Simple Church Minute 82--Simson's Thesis #8

82—WS#8

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Recently we have been speaking about German writer Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses for Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today, we look at Thesis #8, Out of the hands of bureaucratic clergy and on towards the priesthood of believers.  On this idea, Simson has written, No expression of a New Testament church is ever led by just one professional holy man dong the business of communicating with God and then feeding some relatively passive, religious consumers, Moses-style.  Christianity has adopted this method from pagan religions, or at best from the Old Testament.

            The heavy professionalization of the church since Constantine has been a pervasive influence long enough, dividing the people of God artificially into an infantilized laity and a professional clergy, and developing power-based mentalities and pyramid structures.  According to the New Testament (1 Tim. 2:5), ‘there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’.  God simply does not bless religious professionals to force themselves in between Himself and His people.  The veil is torn, and God is allowing people to access Himself directly through Jesus Christ, the only Way.

            To enable the priesthood of all believers, the present system will have to change completely.  Bureaucracy is the most dubious of all administrative systems, because it basically asks only two questions: yes or no.  There is no room for spontaneity and humanity, no room for real life.  This may be all right in politics and business, but not the church. God seems to be in the business of delivering His church from a Babylonian captivity of religious bureaucrats and controlling spirits into the public domain, putting it into the hands of ordinary people whom God has made extraordinary and who, as in the old days, may still smell of fish, perfume, or revolution.

            You can read back or ahead about Simson’s 15 Theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de. You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  On the web, you can find out more about simple forms of worship at http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).