12:50 PM Do you remember the words of missionary martyr Jim Elliot? We are “sideliners” — coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers. Oh that God would make us dangerous! I thought of these words today when I read this comparison between being “imprisoned” by church traditions and literal imprisonment for the sake of Christ. As [...]
Tag Archives: ecclesiology
Reading for a Church Leadership Workshop
11:02 AM On Dec. 4 I will be holding a church leadership workshop in Durham, NC. I thought you might be interested in the reading assignments that must be completed prior to the workshop. If you are interested in the topic, you might want to take a look at them yourself. You can print out [...]
Changing in a Grace-Filled Way
1:02 PM This week in our Greek 3 class we exegeted Phil. 4:1-9, a passage full of references to the need for unity and cooperation in the cause of the Gospel. I want to say from the start that I have tremendous respect for my students who are trying to effect changes in their churches. [...]
Hekastology
7:17 PM Today in Greek class we went on yet another rabbit trail, this time along the path of ecclesiology. Church structures must be participational rather than representative, I told my students. My excuse to bring up this topic? A very good one indeed. The vocabulary to today’s lesson included the adjective hekastos, which, as [...]
If Seminaries Began Teaching Biblical Ecclesiology
10:19 AM Ya gotta love that Eric Carpenter! Is nothing sacrosanct to him (*smile*)? His latest post is called What Would Happen if Seminaries Began Teaching Biblical Ecclesiology? What a great topic to explore! What can we say about this? I might suggest that a good place to start would be our New Testament Introduction [...]
On Constantinian Sacralism in the Modern Church
From Dave Black Online: Thanks so much, Eric, for raising again the perennial question about the Reformers’ insistence on maintaining medieval ecclesiology. I attribute today’s neo-sacralism directly to the Reformers and their faulty theology of the church, against which the Anabaptists inveighed. Under the tutelage of such sacralism church leaders today continue to accommodate biblical [...]