Christians Are Not Priests

This entry contains a lot of Lutheran lingo, so I apologize to my non-Lutheran readers ahead of time.

Today was our monthly winkel in Elmhurst with Dr. Roger Pittelko giving a presentation on the Office of the Pastoral Ministry based on a couple of essays from the April 2006 edition of Concordia Theological Quarterly (CTQ). There were some things that Roger pointed out that I had either never heard before or had heard at one time but had since forgotten.

Martin Luther is often credited with restoring what is commonly known as the priesthood of all believers. Dr. Pittelko claimed that there really is no adequate word in English to translate the Greek word hieros from 1 Peter 2:9, which Luther translated as "priesthood". A better word, though still inadequate, would be "offerers". The word "priesthood" is best used as a translation of the Greek word presbyteros, normally translated as "elder" (but don't tell that to Presbyterians-- they'll blow a gasket!). It could be that Luther was mistaken in his translation of 1 Peter 2:9 and the Protestant world never really caught on.

This was all brought up due to a long-time misunderstanding of where the office of pastor derives its authority. I was always taught a rather congregational derivation-- a congregation places a "call" to an ordained pastor and therefore "transfers" the Office of the Keys to that individual. In other words, the pastoral office derives its authority from the calling congregation. Today's presentation demonstrated that the pastoral office derives authority from Christ Himself by virtue of the "calling" (not congregational call) and ordination of the candidate into the pastoral office. Further, according to Dr. Pittelko, "calling" and "ordination" are synonymous.

In short, Christians are not "priests". Pastors (elders, presbyteroi) are priests by the authority of Christ Himself to administer Word and Sacrament for the purpose of building up the "offerers" to offer themselves as "living sacrifices" in loving and willing service to their neighbor.

I asked Dr. Pittelko if priests are therefore not offerers, but have been set apart (as it were) from that function. I asked that question to make sure I was understanding everything that was being said. All Christians are "offerers" by virtue of their call by the Holy Spirit through the Means of Grace. All "priests" are "offerers" as well. But not all "offerers" are "priests". So, instead of the priesthood of all believers, we should be talking about the offererhood of all believers.

To use an analogy, all apples are fruit but not all fruit are apples. Some are pears, peaches, plums, mangos, kiwi, strawberries, pineapples, blueberries, bananas, etc.-- but not apples.

What do I think of all of this? Let's just say I have a lot of reading and thinking to do because I was always taught the congregational derivation, that I derive the authority of the ministry of Word and Sacrament solely from the congregation I currently serve. I've also understood the Greek word heiros to be roughly equivalent to the Hebrew word kohen, meaning "priest", so I understand where Luther was coming from. I've read the articles in the aforementioned CTQ, and will now read them again with a keener eye than before. I also have a lot of questions about this ongoing sticky subject in the LCMS.

Again, I apologize to my non-Lutheran readers if some of this is foggy, but I tried to make it as readable as I possibly could.