given to the potential of lay Christians. In a recent radio interview an Anglican bishop suggested that the days of the traditional episcopate were numbered and that, although leaders would always be needed, the emphasis in future would be upon the church’s membership. In similar vein, the May 2000 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland began with a report from its Panel on Doctrine which recognized the ministerial role of each church member. In much of this contemporary focus it is difficult to avoid the

Before considering the long neglect of the general priesthood, it is important to clarify the principal ideas that lie behind its New Testament formulation. As with so many Christian ideas its origins lie in the religious identity and cultus of ancient Israel. The Israelites, in keeping with their selfidentity as the chosen people, construed their unique revelation as involving both the ongoing worship of God and the mediation of the divine will to the nations at large. Although a priestly class developed, through which religious life was channelled and expressed, the people as a whole, at least in principle, assumed this religious calling.5 Following the death and resurrection of Jesus, early Christian thought transposed the idea of collective priesthood from the people of the Old Covenant to those who constituted the new Israel, the members of the Christian church. In place of the imperfect representation of Israel by the office of high priest went the perfect and endless representation of the new people of God by the risen and ascended Christ acting as eternal high priest. In the new context, priesthood as a description of the Christian people, or laos, was given a collective meaning. The people of Christ are a royal priesthood. Because of their position en Christo they are given to participate in the sole priesthood of the ascended Lord, though they are never individually priests. While the general priesthood as a concept is intrinsically opposed to clerical pretensions it is not antiministerial. But, by the same token, priesthood cannot simply be construed in terms of the ordained ministry. The ministry functions in New Testament thinking wholly within, rather than apart from, the general priesthood shared by all Christian believers. As the exercise of the gift of preaching constitutes part of the worship offered to God by the general priesthood, so also do the other gifts distributed by the Holy Spirit throughout the whole body of believers. Historically, it was the undue exaltation of the preaching gift (including the administration of the sacraments and discipline) and the neglect of the rest that led to the disappearance of the doctrine.6 As a concept general priesthood allows no room for pride and differentiation of status. Christians can only be true to their collective priestly calling when they emulate the high priestly example of Christ in his willingness to embrace a life of suffering, obedience and service.7