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Author
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Topic: Priesthood 101 -- the Priesthood of the Believer
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John Hale
unregistered
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posted
First things first...
To even BE a true priest, one must be truly born again (saved) by believing in the true Jesus Christ.
Matthew 24:24 (NASB95)
24 “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.
2 Corinthians 11:3-4 (NASB95)
3 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
4 For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.
So it is imperative we believe in the genuine Jesus (by testing all by the Bible; 1 Corinthians 5:21, 1 John 4:1, Acts 17:11, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Timothy 2:15, John 16:13, 2 Peter 1:20-21).
Furthermore, and if this weren't enough to contend with, there have been "teachers" who teach falsehood in the name of the real Jesus:
Matthew 24:4-5 (NASB95)
4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you.
5 “For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many.
And again, our only means to test this and correct this error is the Bible...
1 Corinthians 5:21, 1 John 4:1, Acts 17:11, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Timothy 2:15, John 16:13, 2 Peter 1:20-21
John 3 (NASB95)
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews;
2 this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”
5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
8 “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?”
10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?
11 “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.
12 “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13 “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
14 “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
17 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
18 “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
20 “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
21 “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
22 After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He was spending time with them and baptizing.
23 John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people were coming and were being baptized—
24 for John had not yet been thrown into prison.
25 Therefore there arose a discussion on the part of John’s disciples with a Jew about purification.
26 And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him.”
27 John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.
28 “You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent ahead of Him.’
29 “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made full.
30 “He must increase, but I must decrease.
31 “He who comes from above is above all, he who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.
32 “What He has seen and heard, of that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony.
33 “He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true.
34 “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.
35 “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.
36 “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
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John Hale
unregistered
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posted
Subjects for other Bible studies are the existence of God and that there is only one God. These will not be debated here (not by me at any rate) and I will proceed from the presumption that we are all agreed these are true.
Since there is a God and he has ordained a priesthood, then there by the laws of nature and of logic be one true priesthood ordained by this one true God. The trouble in the contemporary Church is that we are the victims of our own terminology and traditions long in place color our perception by what is and what has been done for a very long time as though it were what ought to be...
In our minds, priests are people who belong to a particular tribe (in the Old Covenant / Testament through bloodlines of the tribe of Levi, and in the New Covenant through calling, seminary graduation, credentialed certification, denominational recognition, and local assembly hiring policies...).
What God ordained to be prophets, apostles, and even the Messiah himself could not get in the front door of most Churches today, much less the lime light of the modern day pulpit, eldership, board, committee, conventional presidency, etc.
These are governance of men.
True there are offices of the priesthood which include overseers and pastor / teachers... but these are to be considered underling shepherd positions training up novice shepherds to one day graduate into the ministry of their unique calling of the Lord.
Revelation 1:6 (NASB95)
6 and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
1 Peter 2:5-9 (NASB95)
5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
6 For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.”
7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,”
8 and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
How the World was Won...
The governance of man Church is a formula for silencing the Church, restricting it's outreach, prescribing its demise in an endless landscape of post-Christian populations and ruins where churches once assembled around the globe.
The gates of hell will not prevail... against an assault from the Church. People can be lazy, intimidated, misled, fall victim to the traditions of men which nullifies the very word of God... into assembling in weak, anemic, coffee cloche gatherings behind stained glass walls beneath steeples pointing to a godless sky over a godless people which imprison the Gospel in those walls.
The gates of hell will not prevail... means a defensive gate of hell cannot prevail against an assertive, aggressive, prepared and spiritually armored assault from the kingdom of God.
But of that army of the Almighty is bogged down by the aforementioned... disassembled, ill prepared... uninformed, untrained, the fiery darts of hell will prevail and contain the Church and its Gospel message and run it off and lock it out as it has in many (entire) nations around the world.
This is the enemies' home turf, after all. We are the strangers. We are the aliens. We are the ones who started out with the toehold in Jerusalem, to the foothold in Judea and Samaria, striving for the stronghold around the world...
But along the way we were infiltrated by this humanism (traditions of men) structuring the government of the Church and even though there was a Protestant Reformation to revert away from it, very little was actually altered.
This was the satanic infiltration to contain the damage and demise of his kingdom. And this in effect deactivated the Gospel germ, the infestation of Grace the all consuming contagion to the cause of darkness that the Gospel was intended to be and thereby was the way the world was to have been won...
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