Notes on a Priesthood of Believers

Notes on Forming a Priesthood of Believers Ecclessia

©2016 Gary Clifford Gibson

While the early church had its faults it did bring the gospel forward through history. It would require a future, technologically advanced time for millions of souls to gather into a priesthood of believers paradigm with simple beginner, intermediate and elder ranks in one networked church. The church would share membership, attendance, participation, sharing and welfare networks, share traveler's lodging and even monastic retreats and continuing adult instruction in the word of God.

Timothy as Paul’s ‘spiritual son’ and leader of the church at Ephesus would have been reassured by what is in effect Paul’s living will with instruction on how to proceed without the presence of the Apostle. It is not certain that the immediate development of particular forms of the church were to be taken as immutable for all time. Like Paul’s criticisms of particular errorists the most suitable structure for providing the gospel and practical Christian organization for the time and foreseeable future would have been the intention. Church organization probably should adapt to vast changes in methods of social organization and innovate better priesthood of believers’ structure.

Berkhof writes that Paul wasn’t sure that Timothy would reach Rome before he was executed and so made the letter such that it would comprise adequate final words in leu.

In theory, church offices that were exclusive and limited during the early church before common literacy and when books were rare and communication difficult, can be greatly increased in the contemporary world. If in the first century one learned elder was needed, if there are 100 learned elders in a church there isn't a reason they should be excluded from holding the office of elder. It is as if an army battalion could have just one corporal, one sergeant and perhaps two officers and everyone else were privates. It is far better if all are trained as active spiritual warriors and share church offices of beginner, intermediate and elder with helpful standardized theology formats. If all know the words to the gospel song then all should sing; instead of just a soloist performing for an audience.

It may be that John Bunyan’s book provides a kind of systems analysis perspective upon the methods of operation that Satan employs to corrupt the human soul. There is a sort of synoptic view of God’s relationship to mankind provided in the ‘Holy War’ in allegorical form. I think it quite useful to have a synoptic view on God’s relationship to mankind especially concerning the assaults and methods of operation used by the exteriority of evil implicit in the works of the devil. Forewarned is forearmed. Defense is simpler when one understands the reasons why the conflict is happening especially as direct attack is made upon oneself and even one’s own thought. As Bunyan wrote; the gunpowder of pride is an effective tool among Satan’s repertoire of dirty tricks for subverting the human soul to his advantage. I suppose the Evil one would line his pit with trophies of souls in jars packed in and sealed with eternal doom.

A synoptic view of the work of God to save the human race over the course of history does require a generally accurate understanding of the meaning of the Bible. A wrong hermeneutic and eschatology can bring one to react incorrectly to the external challenges of Satan and the phenomenality of evolution theory. To use Arnold Toynbee’s challenge-response criterion, the response of Christians to the external challenge of Satanic designs to snare their soul would not be appropriate to the challenge. If one believes that a quick evacuation will occur from a potential battlefield if there is a sudden enemy attack it is quite possible that adequate defense measures for protracted war will not be built. In other words if pre-tribulationist misinterpreters of John’s Revelation believe that they will be raptured from the world after a long slow drain of morality from society in Satan’s winning campaign, they will be poor defenders of or missionaries for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the ‘Holy War’ Prince Emmanuel in some way fades out from the inner castle of Mansoul gradually after winning the battle for Mansoul from the Devil who is cast into the pit. Yet he has already established his Lord High Secretary to interact with the townsmen for him, in his absence as he has returned to the court of the Father-Shaddai. Because the people having been restored with forgiveness for their prior defection to sin have become sickened over time with subtly infiltrated sickness and deceptions masking corruption regress toward apostasy slowly, the Lord High Secretary, who may symbolize the Holy Spirit, has become reclusive and unwilling to act in defense of the people of Mansoul too.

The tribulation previously reached Mansoul in the form of its capture and occupation by Diabolus and his army. Yet with the kingdom of God (Prince Emmanuel) restored in possession of Mansoul there was still trouble with the prospect for relapse into the old ways of submission to the will of Diabolus who would return to be Prince of Mansoul. Not only must Christians or the citizens of Mansoul be ever vigilant against the deceit of Diabolus, they must encourage and reinforce one another as peers in a priesthood of believers as free people that are voluntarily allegiant as servants to Prince Emmanuel (Jesus Christ) as their defender who has true concern about their eternal well-being. In post-tribulationist interpretation of the Revelation template for the Holy War, a priesthood of believers must needs increase the kingdom of God unto being an active majority of the population rather than being shrinking violets dwindling to a tiny minority remnant waiting for evacuation like the Washington Adolphus Greely expedition at Fort Conger. An active priesthood of professing believers would know for themselves the truth of the gospel and present that every day in their own lives and interactions with others in society. Church going Christians cannot remain pew-sitting watchers of an elite being Christian performers on stage viewing things passively from the cell of their mind in a brain housing skull. An actual peer Christian egalitarian networking church structure need arise with a variety of forms where church discipline is just a matter of being a Christian in a priesthood of believers roll without prospect for reprobate conduct without being untrue to oneself and what one believes and says in performing the roles of the priesthood of believers that have some elements of standardization.

It is said that some Montanists weren’t antipathetic to priesthood of believers structure, yet Montanism required a kind of worldly perfection unknown except for a few ascetics in deserts. That would be less than practical approach for general urban assemblies. While the early church had its faults it did bring the gospel forward through history. It would require a future, technologically advanced time for millions of souls to gather in priesthood of believers paradigms with simple beginner, intermediate and elder ranks.

Christianity drifted into an hierarchially ordered ossified structure fusing with political movements on occasion entering into what Augustine called the City of Man without sufficient thought for the City of God. It is the City of God expressed by Christians in a priesthood of believers that brings the world toward a better direction rather than vice versa.

Reform of the church to an egalitarian priesthood of believers was desirable yet generally unknown.

It is said that the church learned from the risen Lord in the 40 days before his ascension how to organize the church in his absence. Deacons would minister unto the poor and elders or presbyters would attend to the body of believers. The Apostles were considered to be of a bishop class of elders able to coordinate and harmonize among diverse flocks. Paul appointed Titus and others into that role. Yet the body of believers had one high priest in heaven-the Lord, and maturity of Christians into the strong meat of faith from the milk of conversion or youth was desired. All Christians could become elders or priests one infers. Today a priesthood of believers ecclesia would be a good formation for the church with beginner, intermediate and expert/elder roles in church functions and representative elders or Bishops with term limits elected to coordinate amid denominations and congregations.

Philip Schaff writes on page 26 of his History of the Christian Church Volume II; The Ante-Nicene Era 100-325 A.D. that, “the foundation was laid strong and deep by the apostles themselves. The seed scattered by them from Jerusalem to Rome, and fertilized by their blood, sprung up as a bountiful harvest. The word of our Lord was again fulfilled on a larger scale: "One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not labored: others have labored, and ye are entered into their labor" (John 4:38). Christianity once established was its own best missionary.

Protestant reforms in Germany and Switzerland developed new preachers and theologians who often were converted Roman Catholic priests to a better priesthood of believers format. Unfortunately, even the electronic technologically enabling modern era has failed to upgrade to a post-set aside hierarchical ministry organization.

Because some Popes asserted unlimited power over all church and state affairs a reformation was sought by the laity. Martin Luther in Germany and Zwingli in Switzerland led a rectification of the Christian Church to return to Bible basics that the word of God is primary and that there is an egalitarian priesthood of believers.

Schaff Page 15 Volume 7; “The spirit and aim of evangelical Protestantism is best expressed by Paul in his anti- Judaistic Epistle to the Galatians: "For freedom did Christ set us free; stand fast, therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage." Christian freedom is so inestimable a blessing that no amount of abuse can justify a relapse into a state of spiritual despotism and slavery. But only those who have enjoyed it, can properly appreciate it.

The Reformation was at first a purely religious movement, and furnishes a striking illustration of the all-pervading power of religion in history. It started from the question: What must a man do to be saved? How shall a sinner be justified before God, and attain peace of his troubled conscience? The Reformers were supremely concerned for the salvation of the soul, for the glory of Christ and the triumph of his gospel. They thought much more of the future world than of the present, and made all political, national, and literary interests subordinate and subservient to religion.”

1. Schaff Vol 7 page 23 Ҥ 8. The Priesthood of the Laity.

“The social or ecclesiastical principle of Protestantism is the general priesthood of believers, in distinction from the special priesthood which stands mediating between Christ and the laity.

The Roman church is an exclusive hierarchy, and assigns to the laity the position of passive obedience. The bishops are the teaching and ruling church; they alone constitute a council or synod, and have the exclusive power of legislation and administration. Laymen have no voice in spiritual matters, they can not even read the Bible without the permission of the priest, who holds the keys of heaven and hell.

In the New Testament every believer is called a saint, a priest, and a king. "All Christians," says Luther, "are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office alone. As St. Paul says, we are all one body, though each member does its own work, to serve the others. This is because we have one baptism, alike; one gospel, one faith, and are all Christians for baptism, gospel and faith, these alone make spiritual and Christian people." And again: "It is faith that makes men priests, faith that unites them to Christ, and gives them the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whereby they become filled with all holy grace and heavenly power. The inward anointing—this oil, better than any that ever came from the horn of bishop or pope—gives them not the name only, but the nature, the purity, the power of priests; and this anointing have all they received who are believers in Christ."

This principle, consistently carried out, raises the laity to active co-operation in the government and administration of the church; it gives them a voice and vote in the election of the pastor; it makes every member of the congregation useful, according to his peculiar gift, for the general good. This principle is the source of religious and civil liberty which flourishes most in Protestant countries. Religious liberty is the mother of civil liberty. The universal priesthood of Christians leads legitimately to the universal kingship of free, self-governing citizens, whether under a monarchy or under a republic.”-end quote

A priesthood of believers is described somewhat in the book of Hebrews by the apostle Paul, and of course Jesus said that Christians would be as servants rather than as those placing themselves first.

A priesthood of believers could be evolved from existing church structures to make a more egalitarian and Biblically correct for of Christian organization better able to evangelize and express the will of God so far as I understand the New Testament.

The Old Testament has a temple worship form something similar to other priestly hierarchies of other faiths...paradoxically Muslims have an imam that isn't actually a priest but is instead just a group leader of merit.

Of course regular Christian priesthoods have served to bring the message of the gospel over the millenia, however in this populist era all should be more equal and serve equal roles as servants able to serve other Christians first and then others as is useful or consistent with Biblical doctrine.

Here is a brief organizational structure example...

Christians in a church would be organized in groups of 12. Maybe a useful Church would have 12 groups of 12. Each worship day one elder would have a 15 minute time to talk or sermonize, a few hymns could be sung, and everyone else in the group could have five minutes to talk or not. Alternate weeks would have a new elder selected to sermonize.

Perhaps it would be better to have half of the 11 non-sermonizers talk for 10 minutes each instead of for 5 minutes. Each would be expected to share some learning from the Bible and perhaps to discuss individual work assignments.

Tithing could continue yet no one would be paid. The money would be invested in insurance for group associates and physical maint. Each member would have their own outside job, yet each group would so far as possible provide fairly free services to other members when and how useful.

In the priesthood of believers all would be trained to be front-line working Christians trained to speak in small groups, evangelize outside when possible, and be a Christian educator. The only position women would not take, in order to be consistent with the Bible, would be that of the 15-minute sermon leader, who would also lead the responsive group reading. Since he doesn't get paid, and the position changes no one should care, and the members should have plenty of other meaningful work to do.

New Christians could be brought into a new member group, or shifted into groups without twelve people and so forth. This is just an idea that I believe would help to establish more Christians in presently non-Christian areas that would bring more Christians out of backseat roles and into the forefront of actual Biblically directed Christian living and so forth.

The Universe grew from the smallest seed to provide shelter for all manner of living things, yet ossification of Christian worship forms and church structure set in as soon as the Apostles were gone. Martin Luther wrote, “All Christians are priests, and all priests are Christians. Worthy of anathema is any assertion that a priest is anything else than a Christian." After the crucifixion of Jesus by the Temple priesthood and the destruction of the Temple later another human cultural tradition of hierarchical priesthoods grew to resume the authority structure of a few upper class leaders instead of the egalitarian priesthood of believers as Jesus seemed to want to move to in reformation of the way people relate to God. Will Christians ever generally develop the faith even for that simple step?

The Church today could use a priesthood of believers organizational and design leader. Martin Luther believed that all Christians were to be priests in distinction to hierarchical priesthoods that continue an exclusive elitist politic.

A priesthood of believers would be something like groups of twelve with peer status sharing their weekly Sunday meeting roles in majority speaker, minority speaker, weekly reports and song leader. With this sort of fundamental organization with perhaps three ranks of novice, regular and elder status the Church would have just one high priest (Jesus Christ) and a priesthood of believers sharing in evangelical and missions work and so forth.

Many church needs should be supported by these dedicated groups, and perhaps Churches would be full with 144 members. I prefer they meet in monolithic domes sitting about round tables.

With such a squad structure churches should hopefully be able to be more supportive of medical and other group needs with contracts to Christian services to provide things the group cannot. The composition of each group should be as balanced as possible occupationally speaking.

This is a radical change to the way things are now done-Protestant Churches are set up like little franchise Catholic Churches supporting a hierarchical priesthood. Jesus ended the hierarchical temple priesthood form with his death and resurrection.

John 9: 4-5

“4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

If post-millennialism is correct it doesn't mean Christianity is obsolete-instead it confirms its truth and prophetic accuracy. We are living in the age of the Gentiles. Instead of expect a sudden anti-Christ and Armageddon Christianity should grow and increase human peace, prosperity and knowledge of the Lord (perhaps with a priesthood of believers replacing the hierarchical priesthood). The second coming and final judgment could take an indefinite time even occurring after human settlement of Mars and distant galaxies, it’s hard to say for sure.

There was after all a Pope at Rome and differences between more Orthodox and Catholic sects as well as four other traditional patriarchates with equal claim for spiritual prominence besides that of Rome.

Charles, Charlemagne and the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire for a time could also claim to be first as political rulers of the Christian Church with the power to appoint Bishops and other church leaders. The problems of the Roman Papacy in its relation politically to kings of the various nations often was one of papal claims to rule politically as well as spiritually with kings disputing that right. The issue was often one of who had a right to rule the unified church and state. Those practical power issues tended to eclipse the democratic rights of the laity or common folk. The political rights of the common people tended to develop meaningfully along with the emancipation of Christian fellowship from oppressive state and ecclesiastical authority, and the process evolved over hundreds of years.

During the Protestant reformation the reformers such as Martin Luther, Zwingli, Hus and Calvin took umbrage to not only corrupt clerical practices and wrong doctrine, they found a fundamental priesthood of believers approach to a direct relationship with Christ better and more true than a hierarchical trickle down of doctrine from a priesthood to a laity. There were numerous unintended consequences of the reformation though.

With the reformation Kings such as Henry the Eight broke off from Rome and the Roman pope and became their own pope leading their own church. Like Caesar as a god to be worshiped the nationalist popes leading their own churches became pseudo gods issuing ecclesiastical rules by decree. Decretals of the British female pope Queen Elizabeth set the rules for mandatory church attendance and forms of worship permissible in her realm. The protestant reformation became a more complex breakup of political and ecclesiastical empires into new local and regional ones. The continuing reform is to liberate the Christian Church and individual spiritual freedom from bondage to state authority.

Europe was beset by aristocratic usurpation of Christian authority in Sweden as well as England and Russia. Spiritual liberation from Erastian criteria could also bring development antipathetic libertines without belief in anything besides cultural hedonism. Such godless behavior in society resulting in elastic rationalism brought the anti-Christs Stalin and Hitler to power with Stalin declaring churches 'not working anymore' as the religion of state atheism was compelled on the populace. Effectively worship of Uncle Joe became requisite for survival.

The state church of the tsars was the Orthodox sect of the Universal Christian Church. In the Ukraine the inter-tidal areas of political and sectarian conflict as well as the troubles of racism, culturalism and practical issues of food growing lands and security from invasion made for continuing contention for control. The Ukraine had Catholicism from Polish landlords, Orthodox from Russian and a synthetic Uniate Church comprised of both. Because of the association of religion under state authority, religious strife was implicit as it was for Cromwell, Milton and anti-Papist reactionaries, regicides of Charles the First and St. Bartholomew's Day massacres in Ireland and France unto the British-Irish troubles of the 20th century.

Conservative forces have tended to support the human characteristic of depleting and degrading the resources of foes; religious or political, and liberal forces have sought relief from such oppression. Of course there is a cyclical element to that. Christianity of the Lord is liberal yet with perennial moral values. Even so Conservative Christians defending doctrines and Church power and murdered hundreds of thousands of Christians much less godless atheist heretics. Protestants decried the faults of Catholicism yet even Protestant reformers supported the execution of fellow reformers with different doctrines. Human original sin corrupts all social establishments while the spirit of the Lord perpetually frees saved individuals from that bondage. One hopes that the Ukraine receives a new fellowship in the Spirit of the Lord.

It may be easier for people to be saved with fewer of the sharp edges of life cutting them up demographically speaking. After being saved if a priesthood of believers structure exists as a peer group to reinforce their new-found Christian ethical understanding

Gentry believes that the tri-une unity who is God in three persons has a covenant-based relation to mankind and that fundamentally Christians are to work to make the world a better and Christian place in accord with the will of God. Obviously this is an excellent theology for missiology endeavors and I think would work fine with a more egalitarian priesthood of believers ecclesiastical reform movement.

Gentry's description on page 128 of an ethical continuum from God within which Christians need to cohere comprises a meta-ethical context or selection. It excludes even non-Christian theistic ethics as having value in respect of the right theonomous ethical ensemble. I agree though I note that non-Christians ethics do matter to secular society and that they are not to be entirely discounted. Gentry believes that Christians of the reformed, post—millennial kind ought to be transformers of society from bad to good and that would make the inference easy that encouraging better ethics for the lost might be useful as an intermediate step in the road to progress for a fallen world beyond the kingdom of God.

God had a purpose in working with the Jews continuing through history from the protoevangelium. The prophets were signs and shepherd-signs to the people of Israel. The people of Israel were intended to be a priesthood of believers leading the world to God. The Jews often failed at the task, humanity tends to digress after the fall. Maybe that is a lesson in itself-none are good, no not one.

Due to their inability to comply with the terms of the Mosaic covenant well enough the priesthood of believers was expanded through the Lord Jesus Christ to include all followers of Christ.

It is useful to keep in mind what Jesus said about being a spiritual descendant of Abraham (from Matthew 3) "9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." This is a notice to those believing in a material, genetic dispensational salvation that it is hearts and minds following the Lord that brings one to be regarded by God as a child of Abraham.

Adam and Eve lived in what was a non-thermodynamic Universe set aside from the created world outside the Garden of Eden. It seems as if they were cast out into a thermodynamic paradigm to be the means through which human life on Earth might be saved from the material, thermodynamic criterion. That is a cultural mandate to make a people of God-a spiritual being, from the numbers of evolved human beings in God's creation, was made. Noah's descendants debarked to found nations within what seems to be an already peopled world (though there were only 200 million humans on Earth in the year zero. The chosen people were to become a priesthood of believers bringing as many as was predetermined by God to a spiritual and holy condition through the will of God the father, Son and Holy Spirit.

There is more to being a Christian than attending a hierarchical church with an upper-class Christian priesthood devoted to surviving global corporate hierarchical CEO's interests. In fact Christians ought to assemble in an egalitarian priesthood of believers format today. Many such individuals are enlightened enough about Bible scholarship to be aware that the 'days' of Genesis probably refer to eras, as Bryan said on the stand. Peter did say that a day to God is equal to a thousand years. Given such criteria the age of the formation of life on Earth given in the Bible equals about that of the scientific estimate of the formation of multi-cellular life on Earth about 2.8 billion years ago.

The priesthood of believers is a correct form rather than a partitioned dichotomy of priests and laity mirroring that of traditional aristocracy-subjects paradigms. Developing an active priesthood of believers church structure with just three ranks of beginner, intermediate and elder will be a challenge and a renewal of reformation. In the world today the political drift is toward ad hoc neo-imperialism of class of wealth through global networks.

Popularizing Christian church worship drew myriad to the reformed services. One would wish that today the church would recover the simple faith of the reformers and further modernize the priesthood of believers such that just three ranks of beginner, intermediate and elder Christians exist with sharing of service roles in appropriate structures and tithing conformed to the Biblical level of 1% (10% of harvest every third year with the 10% divided in to three parts with a third of that going to non-working priests).

Calvin mentioned in his answer to Bishop Sadolet that Bernard had “thundered against Eugenius and all the bishops of his own age” citing even earlier need to reform the episcopal estate and papacy. It is interesting to consider how after nearly 500 years the ideas of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and the Roman Catholic Church have shaped Christian ideas about the salvation, faith, the Eucharist and sacraments. Protestant reformers of the visible Christian church made their reformed ideas at great personal cost and the thirty years war of liberation from Romanism and its subject princes tore the European peasantry. The American revolutionaries were of the reformed school-George Washington if Catholic couldn't have revolted from his Prince, although Britain had reduced Romanism already since Henry VIII. Values developed by Martin Luther in the 16th century reformation stimulated political and ecclesiastical changes immediately. As the United States fails to maintain a strong Protestant religious ethic it commensurately develops globalism, concentration of wealth through networking and a variety of forms of ad hoc imperialism with the collateral degradation of nationalism and democracy. Protest against inhuman forces of impersonal hierarchical power in church and state are basic to the revolutionary esprit. In direct relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ mankind finds freedom.

Approximately half of the German princes took up the independence from Roman Catholicism movement right from the start. The first democracy in Europe-the Dutch democracy led by the Dewitt brothers in the 16th century. Severing ties from the Holy Roman Empire at Vienna was essential and just a first step in the rise of the age of democracy.

All was not perfect in the Lutheran style reformation though. Martin Luther was quite conservative and retained some Roman Catholic liturgical forms although abolishing the exclusive priestly caste. When the hierarchy of corrupt Bishops and priests was overthrown Luther advocated and received support for Erastian transition; the German princes themselves became the religious leaders appointing bishops for themselves.

The Inquisition and other government and church executions of individuals killed far more people of faith than scientifically inclined people, yet of course moderns would almost have one think that the church was a great repressor of science generally rather than its sponsor. The church with the benefit of modern science and technology ought to easily move toward a priesthood of believers egalitarian structure with three ranks-beginner, intermediate and elder reading standardized with room for improve liturgies in role sharing groups. That might help the ecumenical movement, support real rather than corporate democracy and reduce international conflict.

Puritans like Cromwell were hated by Irish Catholics obviously, yet Milton was a Puritan Government Minister in the Cromwell administration, and the divorce of Catholic rulers from the English government as well as the church was an inevitable and bloody evolution of social transition fulfilling the teleology of God, or rather advancing it along a certain path toward the direction expressed in Bible prophecy. Constructing human society to evolve spiritual maturity and become a majority of the people with a priesthood of believers enacting active Christian roles might not be a simple process that is understandable by a majority of people in their own lifetime.

John speaks in chapter 20 of seeing souls of those martyred reigning with Christ during this time. Living Christians would be priests, perhaps as all Christians are theoretically equals as priests in a priesthood of believers.

Some try to place the morality of the kingdom of God outside the bounds of relevant moral conduct in the world, and that is a mistake. The moral and ethical conduct of Christians in-the-world is such that the world actually works better with it too. It is not just an ethics theory for the next-world. Resurrection is for the next world, and all will encounter that day of death where the fork in the road to eternity follows.

Because the worst-case social behavior of personal egoism, avarice, dissimulation and etc. strives against inhibiting moral concerns a false-alternative paradigm of no-ethics worldliness vs. Christian ethics is common. There are of course some societies without a concept of sin or a need for salvation from their condition of original sin encased within a temporal form. These lost souls require the hearing of the word of God, perhaps in a reformed priesthood of believers with ecclesiastic egalitarianism and honest tithing of 1% (higher than what the Federal Reserve has been charging the major banks in zero-interest loans). When the rich get billions and billions without usury and the poor get high interest pay day loans and so forth there is an obvious wrong.

In Torrey's book 'The Fundamentals- A Testimony to the Truth' chapter 19 is titled 'My personal Experience of the Higher Criticism'. Dr. J.J. Reeves writes in that essay that evolution theory is at the heart of the higher criticism and so he finds it necessary to refute that to a certain extent. I suppose I ought to write a little here about the problems of finding evolution theory and scripture mutually exclusive; I just don't accept that at all. In fact to my way of thinking the Bible at several points seems consistent with evolution theory and evolution theory seems to confirm the general structure of the Bible. Perhaps since I grew up learning science and Presbyterian Christianity simultaneously I naturally view things that way. Yet of course I also regard a priesthood of believers as the necessary form for the clergy today and think that careerists oppose that for job security reasons.

One finds that select theology schools emphasize their own sectarian viewpoints. They do tend to take a minimalist stance on non-sectarian reform such as Luther worked for that sought to cohere within a Biblical fundamentalist universality bereft of secular organizational proprietary bias such as the papal establishment had. Liberty University’s course description for Theo 620 says “This course is a study of the origin, nature, purpose, mission, polity, and ministry of the church; a major emphasis will be on Baptist ecclesiology.” Within this paradigm is an implicit disrecognition of the perennial need to correct the error of hierarchism and its division of the church into goats and sheep or commercial priests and lay people and return to pursuit of the ideal priesthood of believers-perhaps with theologians writing liturgies and roles to be enacted by small groups in churches.

One might consider how an ecclesiastic paradigm might differ from a history of the church paradigm. It would be possible to consider the external form of the church-in-the-world with a branching, hierarchical tree diagram with little boxes showing the historical development of the early church and its structure on through the various branches unto the modern day. Then one might examine the implicit and inherent church structure of each branch in more detail inclusive of their beliefs, methods, doctrine, staff, liturgical content and so forth. Branching tree diagrams are perennial favorites in academia, and since the major branch of Protestantism appeared with Luther it would grow in complexity as churches moved into new assembly and worship forms as well as new nations for missions.

A tree diagram for ecclesiology might be constructed with various filters or color overlays upon it in the computer age of publishing to show conditions of health of the church and periods of illness. When sin becomes an official doctrinally accepted plank for a sect one might color that area of the diagram with black. With enough necrotic tissue in the tree diagram one might discern that like the fig tree the Lord saw on the way to Jerusalem, it might need manured and given another time interval to produce good fruit. Perhaps a priesthood of believers movement utilizing the organization and communications populism of the Internet would be a useful tool for activating the billion Christians to a certain extent asleep as pew-sitters in the church.

I would think that the body of Christ cannot be anything besides healthy and instead when it is unhealthy the members are simply existing with a higher percent in secular and beyond the kingdom of God. So it might be better to speculate that a priesthood of believers liturgical form would have a better health status and more Christians in the kingdom of God, wherein the body of Christ would be found, than in an unhealthy secular realm that is something more like an aspiring imitation of Christ led by hierarchical, commercial careerist Christians. I might be wrong thought. I don’t think so.

After the crucifixion of Jesus by the Temple priesthood manipulating the Roman Governor and laws followed eventually by the destruction of the Temple the human cultural tradition of hierarchical priesthoods in time resumed the authority structure of a few upper class leaders instead of the egalitarian priesthood of believers as Jesus seemed to want to move to in. Reformation of the way people relate to God in ecclesiastical structure perhaps required time to pass until technology and literacy enabled better general understanding of ideas about the points of religion such that Christians commonly could be settled in belief.

Jude 3. ‘That ye should contend earnestly for the truth.'”

I would think that means not only to evangelize. One might wish to reform the church to increase participation and equality to actualize a priesthood of believers - and to bring more Christians to a knowledge of post-millennialism. When the Lord was resurrected and was with the Apostles until Pentecost the kingdom of God was present and the 'thousand years' began to draw people unto the faith. The increase of the number of believers on Earth has continued and probably will reach a majority status in some future, unforeseen circumstance.

John's use of the phrase 'thousand years' is probably a general sort of reference meaning a very long time.

Sinful Christians in the ministry are like embezzling accountants and notably reprehensible. That is another reason why a priesthood of believers is a better format, where the corrupt just don't have that higher position of power to lever or exploit the lesser-and the corrupt will migrate into positions of power naturally putting on the vestments of authority yet allegiant to personal egoism.

The Old Testament prophets spoke to the people as they would to subjects in a hierarchy of monarchial law while the writers of the epistles wrote peer to peer establishing a priesthood of believers.

Berkhof describes the nature of epistles as a form of communication in this opening section crediting Paul with the first use of a letter to a church as an expression of divine communication. When Paul wrote with divine inspiration a letter to a church or individual on ecclesiastical concerns it was under the direction of the Holy Ghost whom Paul trusted in implicitly.