scholarly journals Die priesterskap van die gelowiges soos Calvyn dit gesien het

1989 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. Pont

The priesthood of all believers as seen by Calvin The Lutheran thesis of the priesthood of all believers was also taken over by John Calvin. The position of this thesis in Calvin’s theology is examined and it is shown that Calvin does not trea t this thesis as a separate statement. A short introduction is given of the main points Calvin explores when he discusses the meaning of the thesis. In the end it is shown that Calvin developed the thesis of the universal priesthood in such a low-key form to preserve the order in the Church and the prime position of the preaching of the gospel.

Author(s):  
Jonathan Hehn

This chapter outlines the history of Presbyterian worship practice from the sixteenth century to the present, with a focus on North American Presbyterians. Tracing both their hymnody and their liturgy ultimately to John Calvin, Presbyterian communions have a distinct heritage of worship inherited from the Church of Scotland via seventeenth-century Puritans. Long marked by metrical psalmody and guided by the Westminster Directory, Presbyterian worship underwent substantial changes in the nineteenth century. Evangelical and liturgical movements led Presbyterians away from a Puritan visual aesthetic, into the use of nonscriptural hymnody, and toward a recovery of liturgical books. Mainline North American and Scottish Presbyterians solidified these trends in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; however, conservative North American denominations and some other denominations globally continue to rely heavily on the use of a worship directory and metrical psalmody.


2014 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernd Oberdorfer

AbstractThe relevance of the reformation for the development of modern liberty rights is much debated. Although the Protestant Reformers fought for the »Freedom of a Christian« against religious patronization, they were not tolerant in a modern sense of the term. However, the Reformation released long-term impulses which contributed to the origin and formation of a modern civil society, e. g. the respect for the autonomy of the individual over against the church, the passion for education, the emphasis on the »universal priesthood of all believers«, and the appreciation of civil professions. Long historical learning processes were necessary, though, until the Protestant churches acknowledged and adopted modern liberty rights, a participatory democracy and a pluralistic society as genuine forms of expression of a Protestant ethos.


2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik van Alten

John Calvin is often considered to have taught the cessation of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. This certainly does not give the complete picture of how Calvin wrestled with those passages from Scripture which deal with the extraordinary gifts. In his commentary on the book of Acts Calvin makes a conscious effort to show that in most of the cases where the gifts of the Spirit are mentioned, the focus is not on the gifts in a general sense, but in an extraordinary sense. These extraordinary gifts had been limited to the initial phase of the church. The reasons that Calvin provides for this cessation is somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand Calvin indicates a very specific, divine purpose for the gifts, which limits its usefulness and existence until the point when the purpose had been achieved. However, there are also passages where one gets the impression that the cessation of the gifts was not necessarily divinely intended, but was due to human error. Of great importance is the way Calvin subsequently applies these texts to the readers of his own day. Johannes Calvyn oor die gawes van die Heilige Gees in sy kommentaar op Handelinge Dikwels word aangeneem dat Johannes Calvyn die beëindiging van die buitengewone gawes van die Heilige Gees voorgestaan het. Dit gee egter nie die volle prentjie van hoe Calvyn met daardie Skrifgedeeltes, waarin die buitengewone gawes behandel word, geworstel het nie. In sy kommentaar op die boek Handelinge wys Calvyn bewustelik daarop dat in die meeste gevalle waar die gawes van die Gees genoem word, die fokus nie op die gawes in ’n algemene sin is nie, maar eerder op die gawes in ’n buitengewone sin. Hierdie buitengewone gawes is beperk tot die beginfase van die kerk. Die redes wat Calvyn vir hierdie beëindiging aanvoer, is egter dubbelsinnig. Aan die eenkant wys Calvyn op ’n baie spesifieke, Goddelike doel met die gawes, waardeur hulle bruikbaarheid en voortbestaan beperk word tot die tyd toe die doel bereik is. Aan die anderkant, egter, is daar ook gedeeltes wat die indruk skep dat die beëindiging van die gawes nie noodwendig Goddelik bepaal is nie, maar ’n gevolg was van menslike sonde. Van groot belang is hoe Calvyn hierdie tekste vervolgens toepas op die lesers van sy eie tyd.


2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy A. Van Aarde

The missional church is a new consciousness which has been raised for the missionary sending of the church in the West to be a witness for the Kingdom of God in its own context. The missional church has returned mission to the centre of ecclesiology. A structural functioning of the missional church and its relation to existing church structures are essential to rescue the missional church from simply becoming the latest fad. The present missional church conversation in advocating for an organic church structure undermines existing institutional church structures. A dynamic functioning church structure in which the inward and outward dimensions of the church�s single ecclesiological structure are able to function in a cohesive unity is set out in Ephesians. The function of the gifted persons in the task of equipping of the believers to fulfil their missional calling, vocation and function is paramount to the healthy integration of the missional church model in existing mission and church paradigms and for it to function within the framework of existing church structures.Interdisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article suggests that a dynamic unity exists between the ecclesiology of the church and missional structure and function of the church. The article explores interdisciplinary implications from the fields of the New Testament and missiology.


Ecclesiology ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-341
Author(s):  
Martin Davie

AbstractThis paper traces the influence of John Calvin on the English Reformation from the time of the breach with Rome under Henry VIII until the great ejection of dissenting puritan clergy from the ministry of the Church of England in 1662. It argues that Calvin's teaching only began to have an impact on the English Reformation during the reign of Elizabeth I and that although his theology had a widespread impact on both individuals and groups within the Church of England it never shaped the Church's official doctrine, liturgy or pattern of ministry, although it seemed likely that this would be the case at the time of the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s. It also raises the question of whether Calvin sought episcopacy from the Church of England in the reign of Edward VI.


1968 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-156
Author(s):  
John R. Crawford

A Mong those elements of Christian doctrine which surged anew to the forefront of Christian thinking during the early sixteenth century was that biblical idea which, in more modern times, we have come to call the ‘priesthood of all believers’. Luther used the doctrine almost as a battle-axe, to hew away at the pretensions of the Roman hierarchy and sacramental system. Almost invariably, it is Luther's name which we find linked to this doctrine in studies of the Reformation period. However, any serious study of the idea of the priesthood of God's people would do well to include an examination of the way in which John Calvin dealt with it, and indeed, the way in which the idea found certain expressions within his system of ecclesiastical organisation. It is our purpose here to see what Calvin taught in relationship to this biblical idea, and what elements of the life of the Genevan church may be considered to be, at least in part, an expression of the idea.


2019 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 440-464
Author(s):  
Martin Nykvist

Around the turn of the twentieth century, there was a growing concern within the Church of Sweden that the church was, to a too large extent, managed by the clergy alone. In an attempt to give the laity a more active and influential role in the Church of Sweden, the Brethren of the Church was established in 1918. Since it was only possible for men to become members, the organization simultaneously addressed a different issue: the view that women had become a much too salient group in church life. This process was described by the Brethren and similar groups as a “feminization” of the church, a phrasing which later came to be used by historians and theologians to explain changes in Western Christianity in the nineteenth century. In other words, the Brethren considered questions of gender vital to their endeavor to create a church in which the laity held a more prominent position. This article analyzes how the perceived feminization and its assumed connection to secularization caused enhanced attempts to uphold and strengthen gender differentiation in the Church of Sweden in the early twentieth century. By analyzing an all-male lay organization, the importance of homosociality in the construction of Christian masculinities will also be discussed.


2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Hammett

This article addresses the relationship between churches and parachurch groups and argues for a servant-partnership approach. With this model parachurch organizations work as legitimate and valuable partners with churches in ministry, but possessing a status subordinate to that of churches. This model is based on a claim of theological priority for the church, in both local and denominational expressions, and the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.


2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Potgieter

The gaunt austere figure of John Calvin portrayed in paintings is often synonymous with the view of a stern, authoritarian, dogmatic person, and a strict disciplinarian. Discovery of a more complex figure, however, awaits anyone dipping into Calvin’s letters, in particular when writing pastorally to comfort, encourage, point towards hope and so forth. However, this is no second figure emerging – merely a more balanced portrait of a servant of God who has not always been fairly portrayed. This portrait must be seen as closely associated with his writings. Because theology is for the nurture and maturing of the Church and therefore cannot be divorced from it, the pastoral nature of some incidents does, however, allow the humanity of Calvin to shine through more clearly.Johannes Calvyn: Meer as ‘n sistematiese teoloog. Johannes Calvyn se skraal asketiese voorkoms soos in skilderye uitgebeeld, skep dikwels die indruk van ‘n stroewe, dogmatiese en dissiplinêre figuur. Uit sy briewe en veral uit sy pastorale geskrifte blyk dit egter dat hy ‘n warm en gevoelvolle persoon was wat mense getroos, bemoedig en hoop gegee het. Dit is nie ’n nuwe voorstelling van Calvyn nie, maar bloot ’n meer gebalanseerde beeld van die bekende dienskneg van God wat nie altyd getrou voorgehou is nie. Trouens, hierdie getrouer beeld van hom word deur sy ander geskrifte onderskryf. Omdat teologie onder meer oor die pastorale opvoeding en opbouing van die Kerk gaan, kan daar ook met ’n oop gemoed na hierdie eienskappe van Calvyn in sy teologiese geskrifte gesoek word. Dit is juis die ontdekking van hierdie eienskappe in Calvyn se geskrifte wat daartoe bydra dat sy medemenslikheid duideliker sigbaar word. 


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