To all new movements (like IFB, etc...)

[Don]

Yes, the popular strategy desperately needs to be reevaluated. The strategy of coddling arrogance and ignorance is doomed from the start. This strategy is the fad now and has been for a few decades, While we embrace it we LOSE ground in our culture.

So yes the strategy should be reevaluated but humility is necessary for that to take place. The humble ones are almost NEVER the ones with the sweetest words. Boldness, bluntness and humility are are true companions. Those who think they are being humble by being more winsome almost never are. But they convince themselves that they are by gaining consensus of other people who also want to think that these things make one humble.

Humility is a ready willingness to be the odd man out- to be the one called arrogant for standing firmly for what he thinks is right. Humility is almost never in the ranks of consensus. Humility is the lack of ambition for consensus concerning the popular fad of communication or ministry or whatever.

Arrogance thinks that it is humility. That's the arrogance of it. Arrogance loves to be bragged on about how humble it is.
Humility doesn't think of these things at all. Humility thinks only, "How can I communicate the truth the way it best deserves to be communicated in the current circumstance? How can I do that regardless of the criticism it brings, the strife against me it stirs, the vitriolic words it will heave upon my head- but I know that the sting of truth that makes me unpopular is that which makes the difference in the long run."

So yes, with all my heart I pray the current strategy will be reevaluated. I hope that some soul hungering more for truth than consensus will compare the methods he currently employs to the methods of men like Luther or Peter or Paul or Christ or Elijah or Edwards or Spurgeon and many others who are not restricted to just a fad of communication strategy like the one brainwashing our religious culture today. I hope then TRUE humility will arise in that soul and embrace the sting of truth that has ALWAYS made the difference for the Kingdom of God in every age when it has prospered.

And yet, you just spent all that time defending and discussing method rather than message. . . .

BTW: I agree with Rippon regarding his quoting of that section of your response to Seeking; well said.

 

[seekingthetruth]

A movement?

Since the Reformation began in the 16th century, and the church went without it for 1500 years, could it not be said that reformation is just a movement also? maybe even more so?

John

 

[Rippon]

Since the Reformation began in the 16th century, and the church went without it for 1500 years, could it not be said that reformation is just a movement also? maybe even more so?

The Reformation was a mighty movement of God --I'd say the biggest sustained Revival in the whole of church History.

 

[Ruiz]

Since the Reformation began in the 16th century, and the church went without it for 1500 years, could it not be said that reformation is just a movement also? maybe even more so?

John

There is a slight problem with that thought. When challenged with the idea that their ideas were new, Calvin showed theologically how their views were not new citing them throughout church history. One Monk, after one debate on this very issue, exclaimed, "We have been deceived" in talking about the Roman Catholic Church.

So, it was historic but the revival in the doctrines were suppressed for years until the Reformation.

 

[seekingthetruth]

The Reformation was a mighty movement of God --I'd say the biggest sustained Revival in the whole of church History.

Pentecostals say the same thing about Azusa.

John

 

[JesusFan]

But you assume that you understand all the great doctrines of Scripture in a vacuum. God did not give it to us that way.

Even the authors of the Bible knew they needed the hundreds of years of godly people before them!

Paul did not learn all he knew in his prayer closet speaking in tongues.

Paul stood on the shoulders of thousands of years of men of God before him. Those men bore him up to the understanding that he had of theology. It ws from there that he built his great Holy Spirit inspired theology.

Th doctrine of the Trinity did not come to full fruition in the first century. Athanasius looked to Paul and Tertullian and the other patristics before him, and whether you know it or not you have looked to Athanasius all your Christian life for aid in your understanding of the glorious yet complex doctrine of the Trinity. You didn't just pick up your Bible one day and jot down the word Trinity in a margin having never learned it before. You lean on church history for that.

This idea that you can understand everything in the bible in a vacuum is folly. God did not give us the Bible that way. The reason anyone would think we can fully understand it that way is that we live in the most ignorant and arrogant religious culture the Church has ever known.

God is about the Body. Though he is personal his primary work is ecclesiological. We work TOGETHER to understand the Bible. We are not so full of ourselves that we ignore our intense need of each other to even understand the Scripture and we are certainy not so blind that we are oblivious to the necessity of leaning on the pillars of thousands of saints before us who are also, though now in heaven, part of this same Church. This American lone ranger, me and the Holy Ghost and nobody else business is a new deadly fad.

Sola Scriptura CAME from men who cherished the help of the patristics and the scholastics, etc... who came before them.

If you have an ounce of real humility you will cherish it too. And you will hold in disdain any attitude like that which Pentecostals and KJVonlyists embrace which ignores church history and orthodoxy- tools God Almighty has employed to build his church stronger and stronger throughout the ages.

The doctrine contained and explained within the Bible though were ALL inspired from God directly Himself, so there would be NO need for those authors to be building upon prior theologies/understanding, as they WERE the originals on which all further understandings were to be based upon!

Do agree with you that we should and need to learn from those who went before us, but also that even if the historical church agreed upon a particular doctrine, such as the RCC for all those years before reformation, still does not mean right!

So the doctrines of Dispy/gifts etc could very well be on a bilical basis, asnd also think that we need to realise that some of what the early Church fathers and church taught/believed were switched out when the RCC "took over", as church was pre mill, did see isreal/Church seperate etc, but when the cathilic church became prominent, that group swirtched us to viewing the RCC as being Kindgom of God in earth, and than a Mil came prominent, even the reformers kept that pretty much, as they were most interested in faith alone grace alone to deal with![/quote]

 

[Luke2427]

And yet, you just spent all that time defending and discussing method rather than message. . . .

BTW: I agree with Rippon regarding his quoting of that section of your response to Seeking; well said.

Thanks to the latter comment.

As to the former let me just clarify- I believe the method is very important.

The truth deserves to be communicated properly.

Timidity and winsomeness rarely suits truth as a vehicle when that truth is suppressed in darkness. Truth should burst forth rather than seep out.

I believe with all my heart that what is being discussed on this thread concerns a great darkness that is killing our religious culture. That darkness consists of intense arrogance and ignorance that should not be coddled. We are to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them.

 

[Amy.G]

The old statement rings true, "If it is new, it probably is not true. If it is true, it probably is not new."

I'm so thankful the apostles didn't believe this or Christianity would have died 2000 years ago.

(Remember the NEW wine skins?)

 

[Luke2427]

Since the Reformation began in the 16th century, and the church went without it for 1500 years, could it not be said that reformation is just a movement also? maybe even more so?

John

That's the thing. The reformation was a return to something very old and that the church settled a long time ago. The Augustine pelagian controversy settled the theology of it in the fourth century. The solas were not new. They were long held beliefs in the church that the corruption of the papacy gradually undermined over the centuries. The reformation was not new. It was a return to the old.

Pentecostalism on the other hand is new. The orthodox church never adhered to these doctrines in her history. KJVonlyism is new. And the list could go on and on.

 

[JesusFan]

That's the thing. The reformation was a return to something very old and that the church settled a long time ago. The Augustine pelagian controversy settled the theology of it in the fourth century. The solas were not new. They were long held beliefs in the church that the corruption of the papacy gradually undermined over the centuries. The reformation was not new. It was a return to the old.

Pentecostalism on the other hand is new. The orthodox church never adhered to these doctrines in her history. KJVonlyism is new. And the list could go on and on.

the "orthodox" Church though denied the true Gospel until the time of the Reformation though, and there were times where gifts did operate, just "disappeared" due to ignorance of the subject, perhaps, as there was indeed a "dark age" in the church age!

And to be fair, was the view "KJV ONlY" THE way solid majority saw it in the "orthodox" Church until late 1800's, when critical text studies/supporters/modern versions started "taking off?'

(I AM NOT a KJV Only, as dont even use it to study from, sticking to Nas/Esv, and Greek texts!)[/quote]

 

[Squire Robertsson]

Further, the Reformers violently disagreed with our Baptist forefathers and their progenitors. Sometimes, the only point of agreement between the Lutherans, Reformed, and the RCC was Baptists were trouble making heretics worthy of death.

the "orthodox" Church though denied the true Gospel until the time of the Reformation though, and there were times where gifts did operate, just "disappeared" due to ignorance of the subject, perhaps, as there was indeed a "dark age" in the church age!

And to be fair, was the view "KJV ONlY" THE way solid majority saw it in the "orthodox" Church until late 1800's, when critical text studies/supporters/modern versions started "taking off?'

(I AM NOT a KJV Only, as dont even use it to study from, sticking to Nas/Esv, and Greek texts!)

 

[JesusFan]

Further, the Reformers violently disagreed with our Baptist forefathers and their progenitors. Sometimes, the only point of agreement between the Lutherans, Reformed, and the RCC was Baptists were trouble making heretics worthy of death.

Think this all would say to us that there was really no single Christian faith/doctrine evr since times of the Aposolic Church, in the sense that we had SAME essentails of the Faith taught exactly alike, as we had even in core doctrines different understandings, like in modes of water baptism, church relationship to isreal, view of salvation systems etc!

Great that some appeak to the historic faith as a way to judge modern varients on theology, its just there was really no common faith to appeal to!
Instead, its commin doctrines, but with a different view on almost each one of them!

So we need to realise that there was doctrines held by early Church that got "displaced/deephasised" by the RCC, there have neen differing viewpoints between different branches in Christianity through the years, and there was doctrine that were brought "back to life" By the HS to the Church!
Not as easy to appeal to historical Theology as some would see!

 

[Robert Snow]

What does any of this have to do with Fundamentalism?

Nothing! Luke has worn out his welcome on most other areas of the forum, so he is determined to find those to insult and argue with here.