Coaches & Facilitators – BT1:  How did the error of Clergy versus Laity get started?

 

 

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The idea of “clergy and laity” was “borrowed” from the Old Testament (OT), which is the faulty foundation of The Great Wall quenching the Holy Spirit in the Church.   The term “clergy” means “a group ordained to perform pastoral or sacerdotal functions in a Christian church” was first used in the 13^th c. by the Catholic Church, but they “borrowed” the idea from the Greek word klerikos which means “an inheritance, in reference to the fact that the OT Levitical priests had no inheritance except the Lord.”  The allowed the Church then to justify paying its priests – see Ministry Finances & Donations.  The Catholic Church had to come up with a term for the “non-clergy, or common people” so they invented the Latin word “laity” in the 15^th c., which again is “borrowed” from the Greek laikos, which simply means “of the people, the people at large.”  So you can see the impetus for “clergy and laity” all comes from the OT, but they “borrowed” stones from the world to further build The Great Wall quenching the Spirit.  However, the simple fact is that Catholic priests are not Levitical priests that “have their portion or inheritance in the Lord” and thus should NOT be paid for their service!

 

“Ordination” of clergy is entirely an OT practice – you won’t find the word used once in the New Testament (NT)!  However, the NT does speak 25 times about “sanctification, consecration, or dedication to make separate for God’s sacred purposes” (a), and the result is that these ceremonially “uncommon and clean vessels of honor” are now holy (b).  This is the term “saint” used 213 times in the NT of ALL Christians, not just the practice of sainthood that the Catholic Church started in 993 AD for a select few “special Christians.”  The New Covenant says that ALL Christians are part of a royal priesthood (b), priests belonging to the King of kings, “making us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father” (c).  EVERY one of us has been made “special, uncommon, or a vessel of honor” (d).  <Notes> a) hagiazo: made hagios holy – see Holy Spaces, b) 1 Peter 2:9, c) Revelation 1:6 5:10, 20:6, d) Romans 9:21; 2 Timothy 2:21-21.

 

There is now only One High Priest, the Lord Jesus, and we are ALL priests, “ALL brethren” (a).  There are no “chief priests” in His kingdom.  Jesus warned often about “having authority over others like the Gentiles do – it shall absolutely-in-fact-NOT be so among you” (b).  If the OT was only a “shadow of things to come” (c), why are churches “borrowing” from it to build The Great Wall?  <Notes> a) Matthew 23:8 – see Teach One Another – BT10, b) Matthew 20:26; Mark 10:43, c) Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 8:5, 10:1.

 

The Protestant Church is absolutely no better!  They may not use the same terms, but they are using the same ideas that there is a special class of Christians, the “ordained professionals” or “ministry staff” and the rest of the congregation is simply the “corporate meeting” or “congregational members” – other terms “borrowed” from the world!  This divisiveness is still straight from the pit of hell!

 

I know today’s churches love to also use the terms “leader” and “teacher,” but you will see that there isn’t as much solid NT support for this as the propaganda-mills churn out, at least the way most people use these terms as defined today.  The dictionary says a leader is “a person who commands a group, organization, or country; the principal player or conductor in a music group.”  A teacher is “a person who teaches, especially in a school; the person who has an occupation, profession, or work of instructing – giving knowledge to, providing with authoritative information or advice, or giving an order or command to.”  We will see that only a small fraction of this is in mind in the NT Greek.  The rest of this is “borrowed” from the world to build The Great Wall quenching the Spirit in the Church.

 

Reflection:

 

As Christian musicians, do we want to continue repeating the mistakes that the Catholic Church made so long ago by “borrowing” from the old covenant the idea of “ministry staff” or “clergy” versus “the common people, laity, or congregational members?”  Are we also going to think of some people as “holy saints” but not ALL Christians?  Are we going to also “borrow” definitions from the world as to what Church leadership and teaching is instead of looking carefully at the NT definitions and examples?  If we continue to pass on these mistakes, we are helping to build The Great Wall quenching the Holy Spirit in the Church.

 

 

 

 

 

Spiritual Education, Clergy vs Laity, Catholic Church borrowed the ideas of clergy & laity from the world, paid priesthood, Catholic Church also borrowed ordination of priests for the old Law, All Christians are priests, Catholic saints is NOT a biblical idea since all Christians are saints, ALL Christians as saints are holy, There are no heads except Jesus, We are all on the same level as brethren, New Testament leaders are NOT defined the same as the world’s leaders, New Testament teachers are NOT defined the same as the world’s teachers