There are a pile of people out there who consider that the only place of importance are those that are seen as giving honour. Those that are up front. priests.
This is parallel to those who count the number of seats on boards or number of people with a “Chief” in their title (CEO, CFO, CIO) as if you can measure the progress of a society by how many women or minorities are qualified for this.
And we need those who will take these burdens and will be accountable, before God and man, for their stewardship of earthy corporations and that greater responsibility, the church.
But that is the minority, and in the blind pursuit of power there are many snags. What we forget is that the church is the original leviathan, the body of Christ has many members, and the hidden ones are those who are clothed with greater honour in the economy of the kingdom.
12For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
14Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many members, yet one body. 21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; 24whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, 25that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. 26If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
There is a dignity in being in the pew, in running one’s household, raising one’s children, growing one’s garden and providing for the work of the Lord. Most Christians are laity: at most one in five can be in religious orders (and that requires a very prosperous kingdom with reliable crops: this ration may have been approached in the high middle ages, when the climate was warmer than it is now and you could run vineyards in Northern England and dairy farms in Greenland).
Most of us have to work and most of us need to work. [and before anyone snarks, raising small kids is a full-time job. Home schooling primary age kids is a full-time job]. Most of us are not qualified for eldership: the tests are high, and the accountability higher.
And that is OK. One of the authors I’m reading reckons you need 40 committed adults to volunteer to run a public church service — from organizing the coffee to the child care to parking. And only six or so are up front — including the music group. Most of the work is hidden. It has always been hidden. Without the laity, the leadership cannot function.
If we don’t see this, we fall into the apex error: all christians are like pastors, or only pastors do spiritual things. Both are wrong. Both ignore the daily need for prayer and the word. And both forget that the church is not merely a mouth, but eyes, hands and feet.
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