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In The Widening Circle, Graham Tomlin explores an exhilarating new approach to priesthood.
The author suggests that 'Priest' is much more than a term to describe certain Christian ministers - it is a vital category for understanding God's way of blessing his world.
This world was made for joy: the joy of God and the joy of Creation. But to know that joy, the world needs the divine blessing that is focused in Jesus Christ, the only true High Priest. His priestly ministry consists of mediating between God and the world, perfecting that very creation, and then offering this perfected creation back to the God from whom it came. Yet this very ministry is enacted through others. As we explore how this priesthood of Christ has an impact on everyday life, we discover that the human race is chosen to play a priestly role between God and Creation. The Church is then called out to be a kingdom of priests, enabling humanity to fulfil its divine calling. And, finally, the minister himself or herself - experiencing as Christ did, both strands of priestly reality, the mundane and the heavenly, the routine and the remarkable, the normal and the numinous - is called to enable the rest of the Church to play its distinct part. In each case, the part is the means by which the whole becomes all that it is intended to be, in an ever widening circle of divine blessing, so that the world might know the joy for which it was created.
About the author
Graham Tomlin is Dean of St Mellitus College, London. He is author of Luther and His World,
The Provocative Church and Looking Through the Cross: The Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book 2014.
Summary
Outlines a new approach to priesthood, suggesting that we only begin to understand what a 'priest' is once we have understood what priesthood is theologically and biblically - God's way of blessing the world.
