General Calling and Special Calling
Soon after the Roman emperor, Constantine, converted to Christianity in 315 A.D. churches began to professionalize their clergy. As the clergy were professionalized the concept of a special ministry calling for lay people began to disappear. Eventually the special call to ministry became equated with a call to the priesthood. There is even a name for a religious system in which those who are called to the ministry are the priests; it’s called a sacerdotal system.
Luther challenged the sacerdotal system when he championed the doctrine of Priesthood of Believers, during the Reformation. The Priesthood of Believers has three major implications for lay people.
1.Lay people can study and interpret the Scripture for themselves.
2.Lay people can pray directly to God. That meant abandoning the sacerdotal practice of confessing sin to priests.
3.Every believer is a priest and has a special call to ministry. Unfortunately most Protestants have remained Roman Catholic in this third area.
If you work on a church staff you are still a Roman Catholic in mindset...in the 12 step program the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem.
Thoughts about unleashing the greatest force on Earth
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About Me
- Rich
- I am a slave to no man or institution. I have worked with Frank Tillapaugh for thirty years and most of the ideas are work we would like to share.
The next generation
God thank you for two amazing young leaders
Looking Forward
Each year I get to spend time with young leaders and the gap is growing between them and my generation, why?
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1 comment:
As the Puritans said, "“every step and stroke in your trade is sanctified." John Cotton put it:
"A true believing Christian . . . lives in his vocation by his faith. Not only my spiritual life but even my civil life in this world, and all the life I live, is by the faith of the Son of God: He exempts no life from the agency of his faith."
(I got the quotes from another blog that's not as good as yours, but to give proper attribution: http://www.thirstytheologian.com/2009/08/28/sacred_and_secular.php .
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