I shall never be a heritic

"I shall never be a heretic; I may err in dispute, but I do not wish to decide anything finally; on the other hand, I am not bound by the opinions of men." - Martin Luther

ditto

Related Post:

• Am I a heretic?

N.T. Wright on Reformers Perspective of Scripture

N.T. Wright in The Last Word:

"If the Reformers could return and address us today, they would not say "We got it all right; you must follow our exegesis and theology and implement it precisely as it stands." What they would say is "You must follow our method: read and study scripture for all it's worth, and let it do its work in the world, in and through you and your churches" They would not be surprised if, as a result, we came up at some points with different, or differently nuanced, theological and practical proposals. They would encourage us to go where scripture led, using all the tools available to us, and being prepared to challenge all human traditions, including the "Reformation" traditions themselves, insofar as scripture itself encouraged us to do so."

I found this paragraph interesting. I have a picture of some of the early reformers thinking "The scripture is the final authority... as long as you read it the same as I do. Otherwise you are more of a heretic and danger than the Roman Catholic Church... so we will hunt you down and kill you".

But maybe N.T. Wright is Right. Ohh.. people must have fun with his name. Is Wright Right or is he NoT. Right.... I digress...

The Reformers did have a belief in semper reformanda (the church must always be reforming), so maybe many of them would be pleased with some of the questions we are asking of tradition, and how we are asking God to speak through scripture to guide us forward.

Playdough Scripture Matt 28:18

"Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me the books you guys are going to write."

Matthew 28:18 (Playdough Version)


(idea stolen from N.T. Wright in The Last Word)

Related Posts:

• My 95 Thesis - Point 8 - Sola Scriptura
• Word in you
• Freedom from Biblicism
• People of the Book
• Word Study on The Word
• Word Study on Word Of The Lord
• Word Study on Word Of God

The Choosing of the Seven

I believe some use Acts 6:1-6 to support the current practice of electing elders or deacons.

Acts 6:1-6 (NIV)

In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

What were these men selected to do?

The community of believers was having a hard time taking care of the needs of some of the widows. They decided they needed a few men to focus on this task. They would be servants, waiters, interacting relationally with a specific group of people.

Was it a role of authority or decision making for the rest of the body?

No, not really.

If we were to use this as a model for something in our gatherings, what types of roles could this be a model for?

Best Fit:

• Selecting people to take food and love to people in need.
• Many churches have people who focus on this. In some communities they are called a deaconess. However I haven't seen the whole assembly gather to select/elect these people who are going to serve in this way.

If we want to make it fit as a model for other service, what about:

• prepare food for others
• clean dishes after a group meal
• set up and tear down chairs
• clean the building
• ushering
• take care of nursery aged children
• Or maybe any role where some serve others on a regular basis.

If we are not using this model to select people to serve in other areas, why are we using it to select some to 'serve' as 'leaders' who have some sort decision making authority for the gathering. The context here was definitely serve as waiters and servants. (Which by the way is what deacon meant... but I think we've redefined that.)

The First Pastors

I have realized that nobody in the New Testament church called themselves Pastor. Why do we have people using that title today? Who were some of the first people to call themselves Pastor?

So I started to speculate ...

My guess was that it was some guys in the reformation who no longer wanted to use the title Priest. They didn't want to be confused with those other totalitarian leaders. But didn't know what title to use. So they looked through the New Testament in search of a title.

Overseer? That could have described their position where they watched over those in their established congregations. But no... that is what Bishop means and that had already been used.

What about Teacher, or Father? No, Matthew 23:8-12 would be easily used against them.

So they picked Pastor. It only shows up once in the NT, but maybe they could convince Christ followers that they needed to follow someone called a Pastor (or shepherd). Just enough truth to make it work.

OK... enough speculation...

Google searches have let me down. All I can find is reference that John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli were some of the first people to use the title Pastor. I have to thank them for some of their contributions towards the protestant reformation. However this adds to my disappointment as well.

All I can say is I'm glad I'm not living in their day... I would have objected... and that would have reduced my life expectancy.

As always, I appreciate any feedback, even if you disagree with me. I couldn't find many facts on this. Who first used the title Pastor? What motivated them to do this? Do you agree?

Related Posts:

• The Pastor
• Anabaptists and Zwingli
• John Calvin
• Five Points of Calvinism

Nestorius and the Schism in 430s

We in the West think mostly in terms of the Roman Catholic Church when we think of church history. But what about the Christians who lived outside the Roman Empire. They were not all under the authority of Rome.

History has St. Thomas going to India spreading the gospel message. Similar to the church in the West, they are not all homogeneous. There are different organizations/grouping, and I'm not the expert on this at all so I won't try to give a history lesson based on my quick readings.

What I want to say is this. It seems there was a line drawn in the sand around some theory made by Nestorius. The church of the West agreed Nestorius was a heretic. The church in the East was more accepting of Nestorius.

It seems like it was a big thing. People who supported Nestorius actually moved outside the Roman Empire into Persia where Christians were being persecuted. Was the persecution from the Roman Church worse than the persecution they got from non-Christians?

So what was the issue with Nestorius' theory:

Nestorius' teachings became the root of controversy when he publicly challenged usage of the long-used title Theotokos (Mother of God) for the Virgin Mary. He suggested that the title denied Christ's full humanity, arguing instead that Jesus had two loosely joined natures, the divine Logos and the human Jesus. As such he proposed Christotokos (Mother of Christ) as a more suitable title for Mary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorianism#Nestorian_doctrine

I must be missing something. This doesn't seem like Nestorius was questioning any essential belief here. He believed Jesus was both divine and human. He thought the title 'Mother of God' was a bit strong for a human.

We sure do have a history of making mountains out of molehills.