At the Calvin Conference a couple of weeks back, Peter Barnes, of Revesby Presbyterian, delivered a paper on Calvin's preaching. For me, the most interesting part of the paper was how naturally Calvin identified with the congregation. In his sermons, he normally said "we" and "us", not "I" and "you". In his sermons from 1556 to 1558, he only referred to himself three times. A statistical analysis of his sermons on Acts shows he said "we" (French nous) 3,416 times, compared to"you" (vous) only 53 times.
So I take it that Calvin thought of himself, even when preaching, as fundamentally a member of the congregation. Even as a preacher, he remained a sinner saved by grace, being addressed by God through his word. He did not become a priest or prophet, in the sense of mediating the word of God to the congregation. He stood "alongside" the congregation, not "over" them. Only God, in Christ, through the Bible, was "over" the congregation - the congregation which included Calvin. This is very interesting. It's easy for us who are trained, "professional" preachers to think of ourselves as different from the people we're addressing. Not for bad reasons - for good reasons. We're trained to think outside ourselves - to think of our people, and how this passage applies to them. That's not selfish; that's loving & serving. Also, it's true that preaching is in a sense prophecy - we're not just telling people our opinions, we're telling them what God says. That's not selfish, that's God-honouring.
But both these good motives can have a negative effect of making us think we're different. Because both permit us to think of ourselves as mediating God's word to people. We need to remember that we, like Calvin, remain fundamentally a member of the congregation being addressed by God through his word, the Bible. Only God, in Christ, through the Bible, is "over" the congregation - the congregation which includes us preachers.
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