This is a very interesting and very important theme that you have presented, brother Onesmas.

The priesthood of all believers is an important truth concerning the church, and this truth is connected with another truth—that the church is an organism. All members of an organism function according to their gifts and capacities.

I would just like to add that the leadership of God’s people in the context of the Old Testament is very different from the leadership of the church in the context of the New Testament.

In the New Testament context, the understanding of “head” (leader) is very different from that in the Old Testament. The Greek term kephale, which is translated as “head,” carries a meaning that is quite different from the concept of “head” in the Old Testament. There are about 75 occurrences of this term. In the Gospels, it appears 33 times, of which 31 refer to the physical head of a human being. The other two refer to the cornerstone. In the Book of Acts, one out of its five occurrences refers to the cornerstone, while the other four refer to the physical head of a human being. There are 12 occurrences in the Epistles, most of which refer to Jesus as the Head of the church or describe the relationship between husband and wife. Not a single instance of the term kephale refers to leaders within the Body of Christ as an organism. LEADERS IN THE BODY OR ORGANISM OF THE CHURCH ARE NEVER CALLED “HEAD.” The hierarchy or levels of authority that are clearly seen in Old Testament leadership are NOT FOUND in the New Testament.

From these facts, it is clearly evident that the church is a body or organism, and that ONLY JESUS IS CALLED THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. The church is not an organization, but clearly an organism. When the church is organized and has an organizational head—whatever the title may be, whether senior elder, senior pastor, or pastor—then THAT IS NOT THE CHURCH THAT THE LORD JESUS IS BUILDING TODAY.

Such is the New Testament perspective regarding the head (leader) of the church.