What is your take on verses like Acts 20:28f, Eph. 4.11, 1 Tim. 3, Titus 1, Heb. 13.17, etc.? Do you see no call for leaders, teachers, and authority structures in the church?
Discussion
Nice video, clearing a lot of things up for me!
Glad to hear it!🙏🏻😀💖
A friend just yesterday connected me with Tom Wadsworth's work, and I'm working my way through his insightful videos:
https://www.tomwadsworth.com/videos
He sees quite clearly that language and our preconceived notions have wreaked havoc on our understanding of the New Testament and of our very reason for regularly gathering as Christians.
FYI, I've also written extensively about this here:
https://peakd.com/library/@creatr/the-curmudgeon-s-bible-my-library-shelf
and here:
https://peakd.com/library/@creatr/the-kingdom-of-jesus-god-the-heavens-my-library-shelf
Nice, i especially liked the true wealth part in your money in the bible article! In the hope to give you something back:
Check out the book: "the essene gospel of peace".
A book about Jesus the essene.
The 'Early Church' didn't have "Worship Services" -- and Kindergartners don't appreciate poetry, understand complex math, or attend the symphony. For my part, I'll choose the maturity that the Lord has been cultivating every day in history *since* the 'early church.' Appeals to 'return to the early church' come off as semi-Deistic: the Lord did something 2000 years ago and hasn't been "building his church" since then so let's just go "back" to those so-called blissful early days. No, thanks. I'm thankful for Nicea, for Chalcedon, for Augustine (contra Pelagius), for Athanasius (contra Arius), for the filioque clause, for Luther (contra Erasmus and Rome), for John Hus, for the Reformation, for the Synod of Dordt, for the products of the Long Parliament--and for their revision in the U.S., for the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy, and every controversy since then that has shaped our character and understanding.
I am thankful for Providence--for who and what the (true) church is *today*.
OK...
So, you recognize that the church went SERIOUSLY off the rails (Rome), requiring the self-examination and course-correction of all the councils, movements, and heroes of the faith you've rightly mentioned...
But now, somehow, we're mature, good to go? There's no accumulated baggage, widely unrecognized and overlooked in our arrogant ignorance? "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing?" "Truly then you are the people, And with you wisdom will die!"
I'm not advocating some return to primitivistic, imagined "blissful early days." I AM saying that we're seriously off the rails again, on the verge of expectoration. It's well past time for another "controversy" to "shape our character and understanding."
Through the ages, our adversary has employed the subtleties of language to corrupt and derail the orthodoxy and praxis of God's people. And, sadly, it seems apparent to me that my approach to elucidating this continues to leave you unimpressed...😢
And so, brother, I appeal to you; won't you please give Tom Wadsworth a listen? He's quite coherent, even at 1.5x speed, and (unlike me) a seriously credentialed scholar.😀 Perhaps the way he explains the unbiblical praxis of what we've known as "church" all our lives will succeed in "stirring you up" where my words have failed...🫂😀