Trinitarian Ecclesiology

​​For Reflection Roundup each week, we gather news stories, notable pieces, and other important items for Christian leaders today. As always, listening broadly draws together differing perspectives from which we can learn but may not concur.

Holy Week offers a change of pace with yet another opportunity to reflect on what it means to be church, the people of God, in the 21st century. Plus an update on some research.

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Where is the balance between offering gifts of service to the local congregation and implementing structures required for the kind of leadership by which the congregational body will feel truly supported?

Discerning and researching the New Testament doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, I am currently reading a 2009 book by Robert Muthiah, The Priesthood of All Believers in the Twenty-First Century (Wipf and Stock). Muthiah entitled his third chapter “An Ecclesiology That Demands a Royal Priesthood,” and it’s from here that I’d like to unpack a few concepts.

Muthiah opens his argument explicating and reminding the reader of the constitution of the Trinity and the functionality of the relationships therein. The three persons of the Trinity live, move, and have their being within one another. Each has a specific function unique unto God the Father, the Word Christ, and the Holy Spirit, but they remain one entity. Explained this way, it’s easy to see how the Trinity shapes the church. Each member has a specific function unique to that person, but in the church, we remain part of one body. “As the Trinity is constituted by relationships, so the church is constituted by relationships.” [1] All parts are recognized, named, and celebrated. It is within this context that we receive the gifts God has provided in our community of faith. Spaces where we are in each other’s lives, jointly serving God both within and away from church gatherings, are essential to the church.

Would it be possible, then, to construct a model after the pattern of the Trinity, especially mindful of the kenosis among the Trinitarian partners, that would demonstrate domination? Clearly, in a priesthood of all believers patterned after Trinitarian partnership, non-dominance has to rule each day. Jesus acted as an exemplar among his followers, washing their feet (John 13:1-21). Paul rebuked church members desiring to maintain divisions based upon economic and social standards (1 Cor. 11:17-22). [2]

Egalitarian freedom modeled after Trinitarian perichoresis echoes the Anabaptist priority of voluntary membership. The Free Church tradition is called “free” for this very reason. [3] “Jesus is not looking for a kingdom for himself or anyone else where power can be wielded in order to impose God’s will on the world. He is inaugurating a domination-free society,” a model for the church. [4]

A few statements offer helpful stepping stones down the path toward exactly what perichoretic egalitarianism can look like in a church, or how a church utilizes all believers as priests. If each member of the congregational body is a temple for the Spirit of Christ, then we each house the same Spirit within our physical bodies. If the Spirit’s presence is a sign of the activity of God’s mission in the world, as is the unity of the church, then doesn’t this mutual indwelling, this mutual participation in the ministry of God through the leading of the Spirit, bring unity? Does it not evidence God’s movement in and through the church? The Spirit’s habitation of each member, accepted by each person in baptism, is the single most unifying factor. [5]

The Spirit is the mode of giftings within the body. Muthiah holds that baptism signals a non-specific ordination to ministry for each member of the body of Christ, and functionally each member of our congregations. I agree, but here’s where Paul’s admonition to church members and leaders differentiates the argument. Regarding social and economic classes, Paul admonishes members to level the playing field, but to the Corinthian church he says something different with reference to ecclesial giftings: “Strive for the greater gifts” (1 Cor. 14:31). He then goes on to unpack how they are to be used, emphasizing love and the building up of the church, the same admonition he makes to (likely) several churches through the Ephesian letter. In Ephesians, Paul reminds those who embody some of the “greater gifts” (apostleship, prophecy, evangelism, pastoring, teaching) to utilize them to build up the body and to equip others in the church in fulfilling their calling according to the mission of God in their place and their giftedness by the Spirit, again through their acceptance of baptism.

While the unity of the church lies in the shared expression of the gifts of the Spirit, there is space for a public acknowledgement for those ordained to specific ministries, at specific times, and in specific locations. Though not required, ordination sorts out the functional aspects of the gifts of the body rather than donning certain gifts with authority. [6] “Ordained individuals are related to the community through a common sharing in a single priesthood grounded in the Holy Spirit.”[7] Ordination helps the body locate the source of their encouragement, those charged with the responsibility to build up all others.

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[1] Robert A. Muthiah, The Priesthood of All Believers in the Twenty-First Century: Living Faithfully as the Whole People of God in a Postmodern Context (Pickwick Publications, 2009), 57.

[2] Muthiah, 64.

[3] Muthiah.

[4] Walter Wink, “The Kingdom: God’s Domination--Free Order,” Weavings 10 (January 1995): 6–15.

[5] Muthiah, The Priesthood of All Believers in the Twenty-First Century, 67.

[6] Muthiah, 84.

[7] Muthiah, 82.