of Paul’s letters in chronological order. The exact chronology is a matter of scholarly debate, so I will be making a few educated guesses myself. We begin with Paul’s letter to the believers in the Asia Minor region of Galatia.

I’ve always had a bit of maverick in me. Maverick is a relatively contemporary word rooted historically in a south Texas lawyer by that name back in the 19th century. Given a herd of cattle as payment of the debt, Maverick the lawyer had no need for the livestock. He left the cattle unbranded and let them roam free. The name soon became synonymous with an “unbranded” individual who likes to blaze their own trails and go their own way.

Being a maverick is one way I find myself really identifying with Paul. I see it all over the place in the opening to his letter to the believers in the region of Galatia in Asia Minor where he’d traveled and established local gatherings of believers on his first mission to the region (Acts 13-14). He begins his letter to the believers there establishing his individual authority apart from the Twelve and James, the brother of Jesus, in Jerusalem.

First, Paul reminds his readers that he received the Message from the risen Christ, not from another human being. The “Apostles” to early believers were those followers of Jesus to whom the risen Christ appeared and commissioned. Paul repeatedly placed himself in this category by stating that the risen Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus (Acts 9) and commissioned him to share the Message. The fact that his was a singularly unique appearance and calling made Paul a maverick. While the Twelve eventually embraced Paul and his calling, they also let him do his own thing.

Paul next makes it clear to the believers in Galatia that, after the dramatic events on the road to Damascus, that he didn’t go directly to Jerusalem and present himself to the Twelve. He went off, by himself, to Arabia and then returned to Damascus. The subtext of this claim is that Paul, once again the maverick, did his own thing and went his own way apart from the Twelve.

He goes on to explain that it was three years later before he traveled to Jerusalem and met with Peter and James. The Greek word Paul uses makes it clear that he was met with hospitality. Still, he specifies that it was only Peter and James. He didn’t meet the other eleven apostles.

This morning I’m reminded of the huge paradigm change Jesus introduced to those early believers. For well over a thousand years the Jewish paradigm introduced through Moses had been that “ministry” (I refer to the priestly sacrifices and duties of the tabernacle/temple) had been confined to certain people. Only descendants of Aaron could be priests. Only descendants of Levi could work in the temple. “Ministry” was restricted to the privileged few.

Among the early believers of Jesus everyone (including women, foreigners, youth, slaves, rich, poor, etc.) who believed and received the Holy Spirit received a spiritual gift to use in ministering to everyone else. Everyone was a part of the ministry.

This made way for a maverick like Paul. The Twelve and James were doing the thing Jesus called them to do down in Jerusalem and wherever. Paul had his own calling from Jesus. He blazed his own trail. If the ministry of the temple was confined, the ministry of the Message of Jesus was liberated and unlimited.

Which leads back to me. Somewhere along the line the institutional church decided to once again define and confine “ministry” to a privileged and approved few. But that was never the paradigm. Since the day of Pentecost, Holy Spirit has never been confined. The ministry of Jesus’ love through the gifts of the Spirit is the privilege and calling of every believer, even me. Which, I must admit, stirs my own maverick heart.

 

Chapter-a-Day

People of the Lie and the Religious Con

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For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.
2 Corinthians 11:13 (NIV)

“What about the evils of the crusades?”
“What about the Church’s silence during the Holocaust?”
“What about the Spanish Inquisition?”
“What about the Salem witch trials?”

As a follower of Jesus, one of the more frustrating experiences is being placed by others in the position of being called upon to answer for the awful things that have been said or done in the name of Jesus whether it be in this generation or throughout history. The reality is that I cannot excuse nor be an apologist for those who are determined to twist the teachings of Christ for evil, selfish or self-righteous purposes. I can, however, stand up and speak out if I see such things happening around me. Which is exactly what Paul was doing in today’s chapter.

Paul’s letter to the followers of Jesus in Corinth is a testament to the fact that even the first generation of believers were not immune to people using religion for selfish ends. Paul calls these religious con men out and urges the believers in Corinth to see the difference between the slick talking charlatans who were trying to line their own pockets and Paul who didn’t have con-man charisma but had always acted out of sincere love for the Corinthians.

This morning I’m reminded of the reality that wherever you find God you will find evil marring, twisting and thwarting the things of God. Even Jesus was betrayed by one of His inner circle. It is true that we can, throughout history, find those who did terrible things in the name of Jesus (including the institutional church). It is equally true that we can find incredible stories of followers of Jesus in those same periods of history who were living examples of Jesus’ teachings. During the bloodbath of the crusades Francis of Assisi was actively working toward peace and understanding with Islam. While the institutional Church remained silent about Nazi Germany, there were many like the Ten Boom family who gave their lives to protect Jewish people from the Holocaust.

Like Paul, I can only call out evil when I see it. “People of the Lie” will always be with us, as they always have been. I must confront their falseness when I am aware of it. I am responsible for my own thoughts, words, relationships and actions. And so I begin a new day as one simple wayfarer walking my own path and doing my best to obey Jesus’ command to love.