path: root/faith/priesthood-of-all-believers.rst

Priesthood of all believers and confession of sins
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:date: 1970-01-01T00:00:00
:status: draft
:category: faith
:tags: theology, priesthood, Luther

One of the unifying characteristics of the Protestant church (or 
at least most of the Protestant church) is the doctrine of “the 
priesthood of all believers”. Originally the idea comes 
indirectly from Martin Luther, although he never used this exact 
phrase.

    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, 
    a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the 
    excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his 
    marvelous light.

    — 1. Peter 2:9 ESV

This doctrine has two substantial parts: one oriented towards God 
and the other one oriented towards others. [#]_ We will deal in 
this article only with the first one: it means that every 
Christian is allowed through the Blood of Christ (and only then) 
to stand on his own in front of God and “to boldly access the 
Throne of Grace” (He 4:16) not only for himself but for others as 
well. Contrary to some other denominations (and especially 
contrary to many non-Christian religions), Protestants don’t see 
the need of a special consecrated person to mediate the access to 
God. We do not believe that there is a separate group of 
Christians who are responsible for serving others, but we believe 
that potentially all Christians are allowed to serve others as 
priests. Yes, “[…] all things should be done decently and in 
order” (1 Co 14:40), and yes, I do not undervalue the value of 
education and training for the particular kind of ministry, so 
there is obviously value in congregations being led by the 
trained professional ministers who are appointed to their office 
according to the rules of the particular denomination. But all 
Christians have at least the potential to minister to others, and 
it is absolutely appropriate to do so in positions where we have 
the authority to do so. For example, all parents should be 
priests to their families, or leaders to the small groups they 
lead. And yes, obviously, we all are responsible to educate 
ourselves and seek the training which would help us to fulfill 
this authority well.

.. [#] The other part of the doctrine of the universal priesthood 
    of all believers is not about all Christians serving as 
    intermediaries between people and the God, but the notion 
    that all ministries (including the proverbial job of 
    a cobbler or a mother caring for her children) are blessed 
    holy service to the Lord. Not only, we don’t need priests for 
    the sacramental service, but we all are priests in whatever 
    service we are called upon, because the Kingdom of God which 
    should be the focus and goal of all our Christian activity, 
    does not happen only in the church on Sunday, but everyday 
    anywhere Christians show up.
    
    There is perhaps also a third, perhaps the most important 
    part of the doctrine: meaning that there is no need of the 
    further priestly sacrifice, because the one of the Jesus 
    Christ himself is sufficient; however, this is mostly 
    irrelevant to the topic of this article.

I think that we in PCF do better in this priesthood than many 
other churches. I really like how all members of PCF are called 
to serve others through the Lord’s Supper. We are also often 
encouraged to serve others in a very priestly ministry of 
intercession (which very word is derived from the position of 
a priest standing in between the prayee and the God). It is 
a very special ministry and we should use its blessings more both 
as ministers as well as those who are prayed for.

However, still there are more ministries where we are called to 
serve in the priestly position. One particular ministry I would 
like to mention now, is the ministry of confession (or as The 
Catholics call it “The Sacrament of Reconciliation”) [#]_ . In James 
5:13-20 we read:

    Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone 
    cheerful? Let him sing praise. // Is anyone among you sick? 
    Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray 
    over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. // 
    And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and 
    the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he 
    will be forgiven. // Therefore, confess your sins to one 
    another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The 
    prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is 
    working. // Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he 
    prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years 
    and six months it did not rain on the earth. // Then he 
    prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its 
    fruit. // My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the 
    truth and someone brings him back, // let him know that 
    whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his 
    soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

I quoted this a bit lengthy passage not only because the two 
separate ministries (confession and prayers for sick) are somehow 
meshed together and hard to separate. However, although I 
strictly reject the idea that the sickness is the punishment of 
the sin, still I see sickness as a good reminder for us to get 
our spiritual house in order when we are putting together back in 
shape our physical body. I am always reminded about this idea 
that sickness is an opportunity of healing when reading a bit 
obscure story from the Old Testament:

    In the thirty-ninth year of his reign [king] Asa was diseased 
    in his feet, and his disease became severe. Yet even in his 
    disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from 
    physicians. // And **so** Asa slept with his fathers, dying 
    in the forty-first year of his reign.

    — 2Par 16:12-13 (ESV, modified according to the Czech 
      translation)

What I read in these verses is not that his sickness was caused 
by his sin, but that his sickness (and perhaps every sickness?) 
is an opportunity and encouragement for us to seek the Lord, to 
go over our issues, to use available free time (as much as the 
sickness permits us) for reconciliation. And having this text 
about confession of sins in the middle of the James’ passage 
about healing seems to somehow support this idea as well.  
Certainly, I do not believe that a sickness is meant by the LORD 
God as a punishment for our sins, but I still cannot resist the 
idea that some link between illness and being distant from the 
God exists.

.. [#] And I do not think the lack of this Biblical ministry is 
    limited only to Protestants. I believe Catholics has a lot 
    work to do as well in this area: 2008 poll by Georgetown’s 
    Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate found that 45 
    percent of American Catholics report never taking part in 
    Reconciliation. (cited by Grayson Clary in “`Uber, But For 
    Penance`_”)

.. _`Uber, But For Penance`: 
      https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/07/uber-but-for-penance

When we got through this introduction, let us turn now to the 
confession of sins itself. Whereas healing for the sick (in this 
passage, there are other passages about general prayer for sick) 
is specifically limited to the elders of the church, the Bible 
here is completely silent on any limits on the confessor. It 
seems that any Christian can act as a confessor. However, I would 
still put a little of limits on the choice of such person.  First 
of all, there is I believe a general rule that the measure of the 
legitimate authority in other’s life is relative to the depth of 
relationship there is. Particularly in this case, it is good if 
the confessor is somebody who knows us well. Perhaps not directly 
husband or wife (they are usually too entangled in the issue of 
their spouse) but perhaps somebody who can have some level of 
knowledge of our inner life, who can be living reminder of our 
struggle in the following weeks, and even better is somebody who 
knows about our struggle already. So, it is better in my idea to 
have one long term person as the confessor of choice. [*]_ Which 
does not mean that if the need of confession arises and there is 
no close friend at hand, any Christian brother or sister is 
better than staying with our sin unreconciled. Just if this 
happens too often, I would question some level of unwillingness 
to be accountable.

.. [*] It reminds me of the institute of Anam Cara (soul friend) 
    in the Old Irish Church. I am a bit fuzzy on what it actually 
    meant (and there may be some pagan part in it), but it seems 
    to me that it could be useful to investigate and if possible 
    to re-purpose this institute for the confessional ministry.


* anybody can be a confessor, but it is better to have somebody 
  fixed for a longer time; somebody, who is trustworthy, trained, 
  wise? (however, with the only minimal confession, nearly 
  anybody can serve)

* Also of course somebody who routinely participates in the 
  practice as a confessor, who asks for forgiveness of their sins 
  themselves.

----

We can claim that the sins are forgiven because of the promise of 
the Scripture:

    This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to 
    you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. // 
    If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in 
    darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. // But if we 
    walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship 
    with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us 
    from all sin. // If we say we have no sin, we deceive 
    ourselves, and the truth is not in us. // *If we confess our 
    sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to 
    cleanse us from all unrighteousness.* // If we say we have 
    not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

    — 1 John 1:5-10

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TODO:
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* technology: listen to the confession as if it was confessed to 
  the God (in place of God) 
* declare forgiveness

These two are the only **mandatory** parts of the 
ministry. Everything else is optional, if the Spirit leads us.

* listen for and deliver any word from God

* secret of the confessional!!! (there is a question of the 
  possible confessed crimes and duty to report to the police, but 
  I think we can ignore it here)

* it may be possible to consult the situation with other person 
  (wife, pastor, counselor), but in such case ONLY WITH 
  PRELIMINARY EXPRESSED permission FOR EACH CASE from the 
  confessing brother.

* vyslechnout vyznání, jako by ho říkal Bohu

* zvěstovat odpuštění 
    pokud své viny vyznáváme, on je věrný, naše viny nám odpouští 
    a očišťuje nás od všelikého hříchu

* by Barbara Hall on Joan of Arcadia. You will never hear in the 
  confession “Oh, don’t worry about it, it is not that bad.” or 
  “You need to cut some slack to yourself.” Confession is done in 
  the context of everybody trying to grow to their best and the 
  sin is something which we need to get rid off by pulling it 
  into the light. Also, it is not so much deciding whether it is 
  good or bad, confessor has already decided that it was a sin 
  and now he wants to get rid off it. Never comment on the 
  confession (perhaps later you two can analyze it).

* NO ADVICE!!! We are not qualified and it is not the right place 
  even if we were.