Priestly Counsel

Your priests have violated my instructions and defiled my holy things. They make no distinction between what is holy and what is not. And they do not teach my people the difference between what is ceremonially clean and unclean. They disregard my Sabbath days so that I am dishonored among them.   Ezekiel 22:26

The role of the priest was the mirror image of the role of the prophet. The prophet spoke to the people on behalf of God; the priest spoke to God on behalf of the people.

The priests who operated in the Temple were to offer the prayers and sacrifices. Their ministry related to worship; it was all about bringing people into the presence of God. You could go to a priest in the Temple, and he would pray with you. The priests offered a kind of pastoral counsel to people in relation to their spiritual lives.

But instead of bringing people to God, the priests became like secular counselors who focused on helping people to be at peace with themselves. They were not exercising a ministry of prayer or showing people how to be reconciled with God. If you had gone to one of these priests, you could have gone through a whole session without any prayer or any reference to Scripture. They said very little about God.

The priests focused entirely on the horizontal ministry—human to human. But the church needs a ministry that is vertical, in which the needs of people are brought before God. This is the heart of pastoral ministry. When the needs of those who struggle with guilt and fear are brought before God privately and publicly, then the wounded are healed and the weak are strengthened. Parents are also called to the priestly ministry of praying for our children and encouraging them in their knowledge of God.

The apostle Peter wrote to Christians calling them “royal priests” (1 Peter 2:9). That means we can all pray for and minister to one another in the body of Christ. And every one of God’s people can offer worship, not just the choir or a few worship leaders on the platform.

For further reading, see 1 Peter 2