The most important Pauline text for my purposes comes from Romans
15:15-16 in which Paul reminds his audience of
the grace which was given to me by God to be a minister (leitourgon)
of Christ Jesus to the gentiles in the priestly service (hierourgounta)
of the gospel of God, in order that the offering (prosphora) of the
gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Paul begins this pericope by referring to himself as a “leitourgon
of Christ Jesus.” Scholars have noted that the term leitourgon can
have reference to both secular and sacred functions, and that even in this same
epistle, Paul uses the term to refer to the civil authorities (Rom 13:6). The LXX
likewise uses this term to refer to both cultic duties and public service. (For
the neutral sense of public service to a master or king, see eg Josh 1:1; 2 Sam
13:18; and 1 Kgs 10:5. Used in the sense of cultic service, see eg Deut 17:12;
1 Sam 2:11; Is 61:6; Neh 10:40; and Lk 1:23. See also Joseph Ponthot,
“L’Expression cultuelle du Ministère Paulinien selon Rom 15,16” in L’Apôtre
Paul: Personnalité, Style et Conception du Ministère, ed. A Vanhoye (Leuven
: Leueven University Press, 1986), 256, for some further discussion of this)
Which meaning does Paul intend in this passage?
Further reading indicates that Paul intends to evoke the cultic
sense of leitourgos, by referencing his “priestly service (hierourgouonta)
of the gospel of God.” Hierourgein, “to serve as a priest,” helps to
qualify and explain in what sense Paul is a leitourgos. What makes him a
“minister” of Christ is his “priestly service” of preaching the gospel to the
gentiles. Thus, as Joseph Fitzmeyer observes, although leitourgos is not
Paul’s only designation for his work, it remains significant nonetheless that
in this passage, Paul does not describe his role as a “servant” (diakonos),
nor “steward” (oikonomos), but as “cultic minister” (leitourgos).
(Joseph Fitzmeyer, Romans (Anchor Bible Commentary series 33) (New York:
Doubleday, 1964), 711. Paul uses diakonos in 2 Cor 3:6 and oikonomos in
1 Cor 4:1) Combine his use of leitourgos and hierourgounta with
his sacrificial reference near the end of the passage (“in order that the
offering [prosphora] of the gentiles might be acceptable”) and it
becomes clear that Paul is explicitly working with priestly imagery to describe
his apostolic work. Within this brief pericope, Paul employs three different
terms (leitourgon, hierourgounta, and prosphora) to describe
his apostolic work—all of which relate to priestly service. The cumulative
force of these terms compels us to recognize that Paul displays no reservations
about describing Christian ministry as priestly in character, even if
not in title.
Not all scholars, of course, are willing to accept this obvious
reading. C.E.B. Cranfield, for example, while admitting that leitourgos “does
have a sacral sense,” prefers to translate hierourgounta as “serve with
a holy service” rather than “serve as a priest.” (C.E.B. Cranfield, The
Epistle to the Romans, vol. 2 (ICC) (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975),
755-756) He argues that hierourgounta carries a priestly reference only
in relationship to a sacrificial offering and concludes that the impossibility
of such usage here is “obvious.” (Cranfield, 756) I find this to be amazing
exegetical gymnastics, especially since Paul explicitly mentions the notion of
sacrifice in his ministry: the prosphora of the gentiles are a part of
his apostolic ministry! The preaching of the gospel to the gentiles, and in
turn their conversion, becomes the offering (prosphora) which Paul
submits to God. Much more to the point are Fitzmeyer’s comments that “in his
mission to the Gentiles, Paul sees his function to be like that of a Jewish
priest dedicated to the service of God in his Temple.” (Fitzmeyer, 711) Even
Cranfield himself notes that the term hierourgounta can be used in a
priestly sense in relationship to the task of preaching or teaching. In a
discussion of Eleazer the priest, 4 Maccabees 7:8 witnesses a variant reading
which renders tous demiourgountas ton nomon as hierourgounta
ton nomon. (As Cranfield notes, this variant is found in the Sixtine
edition of the LXX, but not recorded in Rahlf’s edition (756)) Thus, teaching
or preaching can in fact be the object of priestly activity. Remember, too, as
I have shown in earlier chapters, that part of the range of tasks assigned to
Israelite priests entailed teaching or preaching the law (e.g. Deut. 33:10;
Hos. 4:4-6; Mal. 2:5-8). There is nothing unusual about combining a priestly
reference with the task of preaching, as Paul does here.
In our current passage, then, Paul combines both the kerygmatic
and the sacrificial aspects of his work under the model of a “minister” (leitourgos)
exercising his “priestly service” (hierourgounta). As such, he preaches
the gospel to the gentiles and offers them as a prosphora acceptable
to God. Paul may not call himself a hiereus, but he has no hesitations
about the appropriation of the priestly image as a metaphor for
Christian ministry. (See also Everett L. Wilson, “The Priestly Service of the
Gospel of God” The Covenant Quarterly 30 (1972):31-40; and Jean Colson, Ministre
de Jésus-Christ ou le Sacerdoce de l’Évangile (Paris: Beauchesne et ses
fils, 1965), 181-207 for a similar reading on this passage) (Brian Alan
Stewart, "'Priests
of My People': Levitical Paradigms for Christian Ministers in the Third and Fourth
Century Church" [PhD Dissertation; University of
Virginia, May 2006], 235-37)