The SIAFU Guidebook

50 The SIAFU Network Guidebook

We All “Got the Gift”: The Universal Priesthood of the Believers, Urban Style

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. ~ 1 Peter 2.9-10 For anyone to be a Christian, it means that they have possession of the Holy Spirit, who through the grace of Christ has endowed each believer with spiritual gifts for the sake of ministering to one another, and to those who do not know the Lord. The communities of Christ were in fact “charismatic” assemblies, congregations where every believer, male or female, possessed divine endowments to be used for the good of all (see 1 Corinthains 12). These endowments were not earned, were not gender specific, and not mere talents or the result of natural abilities. They were divinely offered, potent and impacting, and often connected with divine manifestation and blessing (e.g., miracles in Galatians 3.5, spiritual prophesy in 1 Thessalonians 5.19-21, and a variety of manifestations in 1 Corinthians 12-14). There can be no doubt; to be a disciple of Christ is to be a member of a priesthood whose origin is from God, one in which all who believe are granted gifts as God the Spirit has provided. Regardless of gender, class, culture, or race, if one confesses Jesus as Lord and believes that the Father has raised him from the dead, they receive eternal life. And, they are granted the indwelling and infilling of the Holy Spirit, along with the gifts and graces of the Lord.