When We Are All Priests

1 Peter 2: 4-5

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built^* into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

In the Old Testament, the priesthood was limited to members of the family of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi.  In fact, the tribe of Levi was devoted to the Lord as the servants of the Lord.  They did not inherit land as did the other tribes of Israel, but rather were scattered among the people, presumably to serve in positions of religious leadership.  How that shifted when the focus of Israel’s worship moved to Jerusalem under King David, that is more than I know.

But in Christ, the holy priesthood is expanded, to all believers.  We are all called upon to be servants of the Living God, yes, servants to friends to children to living stones…  The universality of the priesthood is not limited to Peter, but occurs also in the book of Hebrews.

But why is that important, that we are all ‘in the priesthood’?  Why the move away from the religious hierarchy?  Because, face it, we have that hierarchy back in place today. 

I think the question does not have to do so much with religious leadership as it does to relationship to God.  In Jesus, each of us has a relationship with the Almighty.  We are all saved by Jesus, we are all responsible to Jesus, the Great Commission at the end of Matthew sent us out to make disciples of the whole earth, replicating the disciples Jesus called.

The priest came before God to make sacrifice, as we shall talk about next time.  It seems we all have the joy of coming before God on our own, given that gift by our Lord Jesus Christ.  We are all God’s priests.