Why Become a Rainbow Church?

Exchange ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-276
Author(s):  
Robert Calvert
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Study Group ◽  
National Service ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Service Centre ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The City

AbstractAcross the cities of Europe, there are new and growing Christian communities with leadership originating from Asia, Africa and Latin America. In recent years, the formation of SKIN (Samen Kerk in Nederland — Together Church in the Netherlands) and the publication of a book entitled Geboren in Sion (Born in Sion) have contributed to our understanding. However, it remains a major challenge for the indigenous churches to relate to their life and spirituality. Can we learn from Biblical models of heterogeneous and multicultural Christian communities in the New Testament? Different aspects of the identity and contrasting types of so-called migrant churches are explored in this paper which was first presented to the migrant study group at the Landelijke Diensten Centrum (National Service Centre) of the Protestantse Kerken in Nederland (Protestant Churches in the Netherlands) in Utrecht on November 15, 2004. Some examples have been cited from the city of Rotterdam and questions raised in order to how to recognize and receive their spiritual gift in the Netherlands.

The New Testament and Intellectual Humility

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Macaskill
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Sacrificial Love ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

This book examines how the New Testament scriptures might form and foster intellectual humility within Christian communities. It is informed by recent interdisciplinary interest in intellectual humility, and concerned to appreciate the distinctive representations of the virtue offered by the New Testament writers on their own terms. It argues that the intellectual virtue is cast as a particular expression of the broader Christian virtue of humility, which proceeds from the believer’s union with Christ, through which personal identity is reconstituted by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Hence, we speak of ‘virtue’ in ways determined by the acting presence of Jesus Christ, overcoming sin and evil in human lives and in the world. The Christian account of the virtue is framed by this conflict, as believers within the Christian community struggle with natural arrogance and selfishness, and come to share in the mind of Christ. The new identity that emerges creates a fresh openness to truth, as the capacity of the sinful mind to distort truth is exposed and challenged. This affects knowledge and perception, but also volition: for these ancient writers, a humble mind makes good decisions that reflect judgments decisively shaped by the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. By presenting ‘humility of mind’ as a characteristic of the One who is worshipped—Jesus Christ—the New Testament writers insist that we acknowledge the virtue not just as an admission of human deficiency or limitation, but as a positive affirmation of our rightful place within the divine economy.

Kann man die neutestamentlichen Briefe der Gattung „Apostelbrief“ zuordnen?

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Bärbel Bosenius
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The New Testament

During the last 40 years New Testament scholarship did not apply the term “apostolic letter” consistently. All early Christian letters and only the New Testament or Pauline respectively Deutero-Pauline letters were called “apostolic letters” by New Testament scholars. Since the term from the sources ἀπόστολος in the undisputed Pauline letters refers to Paul’s function as founder of early Christian communities but not to his function as their leader, New Testament scholars should avoid the misleading term “apostolic letter.” Within the corpus of New Testament letters one should rather differentiate between “kerygmatic letters,” “pseudepigraphic Pauline letters” and “early Christian Diaspora letters.”

scholarly journals Teologia kapłaństwa i urzędu kapłańskiego w I wieku chrześcijaństwa

2010 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Dariusz Kasprzak
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Good News ◽  
New Covenant ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church

Neither the Apostles nor any Christian minister is admitted to use the priest’s title in the text of the New Testament. Nevertheless, in the New Testament we can perceive the development of the doctrine of the priest ministry in the early Church. Albert Vanhoye maintains that the lack of the term “priest” in the New Testament suggests the way of understanding of the Christian ministry, different from this in the Old Testament. It can’t be considered as a continuation of Jewish priesthood, which was concentrated mainly on ritual action and ceremonies. In the first century the Church developed the Christology of priesthood (Hbr) and ecclesiology of priesthood (1 P). Early Christians focused first on the redemptive event of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and Jesus as the mediator of a new covenant. Only then the religious communities adopted the priest’s title for their ministry.In the early years of the Church, all the ministries were regarded as a charismatic service among the Christian communities. In their services the early Christians followed Jesus Christ sent by God to serve. The Holy Spirit sent by God in the name of Jesus bestowed the spiritual gifts upon the Church (1 Kor 12–13). Consequently the disciples of Jesus and their successors could continue his mission. The Twelve Apostles’ ministry was the very first and most important Christian ministry. It was closely connected to the service of Jesus Christ himself. The Apostles were sent by the authority of Jesus Christ to continue his mission upon earth and they preached the Good News of the risen Christ. The Apostolicity was the fundamental base for every Church ministry established in different Christian communities. Successive ministries were established in order to transmit the teaching of Jesus Christ and to lead the community. For the early Christians the priesthood was not an individual privilege. It had rather the community character.

scholarly journals New Testament Anthropology: Conscience as an Anthropological Phenomenon in the Context of the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle

2021 ◽  
pp. 114-124
Author(s):  
Priest Aleksiy (Razdorov) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
Christian Worldview ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Historical Epoch ◽  
Human Awareness

This article examines the New Testament teaching about man in the authentic epistles of Paul the Apostle. In particular, it studies the anthropological phenomenon of conscience as one of the important ethical terms in Christian worldview. In spite of the fact that this topic has been thoroughly investigated by Western biblical science, Russian theological environment has not been paying it sufficient attention. Therefore, from the position of theological and philological research within the framework of the historical and cultural approach, the article dwells on conscience expressed by Paul the Apostle through the term συνείδησις in the epistles to the Corinthians and the Romans, whose authorship as St. Paul’s is unquestioned by modern biblical studies. The research shows that Paul the Apostle used the term συνείδησις in a sense related to human awareness, without any explicit emphasis on morality as in the works by Stoic philosophers. For St. Paul, the term συνείδησις in a general sense means an autonomous anthropological instance of a person’s judgеment/assessment of his/her own behaviour in relation to the norms, laws and rules adopted by him/her. However, depending on the historical circumstances in the life of Christian communities, Paul the Apostle gave this term his own semantic connotations. According to this research, in the text of the Pauline epistles συνείδησις appears not only as a general anthropological phenomenon, but also as an independent (autonomous) personified witness to the truth, as an instance that checks the correspondence between the declared value norms in the mind and the person’s own behaviour. This instance reflects the mental activity of a conscious human as a person in any cultural and historical epoch regardless of his/her religious preferences.

Thessalonians

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Ascough
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
Problematic Behavior ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
Fear And Anxiety ◽  
The City ◽  
Community Relationships

The two letters written to the Christian group at the city of Thessalonica occupy the thirteenth and fourteenth places in the canon of the New Testament; they are eighth and ninth in the sequence of Paul’s letters. There is little doubt that Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians, and many scholars consider it to be one of his earliest letters. In contrast, the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians is much contested, with scholars split between ascribing it to Paul and ascribing it to a later writer using Paul’s name. On the other hand, the textual integrity of 2 Thessalonians is secure, while 1 Thessalonians is argued by some to be a combination of two or more letters, or at the very least, they suggest, it contains a nonauthentic interpolation at 2:13–16. The primary aim of 1 Thessalonians is to encourage Jesus’ believers to continue to progress in their faith, and Paul addresses some practical concerns to that effect: sexual morality, community relationships, and Jesus’ return. In 2 Thessalonians the emphasis lies on addressing fear and anxiety over the return of Jesus and some problematic behavior within the group.

scholarly journals The New Testament teaching on family matters

2006 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Osiek
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
First Century ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
Women Slaves ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Family

The article shows that first-century urban Christian communities, such as those founded by Paul, brought in both whole families and individual women, slaves, and others. An example of an early Christian family can be seen in the autobiographical details of the Shepherd of Hermas, whether factual or not. The article aims to demonstrate that the New Testament teaching on family gives two very different pictures: the structured harmony of the patriarchal family as presented in the household codes of Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5, over against the warnings and challenges of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels to leave family in favor of discipleship. The developing devotion to martyrdom strengthened the appeal to denial. Another version of the essay was published in Horsley, Richard A (ed), A people’s history of Christianity, Volume 1: Christian origins, 201-220. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.1.

Anti-Imperial Rhetoric in the New Testament

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Diehl
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
New Testament ◽  
First Century ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Interpretive Methods ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Common ◽  
Book Of Acts ◽  
Common Era

The first of a series of three articles, this essay introduces current scholarship concerned with the use of anti-imperial rhetoric in the New Testament Gospels and the book of Acts. In the first century of the Common Era, if the powerful Roman Emperor was considered a god, what did that mean for the earliest Christians who committed loyalty to ‘another’ God? Was it necessary for the NT authors to employ subversive language, words and symbols, to conceal their true meanings from the imperial authorities in their communications to the first Christian communities? The answers to such key questions can give us a clearer picture of the culture, society and setting in which the NT was written. The purpose of this complex study is to observe how current biblical scholarship views anti-imperial rhetoric and anti-emperor implications found in the NT, assuming such rhetoric exists at all. This initial article reviews recent scholarship with respect to the background of the Roman Empire, current interpretive methods and research concerning anti-imperial rhetoric found in the NT Gospels and Acts.

‘Gimme de kneebone bent’: Liturgics, Dance, Resistance and a Hermeneutics of the Knees

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cláudio Carvalhaes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Worship Service ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Brothers And Sisters

Shall we all dance to the Lord? But what Lord? To whose Lord shall we bend our knees in prayer, honour, dance and praise? Can our knees be naked? Can we open our legs? How much skin can we show without apologizing? Are we allowed to get the sensuous fever while dancing a tango, a salsa, or a samba? How should our knees behave in the house of the Lord? And whose house is God's house? Is there a proper way to dance in a worship service? What parts of our bodies can we move without distressing the proper liturgical order rooted in respect, faith, rationality, tradition and good manners? Our knees connect liturgy with ecclesiology, theology, colonialisation, dance and bodies. I was asked to write about dance in Brazil/Latin America, perhaps because Brazil is well known for its dancing spirit, as one can see in our carnival, samba, joy and beautiful women. All of that is true. But the task for this article was more specific. I had to write about dance within Christian communities. Then, the whole aspect of dance was turned upside down in my head. In truth, we do not dance in historic Protestant churches in Brazil and in that regard, we do not differ one inch from many of our brothers and sisters in Edinburgh, Rome, Geneva or the United States – at least when dance is concerned. We just do not dance. Only our Pentecostal brothers and sisters can dance.

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