TO FIX THIS idea of the laity as the chosen people of God, let us go back again to the early Scriptures for confirmation. Paul was undoubtedly the most influential man in the early development of Christianity, both as to the content of that faith and its spread. Paul was a layman; no apostolic hands were laid on him. If there was an apostolic succession then Paul was outside it. The idea that grace and authority were handed down through a line of tactual succession apart from the character of the persons concerned but inhering in the office was so foreign to Paul’s gospel that Christ is immediately available to anybody, anywhere, by faith, that Paul never would have fitted into that line. He would have broken the link out of sheer principle.
God broke the link when He chose Ananias, a layman, to lay his hands on Paul that he might receive his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. When Paul came into Damascus blinded, God said, “Ananias,” and he replied, “Here am I, Lord—I’m at Your immediate disposal.” When he heard what the errand was he trembled, for Paul was murdering Christians, but he trembled bravely and went. He laid his hands upon the head of the stricken Saul and said, “Brother Saul.” When he called this murderer brother, it shook Paul to his depths and opened the gates to the divine forgiveness through this human forgiveness. The greatest Christian of the centuries walked through the gates of eternal life—and it was a layman who opened the gates to the greatest lay minister of Christendom.
Moreover, it was a lay group—“prophets and teachers” but no apostles—who laid their hands on Paul and Barnabas and sent them forth on those great missionary journeys to Asia and Europe. Laymen ordained the greatest layman of the centuries—and the most effective.
O Jesus Christ, my Lord and Master, I thank Thee that Thou art not choosing priests or prophets or pastors or popes, but persons. Let me be that person—a person for whom Christ died. In Thy Name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am a person, therefore eligible for the highest God has for any man.
