Summer Hours and Christian Hierarchy
Come for the life update (it's almost summer!) and stay for the thoughts on the priesthood of all believers.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
This is our last week of school before summer break. Like many parents with school age children, we’re running on fumes getting to the end of the school year. I told Daniel that every passing day allows me to move one more thing off my calendar and out of my brain—making room for the next day’s activity. I heard someone call this “Maycember” and I think we’re on to something. The only difference is we don’t have the sadness of January awaiting us at the end of this crazy. We have summer!
This is my favorite time of year. The twins had their big 5th grade promotion ceremony and parties last Thursday and Friday, and we celebrated our anniversary on Saturday, so we’re almost to the finish line. Which means we’re just coasting to the last day of school Friday.
It also means that come Friday, my writing hours shrink. I’ll still write this summer (I am on a book deadline after all), but I won’t write here weekly (or twice weekly, although that was lessening too as the school year progressed). My goal is to write twice a month (every other Tuesday) through the summer. We’ll see if a book deadline and making memories with four children (and whoever the neighborhood brings) allows for this goal. Right now, it feels attainable.
I’ll also be at TGCW24 in less than a month. I’m participating in a workshop on Women’s Ministry in the Local Church. If you’re going, leave a comment! I hope to see you there!
Before I leave you to your own May crazies, I listened to a message this week from the TGC National Conference by David Platt. He preached from Exodus 40 on God’s presence in the wilderness. Moses gives Israel the Law, he gives them instructions for life in the promised land, and then he tells them he will be with them all the way. In the wilderness, he’s with them. In the promised land, he’s with them. There is no limit to his presence among his people.
But it was a peripheral comment that struck me from Exodus 40. Platt describes the preparations for entering the tent of meeting and how the people depended on Moses to enter on their behalf. There was a distinction between Moses and them. He was their representative to appear before God. They couldn’t go on their own. Platt says:
Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, each would stand at his tent door and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the town, and the Lord would speak with Moses. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud stand at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship each at his tent door.
In the Old Testament, the people couldn’t enter God’s presence. They couldn’t come before him like Moses did, or the high priests who came after him. They were always dependent on the words of another. We know they prayed because we have the psalms, but the relationship was different.
Platt goes on to explain that in the New Testament, Jesus changes all of this. The hierarchy is gone. The need for a mediator is gone. The access is wide open. In the New Testament, the priesthood moves from Jesus to us. He’s our Great High Priest and we are the priesthood of believers (1 Pet. 2:4-10). Christ “tabernacled” among us and sent his Spirit to “tabernacle” inside us. We’re all in God’s presence now if we’re united to him by faith.
There is no Christian better than another in Christ’s church. We should let that sink in. It goes against our proclivities towards celebrity culture. We elevate the man who has money or status, neglecting the man who cleans the bathrooms. We highlight woman who knows the most scripture or attended seminary, forgetting that the woman who has walked with Jesus for fifty years might have something to teach us. We put our pastors and elders on pedestals, forgetting they are human like us. We have the same access to the Father they have—we come through the Son by the Spirit. And he doesn’t distinguish between “super Christians” and “regular Christians.”
We have leaders, but we don’t have priests. Everyone has access by faith through the Spirit. Everyone can read their Bible, interpret it, and apply it. Everyone can pray and come boldly to the throne of grace. Everyone has something to contribute, and one gift is not better than the other.
The entire New Testament is devoted to fleshing this out, probably because it was a struggle then like it is now. Pastors have entourages protecting them from the congregation. Conferences have VIP seating, so the speakers don’t mingle with the common folk. Church leaders have office hours and assistants who block entrance.
If the Spirit of the living God indwells us, no one is on a pedestal. We’re brothers and sisters, following our older brother, Jesus. He was never too important to be inaccessible.
I’ve been a Baptist my entire adult life, and one hallmark of Baptist polity is the priesthood of all believers. It’s why we’re congregationalists. Every vote matters the same. Every person is important and necessary for the flourishing of the body. Our pastors and elders lead us and disciple us, but at the end of the day, the church has one head, and his name is Jesus. And his model was to stoop low so we could be brought near.
Moses carried a lot of weight with God’s people. They respected him and followed him. The Bible is clear that we should respect our leaders, especially those who lead us to follow Christ. But there are no celebrity Christians or superhero Christians. There is no Christian above another. We’re a royal priesthood, every last one of us—from the pastor to the new believer.
Moses spoke to God like a friend, and all Israel stood in awe.
Jesus calls us friends, from the least to the greatest, we’re on the same level in his kingdom.
AMEN!!!