Blogs

One of Peter Leithart’s chief insights is that a priest is a palace servant.

In preparing a sermon on Lord’s Day 12 for this Sunday (by way of Revelation 1 – which, by the way, focuses upon God’s people as servants in 1.1 and as a priesthood in 1.7), this got me reflecting on the question of how the high priest relates to this. If a priest is a palace servant, what is a “high” palace servant?

This in turn led me to think about the predominant Servant theme in Isaiah, a rabbit trail that turned out to be helpful, although I’m not entirely sure yet where to go with it. (more…)

[Originally posted on my Rabbisaul blog July 13 2007]

In support of the notion that each church (or perhaps city?) is to be led by one single pastor or bishop, rather than by a plurality of elders, some of whom may preach, the angels of the seven churches in Revelation are often put forward. Each church/city was represented by one “angel” who was addressed, rather than a leadership group. Since “angel” (Greek aggelos) means “messenger,” it is suggested that these are the pastors or bishops of the churches.

Quite aside from the fact that I don’t think that aggelos in Scripture usually refers to human beings, I’ve long maintained that if “angels” in Revelation 2-3 refer to pastors/bishops, the same must be the case throughout the book, and I don’t believe that will hold.

(more…)