Release Date: November 4th, 2026Becoming a Blessing
- by Bruce Yoder
The question about how to understand the church, its identity and purpose, has moved to the forefront of things I think about recently. Ideas abound across different Christian traditions, even within our own Anabaptist stream, so that we have both common understandings and differences.
In Scripture, too, there are many images of the church in which we might find inspiration. One that seems important, yet in a practical sense somewhat distant from our contemporary images, comes from the instructions to the Israelites in Exodus 19:6, “You will be a kingdom of priests for me and a holy nation.”
The priesthood and the image of God’s people as a holy nation might seem better left to the Old Testament times of the Israelites, if Peter would not have picked them up again in 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who are God’s own possession.” What is the enduring value of this image of God’s people as a holy nation with a priestly function?
The church, our church, as a people set apart by God for a purpose, is an image that might still be fruitful and resonates with Anabaptist understandings.
With a holy section of the tabernacle or temple, where only the High Priest could enter, and a strong focus on separating oneself from that which was unclean and could leave one ritually or religiously compromised, the Israelites and Jews of Peter’s time likely had an intuitive sense of what it meant to be holy. We don’t have a “holy of holies” in our church buildings today, and the idea of being clean or unclean in a ritual sense isn’t part of our lives in the same way.
This newly formed, newly rescued, newly saved people of God were to mediate God’s love and grace to others.
For the Israelites, being a holy nation also involved being set apart for God’s service. God had set them apart for a purpose, to be something different. This connotation resonated with Peter as he sought to inspire believers in the early church to witness to their experience of becoming part of God’s people, and it can inspire today, some two millennia later. The church, our church, as a people set apart by God for a purpose, is an image that might still be fruitful and resonates with Anabaptist understandings.
Exodus 19 affirms that the whole earth, all the peoples, belonged to God and that the Israelites, in their new communal identity, would have a priestly function. This newly formed, newly rescued, newly saved people of God were to mediate God’s love and grace to others. This people of God would be a chosen nation, a showcase to the world, a sign, of how being in covenant with Yahweh changes people, allowing them to be the blessing to others that God intended.
They would be a bridge to connect others to God’s love and grace.
Drawing on his Jewish tradition, Peter encouraged the church of his day to appropriate the priestly function for itself, understand itself as a people called out to be a spiritual temple, a means for God to be present in the world. They were to “speak of the wonderful acts of the one who called you [them] out of darkness into his amazing light.” They would be a bridge to connect others to God’s love and grace.
Thinking of the church’s identity as a holy nation, a royal priesthood, might seem a bit archaic, or perhaps presumptuous. But a conviction of being chosen, set apart by God, for the special purpose of being a blessing, a channel of God’s love and grace, to those outside the doors of our places of worship, is indeed a vision that can propel us forward today.
- Bruce Yoder is an Intentional Interim Pastor at Breslau Mennonite Church