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The Historical Story of External Factors Perverting the Meaning of Church
The New Testament Meaning of Church
God revealed His Word, which is the special revelation of every and all of His Words by God the Spirit through human authors. Those words communicate plainly the will of God to man, including the nature of the church. The church is what scripture says it is through its cumulative usages in the New Testament. What the Bible says the church is, is what it is, regardless of what occurs in the world or what men may say or have said that it is.
The New Testament shows that in its rudimentary sense, the church is local only. The underlying Greek word, ekklesia, means “assembly.” The church is an assembly. It is always an assembly and that’s what the word means. Even if the New Testament addresses the doctrine of the church in a generic way, a church is still what it is, an assembly. And yet today, people will say and have said that the church is mainly not an assembly, but a mystical or spiritual universal entity, not local or visible. How did this happen? It didn’t start out that way.
Historical Theology
Historical Theology or the History of Christian Doctrine can show the changes in the meaning of words and doctrine. The meaning of ekklesia and the doctrine of the church changed from its usage and teaching in the New Testament. The church changed into something it was into something it was not and is not. More than changing, outside influences through history actually perverted the meaning of church and the doctrine of the church.
The history of Christian doctrine tells a story of external factors. One of the values of historical theology is chronicling the culture of the world, governments, and other societal elements that affected the beliefs of Christianity. External factors have affected the interpretation, meaning, and doctrine of God’s Word. Instead of reading out the plain meaning of the text of the New Testament, people read into the text something not in it. This is another attack on scripture by Satan and the world system.
How Changes Occurred
One of the benefits of studying the history of Christian doctrine is investigating the changes in doctrine and how they occurred. Outside circumstances affected how people understood the biblical writings and their teaching. False teaching also begets more false teaching. A major component to change is fear. The Roman Empire opposed Christianity in the first three centuries and people adapted their belief and practice out of fear. Scripture reveals how that fear can and will modify what people will believe.
In addition, teachers of scripture mix biblical teaching with human philosophies, such as Platonism and mysticism. Through the decades and centuries since Christ, students of scripture allowed the influence of other writings to affect their understanding of the Bible. Traditions sometimes took precedent over sound exegesis of the biblical text. Predominant teachers held greater sway in the minds of people. Powerful men put their thumb on the scale of their preferred scholars and instructors, giving them an oversized impact on contemporary thinking.
Once John finished writing the book of Revelation in the late first century, which completed the New Testament and the canon of scripture, apostolic authority ceased. Scripture stood as the final authority. Also, authoritative leaders were in individual churches, not anything greater than that. The New Testament shows no hierarchy. Pastor and deacons were the only church officers. The pastor presided over their prospective, individual churches, each under Jesus Christ. Individual churches would fellowship with other churches of like faith and practice.
Just Individual Churches
The New Testament shows that churches cooperated with one another in non authoritative ways. They passed around the New Testament books (Galatians 1:2, Colossians 4:16). Churches met together to settle disputes with one another (Acts 15). A church would host and provide hospitality to those traveling from other churches (3 John). Several different churches might send funds to help out another church (1 Corinthians 16:1-3). An individual church would send support to a missionary from another church (Philippians 4).
According to the New Testament, no other church had authority over another church. Jesus was the Head of each church and accomplished that headship through scripture. The demarcation between churches could and did impede the spread of false doctrine. No evidence exists in the New Testament of one church having authority over another. The spirit of the New Testament is serving one another (Philip 2:1-5, Eph 5:21, Matt 20:25-28), not domination over one another.
Authority in Individual Churches
God gives authority to pastors over individual congregations and nothing greater than that (Hebrews 13:7,17, 1 Peter 5:1-3, Titus 2:15, 1 Timothy 5:17). Even the pastors with authority over their individual, separate churches (assemblies) also are themselves under the authority of their churches (1 Timothy 5:19-20). After the end of the apostolic era, this is all someone sees in the New Testament. Apostles had authority greater than one church, but no one else. The apostle Paul still submitted to church authority though, the authority of the single church at Antioch (Acts 13:1-3).
What drew together the churches of the New Testament into unity was having the same Head, Jesus, the same source of authority, scripture, and an identical gospel, means of salvation. Jesus calls His church, “my church,” in Matthew 16:18. He congregation distinguished itself from other assemblies by the means expressed by Him in the Gospels and then through His inspired followers in the rest of the New Testament. Churches could become something less than or other than a church or a true church, like the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-21.
Separate Churches Protecting Doctrine and Practice
When Jesus wanted to bring back a church toward Him, so that it didn’t become a Laodicean church, He worked through individual messengers through an inspired message. He didn’t operate through a greater hierarchical system. One can understand how that having a so-called catholic church with hierarchical authority could bring immediate and widespread false doctrine, heresy, and apostasy. With the head corrupted, everything below it would corrupt too. The autonomy of individual churches could protect the truth using the means given only to individual churches.
Separate churches could protect the doctrine and practice of the church through separation. God gave each church pastors to protect the separate church and church discipline. Church discipline could not operate through anything greater than a single church. It was designed for one church. The Lord’s Table was given to a separate church, which had accountability with its own membership. Body parts function in one location with the witness of all the other parts. Parts of a body do not work together outside of a single locale, which is what “body” itself communicates.
Body, Local
The Apostle Paul in defining the body, didn’t say “we are the body,” but “ye are the body,” excluding himself (1 Corinthians 12:27). That didn’t mean Paul wasn’t himself in a body. He was, even as he says in Romans 12:5. The oneness of a body though is in a particular body, not in bodies spread out all over the globe. Unity occurs in churches, which were given by Christ the means to do so.
With the plain understanding of church in the New Testament, how did other teaching develop through the centuries? This is a story and strongly relates to a few significant factors. Judaism and then the Roman Empire persecuted the first church and then the churches proceeding from that church. Judaism crossed regional boundaries and the Roman Empire was itself spread over the then known world. The Roman Empire was mammoth and with tremendous military and political power. It threatened the very existence of the first churches that started across its empire.
More to Come
The Significance of Mediation in Reconciliation and Relationship, pt. 2
Sin separates man from God and the only way back to regain that relationship comes through mediation. Man cannot get back to God on his own. He needs a mediator. You know that is Jesus, about whom the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
Reconciliation brings together two opposing or warring parties. A barrier separates them. Perhaps the two can reconcile without mediation. When it comes to God and man, the separation requires mediation for reconciliation to occur. Very often for two people to reconcile, mediation is also necessary.
Mediation is a means of reconciliation. Mediation must occur between man and God for reconciliation to succeed. Reconciliation very often requires mediation in order to succeed between other opposing parties: nations, tribes, families, and people. A rift can exist between two people impossible for them alone to eliminate. They need help.
The book of Philemon presents mediation by the Apostle Paul between Philemon and Onesimus. In so doing, it reveals many important components to successful mediation. Paul gives a master class on mediation between two conflicting people. It also provides the authority for the act of mediation. Mediation is scriptural.
Two churches, Jerusalem and Antioch, the first two churches in the world, came to a division between each other. They had to sort it out with one another in Acts 15. They were able to do so. In 1 Corinthians 11:18-19, Paul says that divisions will need to occur and for several reasons. Despite those, the divided sides should strive for unity.
Mediation and Neutrality
I like the way Thayer puts it in his lexicon: “one who intervenes between two, either in order to make or restore peace and friendship, or to form a compact, or for ratifying a covenant.” Friberg lexicon says, “basically, a neutral and trusted person in the middle (Gk, mesos). He continues, “one who works to remove disagreement, mediator, go-between, reconciler.”
When Moses called for witnesses (Ex 21:22-25, Dt 17:6-7), referenced by Jesus (Mt 18:16) and Paul (1 Tim 5:19), that meant neutral ones. Neutral ones stand under cross examination. Just because someone has two or three people who testify does not constitute biblical witness.
A legal component exists in mediation. The mediator, like a judge, ensures fairness in the process of reconciliation. He witnesses and weighs the speech and behavior between the two sides. Scripture illustrates this role in 1 Kings 3 with Solomon’s judgment of two women fighting for the same baby.
Real Desire for Reconciliation Wants Mediation Too
Both women claimed the same child as her own. Solomon said he would divide the child in two and give one half to each. The true mother deferred. She wanted the child to live. She would lose her own child to the other woman. Solomon knew the deferential mother was the true one. Her response to mediation told a tale, as it most often does in conflicts. The one who desires the relationship, really wants it, not just posing like the imposter mother did, also wants mediation.
You want a mediator to be just. He cannot judge in a biased way. Like Friberg said above, he must be a neutral party. Fair mediation requires equal justice. If you went for mediation and you found the mediator on the payroll of the other party, you might think him biased. Just courts prohibit this in their judges and juries because of potential prejudice.
Someone really wanting reconciliation will accept mediation. When a person does not want reconciliation, neither does he want mediation. He doesn’t want neutrality. He wants his way and a stamp of approval. This is not mediation. It is not even a witness in the arbitration of an event.
Pitfalls to Mediation
What happens in a broken relationship with friends, institutions, or family members and one side calls for mediation? The other party rejects. Maybe you reader too reject mediation. Think about it.
People very often want vengeance in an issue. Maybe they have a grudge. They coddle and nurture wrath. They prefer a biased judge with a biased handpicked jury, who will give them the decision they want. This is the government of North Korea. At a trial, you receive only the will the authoritarian leader. Mediation will require humility.
Judges cloister juries against corrupting outside influences. Information from outside the courtroom does not face cross-examination. Personal feelings and gossip shape opinions.
During the Cold War, what deterred two warring nations was called “mutually deterred destruction.” With the advent of nuclear weapons, nations would use their threat to take over as many other nations as they could. The United States needed nuclear weapons to deter such actions. Ronald Reagan called this “peace through strength.” Military power aided negotiations with a threatening enemy. Both sides need similar strength for fair judgment.
More to Come, Lord-willing
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