Skim through some of these prayers by the class of 2012 for a chance to consider the significance of God's calling upon us each as a prophet, priest and king. These were written (and prayed) by this past year's juniors as part of a final project in their systematic theology class. Each year, the students (and I) have been particularly impacted by this doctrine that all humans are created to serve forever as prophets, priests and kings. Over this summer, all CCA teachers have also been asked to write prayers in each of these capacities as we prepare for a year of earnest reflection on our particular vocations within a classical Christian school. (Teachers will share these prayers with each other, but they will not be published online.)

Before giving any more background info, here are some excerpts from the student prayers. Click on any of the headings to read the full set of students prayers in each category (shared with permission from the students).

Prayers as Prophets:

"Lord, it is our duty to speak the truth about You. The truth that may change lives of those around us forever. It is our duty, whether we like it or not, to speak honestly, to speak harshly, to speak. ...Whether it may be my family, my friends, it will be a hard thing to do no matter what. Grant me with wisdom from your perfect mouth to drastically change the way that my friends, my classmates, my teachers, and my family think." -Gwen Davis

"I pray that specifically here at our school, where speaking of Christ is more difficult than many assume, we would be bold, bringing your words to those around us, reminding them of the days to come when the world will be judged. I pray that as we become the senior class over the next few months, we might be bold prophets to the students younger than us, inspiring young Christians who are not afraid to show others their faith." -Alyssa Burlew

"Teach your servant how to carry out the office of prophet because Lord, I am the first to admit I flee with glee from this role. I bury my prophetic office deeper than I know. Lord, damn me for killing your prophets, my brothers, your Son, and for killing the prophet in me. Lord, I do not love my neighbors enough to correct their sin or my own. I enjoy watching them suffer." -Aaron Dees (sounding like Jonah)

Prayers as Priests:

"I praise you for the splendor and goodness that you have exhibited in your design of creation and ask that you would enable me to maintain areas entrusted to my care in a beautiful and orderly state. ...Help us to consciously develop and institute habits that exhibit your grace and goodness, your provision and power, your majesty and mercy. May those around us recognize their own call to be caretakers of the areas over which you have bestowed them jurisdiction." -Elizabeth Bashore

"...Cathedrals-hills with snowy tops

That from the earth

Seem frighteningly tall

Are nothing from above.

...It is better here

Stuck to earth.

When a mountain

Is encountered

We feel awe..." -Matthew Manotti

"The ephod is too heavy for me so Jesus carries it for me. By your Son, draw your people closer to You, Lord. Enable me to hear the groans of creation and to see the light shining from creation giving you glory." -Aaron Dees

Prayers as Kings:

"Lord, grant to me patience. I will be a weak leader without it, and I am unable to give proper guidance to those under me with a restless heart. I do not pray for any gain for myself personally. I pray for this one and only thing O Lord for it shall bring others to you." -Nick Ahern

"I pray that we would realize the gravity of being seniors--that we should earnestly desire to guide the younger students as they begin their Christian walk, that we should reach out to the upper-schoolers when they need support.... Help us not to stay self-absorbed, but to help those in need, not only our peers, but the teachers and administration as well. Lord, thank you for bringing us this far, and thank You for the blessings you have rained down upon our class. Thank you for being the ideal, perfect Kings so that we may follow your example." -Hannah Stucky

"Help me to learn from the example of Christ's foot washing.... I am a vassal king. I rule my subjects according to your precepts. Let me always remember that I am subject to a higher authority, but a higher authority who calls me to exercise my dominion with confidence and humility over the subjects you have give me." -Alyssa Burlew

To claim that all humans (both believers and unbelievers) are made by God to be priests and kings is theologically uncontroversial. Our human prophetic office fits in a somewhat separate category (that might be subsidiary to priest and king), but all theologians agree that every follower of Christ has a prophetic calling in this fallen world.

To get a better feel for what each office involves, here is is a summary of some questions connected to each one. (Teachers, it may help to engage with these as you write your prayers and think about particular opportunities and rolls within CCA.)

Prophets: How do we pursue greater knowledge of God and His truth? How faithfully do we confront ourselves and others with the truths of God revelation? Do we expose unrighteousness and lies? Do we extend the generous promise of God’s forgiveness and great blessing in Christ? How gripped are we by God’s revelation of Himself (in Christ, in His written word, in His creation)? In what ways do we display and act out God’s truth with our lives? Does our proclamation of truth lead to repentance and fresh hope in the lives of God’s people as well as to rejection (or even hatred and persecution) from the false church or unrepentant world?

Priests: How do we display God’s glory to those around us through our orderly and beautiful use of time and space? What daily, weekly, monthly and yearly patterns and traditions of celebration have we put in place within our families and other realms of responsibility? How are we growing in our ability to recognize God’s glory on display throughout creation, human culture and God’s written word? Do we speak regularly about enjoying beauty and truth, making it clear that these things are central to who we are and what we are created to do forever? Do we have a sense of the our Creator’s holiness and what he expects regarding the maintenance and purity of all that he has made? How do we guard the temples of our bodies? How do we take upon ourselves the responsibility to come before God in prayer continually (unceasingly)?

Kings: Do we take the time to make good plans for the future growth and flourishing of all of the life around us? Do we long to see justice carried out with wisdom in every sphere of our life? What sense of joy and responsibility do we have as designers and builders within our realms of care? Do we exalt our King of kings in all that we will and do? Do we look to God’s pattern and example as we seek to understand our mission, and do we rely upon Him to advance His kingdom?

These three offices provide the best way to understand what it means to be human. Even more importantly, without grasping the significance of prophethood, priesthood and kingship we will not grow in our appreciation of all that Christ accomplished and is accomplishing in his work as our Saviour and King.

Learning what these offices are all about takes us to Genesis. Eden was a garden temple (G. K. Beale writes profoundly on this topic). Adam and Eve were placed in the garden to guard and serve it (the same two verbs in Hebrew used to commission priests for the unique calling of tabernacle and temple service) as well as to multiply its goodness and fill the earth (a summary of the kingly task). Our being made in God’s image and likeness means serving as the representatives between God and His creation. To bear God’s image means to display and enjoy God’s glory as priest and vassal-kings. Christ became a man, the second Adam, to accomplish the restoration of these human offices that we might once again be a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9 and Revelation 1:5-6), imitating Christ in these offices and thereby serving Him within a fallen world. And at Pentecost, Peter refers to the passage in Joel about all of God’s people receiving the Spirit of prophecy--men and women, young and old (Acts 2:16-21, Joel 2:28-32). Christ, by perfectly carrying out his task as the second Adam, taking upon Himself the curse of death and being raised as the the first fruit of a new creation, has redeemed this world and will one day make visible to everyone the fruit of His work: us as the new Jerusalem serving as priests and kings forever in the new heavens and the new earth.

Every human (throughout history) has the amazing duties and capabilities that come with these offices from our first parents, but we all distort and neglect these incredibly high callings. Once students start to grasp what it means to have been created as priest-kings, they begin developing a better understanding of why sin is heinous and hell is just. Sin is not recognizable until we start getting a small sense for how good God intends for us to be.

In Christ, we are fully restored in all three of these offices (although we can still only carry them out imperfectly because we are never fully dwelling or acting in Christ). Being prophets and priest-kings in a fallen world means that we will never fully see or understand what we are doing. Glorious progress will look like foolishness and martyrdom. However, we are living sacrifices, our bodies are temples, and together we make up the body of Christ, serving as His hands and feet. And Christ is the perfect prophet, priest and king. As God, Christ transcends and lays these human offices upon us (as their divine source). As man, Christ himself takes them up these human callings and fulfills them perfectly, both in his earthly ministry and in His current heavenly reign (His humiliation and exhalation as the Westminster Confession puts it).

Final words for teachers, primarily: In writing our prayers, focus on our specific vocations or divine callings within CCA. Ideally, write the prayers not as a request for help in fulfilling each of these offices. Instead write each one literally or directly in your capacity as as a king, priest and prophet. For example, do not say, “Help me as a king to grade fairly and know when to praise and chastise my students.” (Not that prayers of petition are wrong.) However, to practice the act of shouldering these duties, try to use wording that is as direct, authoritative and specific as possible. For example, “My God, any words of encouragement or rebuke that I speak are your sovereign will at work in the lives of my students. Make my silent lunch detentions and my class parties effective to the growth of my students as stewards of their own gifts.”

As the theology students did with their prayers, it is also helpful to deliberately incorporate biblical images, persons and stories. Consider the specific prayers, experiences and “equipment” of biblical prophets, priests and kings, and explore Christ’s earthly ministry in terms of these three offices. There are several offices in scripture beyond just these three, but most of them combine or parallel some of these three primary offices in clear ways. Before the time of Moses, patriarchs acted as priests, kings and prophets over their holdholds. Melchizedek is a great example of a priest-king from this period. Judges stood between the nation and their true Sovereign, representing God to the people and the people before God. They were a unique office that combined both kingly and prophetic duties. Transitional or climactic figures such as Samuel often served in multiple offices, thereby providing a particularly powerful type of Christ. [Note: Analyzing the Old Testament in light of these three offices (that only Christ ultimately fulfills), is one great way to see how the entire Old Testament speaks of Christ.]

Considering special New Testament offices, muddies the waters theologically. However, the apostolic office (an ambassador of Christ sent directly from His heavenly throne) is often paralleled with the Old Testament prophets as well as the patriarchs of Israel’s twelve tribes (with apostles being depicted as the spiritual fathers and representatives of the whole church). Because everyone in the church is gifted with the Spirit and exercises the three primary offices, Church leaders in the New Testament (elders, teachers, deacons, etc.) function primarily as servants and facilitators. [Note: There is debate within the church over the nature of apostolic succession and ordination, but Protestants understand the special authority of apostles to be vested only in the written word of God that they left for us.]

William Hendriksen (a respected evangelical and Reformed scholar) summarizes it this way:

To reign with Christ means to experience in one’s own life the restoration of the royal office. By virtue of creation man held the threefold office of prophet, priest, and king. As prophet his mind was illumined so that he knew God. As priest his heart delighted in God. As king his will was in harmony with God’s will. This threefold office, lost through the fall, is restored by God’s grace. The joyful response of the believer’s will to the will of Christ, that response which is true freedom, is the basic element in this reigning with Christ. Moreover, even during the period before death Christians rule the world by means of their prayers, in the sense that again and again judgments occur in answer to prayer (Rev. 8:3–5). In heaven they are even closer to the throne than are the angels (Rev. 4:4; 5:11). In fact, they sit with Christ on his throne (Rev. 3:21), sharing his royal glory. And when Christ returns, the saints sit and judge with him (Ps. 149:5–9; I Cor. 6:2, 3).

(Hendriksen, W., & S.J. Kistemaker. New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Pastoral Epistles. Vol. 4. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979. 258–259.)

Here is one other resource that I have shared in the past (by a Presbyterian pastor in NY who is not Tim Keller): a blog post about growing as prophets, priests, and kings.