THE OLD TESTAMENT PRIEST serves as mediator, intercessor and teacher, offering prayers and sacrifices on behalf of believers and teaching about proper worship and way of life to secure God’s forgiveness and favour. In the New Testament era, Christians now have direct access to God through Jesus Christ the ultimate High Priest and our perfect sacrifice (vv.19-22; Heb 8-9).³ Here are three observations of the priestly office today. First, Jesus is the epitome and source of the priestly office (2 Pet 2:4-5). Second, the priestly office is no longer the purview of a select few men, but extended to all believers in Jesus (1 Pet 2:9; Rev 1:6). Third, the priesthood of believers has missionary implications for the gathered life of the church (vv.24-25) and the dispersed life of the church (Acts 1:8; 1 Tim 2:1-6).⁴ Hebrews 13:13 poignantly illustrated this: “Therefore let us go to Him outside the camp and bear the reproach He endured.”⁵ There are three dimensions to our priestly office. First, intercession. We are to pray and intercede for “all people, for kings and all who are in high positions”, for God “desires all people to be saved” (1 Tim 2:1-4). Second, mediation. We are to mediate God’s presence and love in workplaces, neighbourhoods and society through acts of service and kindness (Acts 20:35). Third, transformation. We are to be living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (Rom 12:1-2) – our transformed lives reflecting God and pointing others to Him. As priests placed in the marketplace, let us minister the presence and love of God our Saviour to a world that is lost without Him.

³ Indeed, Jesus is the only way to God (Jn 14:6).
⁴ Adapted from R. Paul Stevens, The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective, 1st ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich. : Vancouver, B.C: Eerdmans, 2000), 174.
⁵ One theologian puts it this way: “From the Epistle to the Hebrews may be derived this most important thesis: the deeper we enter the sanctuary the further we will penetrate the world.” Quoted in Stevens, 174.