The Priesthood of All Believers
“The priesthood of all believers” is a phrase that has been used to allow all believers to pray. It is a contradiction to the idea that everyone needs to employ the Heavenly access that only a person has who has been elevated to the earthly status of “priest,” or their prayers will not be heard by God. This implies that everyone but the priests are just peasants in the Kingdom of Heaven.
When the leadership of the Church came to understand what they did of this truth, it expanded the work of the Church in the earth. Sadly, it was not really an advance, just a restoration of something earlier leaders stole from believers they were misleading.
There is more! We all have something important to accomplish in the earth! “The ministry of all believers” is going to be restored to the Church. This is a contradiction to the idea that there is a caste system in the Church – a class of citizens called “clergy” and another peasant class called “laity.” Clergy means “clerk” and laity means “people.”
Every believer has something important to do. It will take a spiritual gift – some manifestation of the Holy Spirit at work in each of us – to accomplish it. Education helps, but education without a spiritual gift is like having deeds or surveys without actually having property.
Paul wrote in his letter to the congregations in Corinth that we call 1 Corinthians, in a section in which he was declaring that all of the ministries of the Church are manifestations of the one Holy Spirit:
Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God is active in everyone and everything. A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial:
(1 Corinthians 12:4-7 Holman Christian Standard Bible®©)