Category Archives: Discussion

Discussion

Vocation to Ministry?

From Dave Black Online:

10:36 AM I have a question today, a question to which I do not know the answer. When will appeals for vocations to the ministry end? And when, in their place, will the church encourage all of its members to seek God’s will for the area of ministry in which they can most effectively be used by Him? I propose that we never again use the expression “call to the ministry” unless we are careful to apply it to each and every Christian. All this will neither be easy nor popular. Yet at some point it must be done. One of the main reasons for burn-out in the pastorate is that it is often carried out alone. The New Testament never envisaged such a predicament. Ministry needs to be shared. Jesus realized this: He sent out the apostles two by two. Paul realized this when he appointed elders (note the plural) in every church. And it needs to be modeled by today’s Christian leaders. It is not until church members are enthusiastic about their own God-given gifts that we will succeed in being the Body of Christ.

(From Dave Black Online. Used by permission. David Alan Black is author of Energion titles The Jesus Paradigm, Christian Archy, and Why Four Gospels?.)

discipleship, Discussion

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 everyone knows, is one of the my all-time favorite New Testament Greek words — so much so that I even invented a new word in the English language in its honor (see my book The Jesus Paradigm for a reference to the doctrine I call Hekastology).

Continue reading Hekastology →

discipleship, Discussion

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 classes. Here we could contrast the position that existed under the Old Covenant with life under the New. For example, in the Old Testament, sacrifices were a vital part of worship, so much so that a special building was set aside for that purpose. Moreover, only certain people (called priests) could perform sacred duties on behalf of the rest of the people. Finally, specific animals had to be sacrificed. Under the New Covenant, however, a new set of conditons exists. The emphasis is no longer upon a building (the people form the church), the sacrifices are offered by all (every Christian is a fulltime priest), and the offerings are now spiritual in nature — praise and thanksgiving. (The book of Hebrews is explicit about all of this.) In addition to New Testament Introduction, what about church history classes? Could we not discuss New Testament ecclesiology when we are analyzing the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century — those men and women who refused to be shackled by ecclesiastical tradition and who sought to return to the simple practices of the New Testament? Even in our Greek classes these questions could be tackled as we exegeted such passages as Roman 12 or 1 Corinthians 12-14. (I do.)

The simple truth is that seminary can and ought to be a place of genuine discovery. Questions about church life, even though they might make us uncomfortable, can and must be asked.  At the same time, let’s realize that the main purpose of a seminary education is to acquire the tools necessary for self-study, realizing that all learning is ultimately self-learning. A SEBTS Ph.D. grad recently published his dissertation in which he argued against tithing as a New Testament requirement, and a current Ph.D. student is re-examining the question of why the church assembles. But having said that, it remains true that no amount of formal biblical education can ever bring us to a mature understanding of Scripture for the simple reason that education involves more than the intellect. God the Holy Spirit must do His work in our lives. The Good Shepherd alone can lead His sheep into truth. Are you off course? Allow God, through the Scriptures, to make you receptive to truths you may have previously rejected.

In the meantime, let’s not forget that as Christians we are wonderfully bound to each other in a fellowship that goes far beyond the mere sharing of convictions about ecclesiology. It is a supernatural and spiritual reality of Christ-like love and mutual burden-bearing. Only when we learn to experience that kind of love will the world stand up and take notice that we are truly followers of the Prince of Peace.

(From Dave Black Online. Used by permission. David Alan Black is author of Energion titles The Jesus Paradigm, Christian Archy, and Why Four Gospels?.)

discipleship, Discussion

What to Do Each Sunday

From Dave Black Online:

5:22 PM While running my errands today I happened upon our local Christian radio station that was airing what appears to be a new series on the church by Chuck Swindoll. Chuck had us looking at Christ’s promise to build His church and then he requested his audience to turn to Acts 2 for a look at the birth of the church. Focusing on Acts 2:42, he emphasized that there are four marks of a local church. There will always be these four marks, he claimed. There may be more but never less. The four marks, as recorded by Luke, are teaching, fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and prayers. Ironically, and sadly in my view, Chuck reinterpreted the third mark to refer to “worship.” Is this, perhaps by metonymy, what doctor Luke meant? I suppose it is possible. Of course, he may have also meant for us to take him quite literally — that when the early church met it observed the Lord’s Supper. I happen to think he meant the latter. The early church was focused on Christ. It fellowshipped around Him. His body and blood were commemorated regularly. Just because many of us no longer do so today is no reason for us to take the breaking of the bread and transform it into what today we call “worship services.” (True worship, of course, is not what we do on Sunday but what we do 24/7. See Rom. 12:1-2. I have commented on this subject in my essay Enter to Serve, Depart to Worship.) Continue reading What to Do Each Sunday →

discipleship, Discussion

On Learning from the Anabaptists

From Dave Black Online:

Arthur Sido makes this astute observation about the Anabaptists:

The original Anabaptists and their modern progeny have much to praise but likewise they have much to be cautious about. I try to remember when praising the Anabaptists that they have their flaws and that we should not seek to “become Anabaptists”. Anabaptism is not the answer, but Anabaptism does help point us to the answer.

Point well-taken. I put it this way in The Jesus Paradigm:

I hope no reader will suppose that Anabaptism is being put forward as an alternative to the Word of God, as if any man-made movement is preferable to the testimony of inspired Scripture. The record of Anabaptism is by no means a spotless one. Like every movement of the Holy Spirit it is the story of a weak, stammering church that moved over a field of ecclesiastical rubble. I’m not condoning everything in the movement or offering pious panaceas. If I have left an overly positive impression, it is because I believe that an appreciation of Anabaptism can prove fruitful in many areas of Christian life and witness. The important point is this: Anabaptism was a valid, if incomplete, representation of Christ’s Body – nothing more, nothing less. I also hope that this chapter might have a mollifying effect on those modern-day traditionalists who view dissent as inherently misguided and dissenters as mere fanatics or Schwärmer. (The parallel with Luther and Zwingli will not escape the reader.)

Learn from them; but don’t worship them.

(Dave Black is author of Energion Publications titles The Jesus Paradigm and Christian Archy as well as co-editor of the Areopagus Critical Christian Issues series.  Material from his blog is used by permission.)

discipleship, Discussion

Gifts and Ministry

From Dave Black Online:

Brother Jason’s message today from Acts 4-5 was a wonderful reminder to me that the church needs to be generous at all times, not just when disaster strikes. What an encouragement — and warning! — this passage must have been to the early church, and what a strong exhortation it could bring to many in our own day. Our American churchianity often puts our needs and comforts above those of others. Our culture is smug and self-centered. Jesus insisted that His followers care for the vulnerable. That, after all, is how He lived.As Jason was speaking, my mind wandered (sorry, Jason!) to another passage that speaks about generosity, namely James 1:17. In church I happened to have the NET Bible with me (along with my Latin and Greek, of course), and I was delighted to see how Dan Wallace & Co. had rendered this verse: “All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above….” Fantastic! This verse contains a great but often overlooked truth: Not only do our gifts ultimately come from God Himself, but even our desire to give — our propensity to be generous, if you will — is the product of God’s grace at work in our lives. This truth is masked, of course, in the NIV’s rendering, “Every good and perfect gift is from above….” What a horrible conflation of the two different Greek words here for “gift.” (The NIV, to be acceptable here, simply needed to add a note giving the literal. Sadly, it often fails to do that.)

All of which means that I can take no credit either for what I give or for the desire to give it!

Dave Black is the author of The Jesus Paradigm and Christian Archy from Energion Publications as well as numerous other books.  This extract is used with his kind permission.

discipleship, Discussion

People are Vulnerable to Love

From Dave Black Online:

People are vulnerable to love. That’s one of the points Becky emphasized with the middle schoolers today. She told the story of a Muslim man in a small village in southern Ethiopia whom she had outfitted with a pair of non-prescription reading glasses. When he left the church compound he told the leaders, “Never have I seen such love as in this place.”

Continue reading People are Vulnerable to Love →