fundamentalism by blunt instrument
A response to Kent Brandenburg’s post, “Why is the idea of the universal church dangerous?” Kent was responding to my question quoted below.
A few weeks ago now, I was asked, "Why is the idea of local church only so important? Or, to put it another way, why is the idea of the universal church dangerous?" This post will answer that question.
ONE, the universal church as a teaching or belief eisegetes scripture or distorts the plain meaning of the text.
I think we can safely say that one of the marks of Landmarkism is the “local-only” view of the church. When we say that we are NOT saying that everyone who holds this view is a Landmarker, but those who hold to Landmark views would hold to a local-only view.
Would that be stating things correctly? Duncan’s article and Dr. Moritz’ article seem to bear this out.
I’d like to think about the historical record a bit more in this post.
I’m listening to the audio of the Strange Fire conference. Good stuff for the most part. I am sure there are points to quibble with in content from time to time, no one gets it one hundred percent right all the time. I have to say, overall, that this is an impressive effort. I encourage everyone to listen. Having said that, there are two things that stick in my craw, one is perhaps minor, the other may be major.
Number One Son has posted some notes on a connection between Landmarkism and the Local Church Only view.
I don’t think he is saying that the local only view is exclusive to Landmarkism, but that there is at least a connection.
Anyway, for those interested, thought you might like to see it.
This is very, very, very good. Regular readers of this space will know that I disagree with the author profoundly on several points. But I have to recommend this article to you. He is exactly right.
When our children were little, people often would say to us, “just wait till they are teenagers.” The teenage years were such a blessing, so much fun with our kids… in some ways the best years of our life so far. I could wish them back except that now I have a granddaughter!
The point of the article is that teaching children obedience is a biblical requirement with rich rewards for the parents who insist on obedience … and for their children too! Teaching obedience requires courage, energy, initiative and drive. It is the best spiritual investment you can make in the lives of your children.
I know, I know, the cycle of life isn’t over yet. Children have wills of their own. They can still disappoint. They may make choices that overthrow all the training you have invested in them.
Don’t let such possibilities be excuses for your lazy, selfish attempts at making parenting easy.
This is dictionary.com’s word of the day today. It sounds disturbing, but it means “twilight, dusk”. Hardly as ominous as it sounds. The word comes to us from the Latin, they say, around the year 1400.
It just struck me as odd, and I thought you might be entertained by it. Hard to imagine using it in a sentence, though dictionary.com does give examples. Try it on your friends tonight!
In my earlier post I defended the notion of calling the body of Christ “the universal Church.” My point was based on the idea that the meaning of ekklesia, the Greek word for church, was advanced beyond its original simple meaning of ‘assembly’ (from secular Greek usage) to refer to any body of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ whether they were in assembly at any given point in time or not.
From Eph 1.22-23, 1 Cor 12.13, and Heb 12.23, the data points to something more than a local body. I recognize that some will try to work these passages into a local-only view. I don’t agree with their conclusions but appreciate the valiant effort.
Today I want to contrast the two ideas and address a few other passages that require an additional term in the concept of the church as the body of Christ.
Just a heads up in case you don’t follow Proclaim & Defend every day (you should!)… I put up a post today raising questions about Al Mohler’s recent appearance at Brigham Young University.
I’ve been doing a little study on the term ekklesia recently. That’s the Greek term translated ‘church’ in the New Testament (at least most of the time). The word is important to Baptists because of the prominence of eccliesiology (the doctrine of the church) to the Baptist distinctives.
NAU Luke 7:30 But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.
The word for purpose here is a very interesting word. Thayer defines it this way:
counsel, purpose … especially of the purpose of God respecting the salvation of men through Christ
The latest audio from the GBCvic
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