Lay Priests, Prophets, and Kings?
August 3, 2006
Blogger Michael Kruse has been writing a series on theology and economics that I haven’t been paying close attention to (sorry, Michael), but the idea that pastors and other elders should be ready to be priests, prophets, and kings to the hurting world around them caught my attention.
Kruse Kronicle: Theology and Economics: “But I don’t want to be priest, prophet or king.”
G. K. Chesterton wrote that “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” We need pastors who are ready to break their “chicken” addiction. Not necessarily with a big fanfare, mind you. (Envision incoming eggs.) But maybe in the sense of finding just a few people they sense God is fanning the flames in and then pouring themselves into the discipleship of those folks.
But even more importantly we need people who are not pastors to catch the vision of what it means to be priest, prophet and king in the world, and be willing to pay the cost. They need to identify themselves to pastors and seek out others to band with who are willing to pay the cost. The awareness of their presence would embolden the hearts of some pastors enough to resist their own coronation by the people who keep crying out “Give us a king!”
That last paragraph begs the question of how one might go about doing this. I think I understand the idea of being a servant leader in the church, but I’m not sure how to reconcile that with being priest, prophet, and king. I’ve always thought that that was Christ’s unique role among us.
Dave, who is still noodling this… .
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