But that is not all. Every believer is supposed to lay hands upon and heal the sick:
And these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it shall not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover (Mark 16:17-18, emphasis added).
Every believer is to bear the burdens of fellow believers:
Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2).
Every believer is expected to exercise his or her gifts on behalf of others:
And since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let each exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness (Rom. 12:6-8).
Every believer is supposed to deny himself, sacrificing for the sake of the gospel:
And He summoned the multitude with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it” (Mark 8:34-35, emphasis added).
And every believer is expected to make and baptize disciples, teaching them to obey Christ’s commandments:
Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them , he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:19, emphasis added).
For though by this time you ought to be teachers , you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food (Heb. 5:12, emphasis added).
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you ; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:19-20, emphasis added).[1]
All of these responsibilities are given to every believer, yet most church attendees think these tasks are given just to pastors! The reason is probably because pastors themselves so often think these tasks are solely their responsibility.
[1] If Jesus’ disciples were to expected to teach their disciples to obey everything He had commanded them, they consequently would have taught their disciples to make disciples themselves, baptizing and teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded. So the making, baptizing and teaching of disciples would have been a perpetual commandment that was binding upon every successive disciple.
