Posted on 02/21/2011 3:04:22 PM PST by Gamecock
Hello and welcome to another edition of the White Horse Inn. Every mission statement needs a good strategic plan. If your mission is to make cars, then you need to figure out how you are going to design, assemble, distribute, and sell them. The one to who was given all authority in heaven and on earth entrusted his apostles with the message and the mission. He gave us the method to go along with the Gospel.
There are a lot of details given to us in the New Testament concerning the proper organization and execution of the church's ministry. However, all Christians have held that the Great Commission is marvelously simple and unambiguously clear: The means of fulfilling it are preaching, baptizing, and teaching-that's what the Great Commission actually says. Throughout the Book of Acts, the growth of the church is indicated by the phrase, "and the word of God spread," together with the report of baptisms and adult converts together with their households being baptized. They gathered regularly for the public ministry of preaching, teaching, fellowship, the Supper, and the prayers. The Lord added daily those who were being saved to the church (Acts 2:47). "So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily" (Acts 16:5). There is no distinction in the New Testament between being a disciple and belonging to the church-not just to the invisible church (i.e., of regenerate believers), but to the visible church. Membership in this visible body of Christ is identified by public profession of faith and baptism (in the case of adult converts, reversed in the case of covenant children).
On the basis of the Great Commission-and the many passages that unpack it-the churches of the Reformation affirm that the true church is visible "wherever the Word is rightly preached and the sacraments are rightly administered."
Today this consensus is no longer obvious. Many of us were raised with evangelistic invitations that distinguished sharply between what happens inside us and what happens outside us, between "getting saved" and "joining a church"; a "personal relationship with Jesus" versus "church membership." And all of this goes back still further, to pietism and revivalism and before that to radical Anabaptist movements and still further back to monastic spirituality. The idea is that real disciples are "made" not in the theater of ordinary Word-and-sacrament ministry and the care of elders and deacons, but in the parachurch enclaves for super-spiritual saints.
We've talked before on this program about the "message creep" in the church today. The gospel has become a cliché for all sorts of things: many of them good, but not the gospel. Left to ourselves, the emphasis will always shift back from the Triune God and his saving work in Christ to us and our experience, piety, and activity. The same thing happens with the Great Commission. "Message creep" leads to "mission creep."
One of those places where mission creep often begins is at the level of strategies. Christ not only gave us a mission statement: "Go therefore into all the world and make disciples." He also gave us a strategic plan when he added, "baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you." You see, salvation comes down from God to us, not from us to God. Therefore, the methods he has instituted are designed to deliver his gifts. We've turned God's gospel delivery system into another series of methods for our self-improvement and world-transformation. How do you make disciples of all nations? Jesus says it plainly, "Preach the gospel, baptize, and teach." But we know better. Or do we? That's the question for this discussion at the White Horse Inn.
AYE AYE.
well that’s what I said, Winning the Future
Well, what the heck are you doing asking this on OUR caucus thread???!!! (Just kidding) :o)
It's the difference between *churchianity* and Christianity.
I like to read books like The People Time Forgot by Alice Gibbons or The Peace Child by Don Richardson. It gives a wonderful picture of just what churches look like when unencumbered with programs and committees.
we respect your caucus threads, which incidentally seem to have at the most 3 or 4 posts, so please respect ours.
that’s personal and uncalled for
My sense is that denominational distinctions amongst Protestants are not as important as they once used to be.
Since there’s more recognition of the unity we have in salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, there’s more room for those things which are *disputable* (Romans 14)
Of course, it seems that certain factions would like to keep fueling the fires of denominationalism for their own ends, but I think that most folks just aren’t interested in being put at the throats of other believers.
If they are invited to a Caucus thread by the members of the caucus, I understand that they don’t have to avoid it.
I don’t recall any non-Catholic pinging the Catholics to join this thread.
Protestant is a valid caucus designation.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2677579/posts?page=21#21
On this Protestant Caucus thread, your tagline is out of place.
Absolutely. There are still some problem areas, but for the essentials, there is generally unity. There are always distinctives; but if it doesn't impugn salvation by grace alone through faith alone, given to us by God and relying on no merit of our own, then we can always get along.
:D
Hoss
They are modalists.. that is a heresy .. sorry you may love them but they have a different Jesus
To be a Christian the Trinity is not optional
I understand your perspective.
For a number of RC’s . . .
harsh, pointedly specifically personal, relentless, unwarranted, untrue, inaccurate, false, lying, vicious, vengeful, bitter, spiteful EXTREMELY PERSONAL attacks
are the only
STOCK IN TRADE
some seem interested in demonstrating, sharing, spewing, inflicting on FR.
I think of it somewhat like . . . going to a wedding buffet . . . and spreading DRANO on all the food as a garnish.
Thankfully, discerning folks will be increasingly quick to note the fruit of such tortured souls and their gritchy, prickly, spiteful postings.
At some point, the system itself may get enough fed up with them to put a screeching halt to such hideousness.
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