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believer’s reign

The preacher looked at the large congregation and said, “Is there a priest here today?” People were shocked and fidgeted in their seats. Many looked around to see if there was a man in the telltale clerical collar.

The pastor continued, “All the priests present this morning, please raise your hands.” Once again, people wondered if the pastor thought a busload of Catholic priests had mixed with the congregation.

Then some of the men and women cautiously raised their hands. The pastor chuckled and said, “Every hand must go up. If you’re a born-again Christian, you’re a priest! The Bible says in I Peter 2:9 that we are a royal priesthood.”

The illustration above shows how uncomfortable we are with the term “priest.” We associate it with Catholicism or high church Protestantism. All born again Christians are priests.

A priest is someone who approaches God on behalf of others. A priest is an intercessor. Whenever you pray for others you are fulfilling a priestly function. In the 1500s during the Reformation, Martin Luther proclaimed the biblical truth of the priesthood of the believer. Luther had to counter the unbiblical Catholic concept of a limited priesthood mandated by Rome.

The Reformation of the 1500’s brought great spiritual freedom but the political reform of the 1600’s brought the Bibles of truth into the political arena. The Bible teaches not only the priesthood of the believer but also the kingship of the believer. 1 Peter 2:9 says that we are a royal priesthood and Revelation 1:6 says that Christ “has made us kings and priests to God.” It’s bad enough that Christians are uncomfortable with the term “priest”, but Christians are almost completely ignorant of the fact that we are kings!

I have written several articles showing that it was the Bible that provided the basis for Western civilization’s concepts of human rights and democracy. The Bible’s teachings on the sanctity of life, its teaching that man was created in the image of God, the dignity of man, and the biblical concept of the freedom of the believer (Romans 14:2-6) are the very foundation of the freedom and prosperity you enjoy today.

By the 1600s the Protestant Reformation was well established in Northern Europe. It is precisely in northern Europe, especially in the British Isles, that the greatest steps in advancing freedom were made. The English Civil War with the triumph of parliamentary forces and the overthrow of King Charles, the formation of the Cromwellian Republic, the bloodless revolution of 1689, all advanced the biblical concept that the people, not a wealthy elite, should rule.

Consider the example of Thomas Hooker (1586-1647). He was a congregational preacher with strong Puritan and nonconformist views. He taught that spiritual reform under Luther should extend to civil government. Not surprisingly, Hooker was summoned to the High Commission Court in 1630. He fled to Holland that year and in 1633 sailed for Massachusetts. He pastored a church in Newtown Massachusetts for three years and then, in 1636, he emigrated with his congregation to the Connecticut River valley and founded Hartford in the new colony of Connecticut.

Hooker was largely responsible for writing and ensuring the adoption of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (The Connecticut constitution) in 1639. He also worked to form the Federation of New England in 1643. Thomas Hooker’s teaching of the biblical concept that Christians should govern themselves and their communities as co-regents served to promote and clarify the concept of kingship of the believer.

The concept of the kingship of the believer convincingly leads to democracy because a community of equal kings must vote in a democratic process to pass laws. Instead of having an all-powerful king who rules by decree without consulting the people, the people themselves are a king who must consult and consult each other.

More than a century later, Calvinist and Protestant New England was the hotbed of the American Revolution. New England in the mid-1700s was the Bible Belt of the colonies.

The theology of the New England churches was Calvinism. Calvinism is a form of Christian fundamentalism. Calvinism is a very conservative understanding and application of the Bible. The secular version of the American Revolution story is that it had to do with tax issues. That is an oversimplification. Of the more than twenty formal causes of war listed in the Declaration of Independence, only a few had to do with taxes. The true causes of the Revolution were much more convincing.

Slavery was a problem. Massachusetts wanted to abolish slavery, but the Crown forbade it. It is interesting that one of the first acts of the Continental Congress was the resolution passed on April 9, 1776 calling for an end to the importation of African slaves into the colonies.

Massachusetts abolished slavery immediately after the war. Slavery continued in the new nation only to dominate the South. I will not have time to discuss the biblical concepts and Christian activism that led to the final abolition of slavery at the time of the Civil War in the United States. Fast-forward now to our own times, to America in the early 21st century. Theologically conservative Christians are well aware of our priestly role as intercessors and worshippers. However, we are very divided when it comes to our role as kings (and queens).

The truth is that we annulled the votes among all of us!!! Some of us vote for the liberal who promotes abortion but makes empty promises to help the poor. Others of us vote for pro-life candidates.

If we voted as a bloc, we would be a trustworthy rudder guiding America to justice! The church’s confusion about politics and the refusal of many Christians to even discuss politics is what I call the neglected crown scandal.

The pressing political issue of our time is the mass murder of the unborn called abortion. I believe that abortion is the greatest abomination of our time. More than a million human beings, created in the image of God, are killed by abortion each year in the United States alone.

That is why the issue of abortion carries more weight than all other domestic issues combined. We Christians should certainly be able to agree 100 percent on this issue! Abortion is the number one domestic policy issue, but we must also agree that protecting Israel is the number one foreign policy issue. Liberals claim to have compassion for the poor, but abortion disproportionately devours the poor and minorities. Most abortion clinics are located downtown, in poor and minority neighborhoods. I rejoice to hear much-needed teachings about Christians making a difference in the marketplace. The concept of a Joseph company of Christian believers restoring the earth is one of God’s priorities.

We must not forget that Joseph was an official and not a businessman in the pure sense. Joseph was the highest ranking government official besides Pharaoh.

Entering government is one of the purest forms of Christian activism. Why limit ourselves to marching in the streets with banners when we can sit in the town council or in the city hall or in Congress and make the decisions? In Revelation 12:14 the woman (the church) was given the two wings of a great eagle. I think these two wings are left politics and right politics. Leftists have a burden of compassion for the poor. Right-wingers are more concerned with law and order and are pro-business. Both wings are needed. Christians are needed to manage welfare reform to end the bogus secular philanthropy that traps the poor in total dependency. Right-wing Christians are needed to empower business and job creation and end the ungodly trend of secular business exploiting workers and polluting the environment.

Left and right must unite to remove pro-abortion people from office!!! We should not be reluctant to preach against abortion from the pulpit. There have been many prophecies and many teachings about the prosperity of the kingdom to finance the harvest of souls. Christ has made us kings and priests. We should boldly enter public service, public office and business and not be ashamed to talk about politics. We have been good priests, it is time for us to be good kings.