Bishop's CornerThe Priesthood Of All Believers
By Bishop Timothy W. Whitaker
 In the First
Epistle of Peter the apostle says to newly baptized Christians, “You
are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own
people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called
you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” This was the apostle’s
description of what the third century Bishop Cyprian called “the
majesty of the people of God.”
During the Protestant Reformation in the 16th
century Peter’s description of baptized Christians as a “royal
priesthood” was singled out and heralded as the doctrine of “the
priesthood of all believers.” The Reformers were recovering the
teaching of the early church that all lay Christians are called by God
to be priests.
What does it mean to affirm the priesthood of
all believers? Traditionally, this has meant that every person has
direct access to the living God in prayer and that he or she does not
need to go to God through an ordained priest. In the contemporary
church the priesthood of all believers means that every baptized
person is “ordained” to ministry in baptism and that the primary
ministers of the church are the laity. Vital congregations are those
that affirm the ministry of the laity and seek to help them fulfill
their ministry by discovering their gifts and freeing them to use
their gifts to build up the body of Christ and serve the world. The
development of the ministry of the laity must be a priority of the
church at all levels of its life.
Sometimes I think we have not quite arrived at
the place where the church takes seriously the priesthood of all
believers. In our era the focus is primarily upon enabling the laity
to fulfill their ministry in the church. Therefore, we have active
involvement by the laity in worship, teaching, and ministries of
evangelism and service through the local congregation. Yet, the most
important ministry of the laity is in the world where they are the
church. Congregations that learn to equip the laity to fulfill their
ministry in the world where they learn, work, lead and engage in
public issues are the congregations of the future.
There is one other aspect of the priesthood of
the laity that is little emphasized by Protestants. It is the work of
offering praise to God for all of God’s gifts. By definition a
priest is one who offers sacrifice. Orthodox theologian Alexander
Schmemann in “For the Life of the World” said that every human
being is created to be a priest. He wrote, “Man was created priest
of the world, one who offers the world to God in a sacrifice of love
and praise and who, through this eternal Eucharist [thanksgiving],
bestows the divine love upon the world.”
All of us are in the world in order to behold
the beauty of creation and the joy of Christ’s redemption and to
express, on behalf of all creatures, our thanksgiving and praise to
the boundless mystery named God for God’s love for us and all
creation.
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