scholarly journals Opwekking binnen de traditioneel- reformatorische kerken: over oprecht verlangen en grote verlegenheid

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Kommers

Revival within churches from traditional-reformed origin: on sincere longing and extreme embarrassment Within churches from reformed origin the debate about revival has become an actual issue. It seems that these churches are becoming smaller and smaller, and that there is a lack of missionary zeal. Many pastors seem to have lost the courage to go on. What is happening in the churches? One can learn something from the history of the church. What was God doing in the past? The Word of God was there and it seems that in those places where revivals broke out, the Word of God was preached faithfully, in the power of the Holy Spirit. From sermons of three revival preachers who worked from 1816 to 1880 in Wuppertal (Germany), one can learn how their sermons contributed to revival in those days.   The missionary-soul caring message struck the people in their hearts, and not only individuals, but also whole regions changed; change took place not only in doctrine and lifestyle, but also holiness occupied a central place in the people’s hearts. When praying for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, people will repent and turn to God and “times of refreshing may come from the Lord” (Acts 3:19).

Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ

Some biblical authors were conscious of the divine authority of their writings (e.g. Paul), but others were not conscious of being inspired (e.g. Ben Sira, the author of 2 Maccabees, and Luke). When the Scriptures were being prepared and written, the Holy Spirit was always actively present but did not necessarily make that presence felt. The Scriptures could come from a solo author (e.g. Paul) or from many years of elaboration by different persons (e.g. Book of Isaiah). We should not compare the work of the sacred authors (with the religious responsibility of their writing) too closely with modern authors. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were providentially aimed towards the foundation of the Church. Their inspiring effect is visible in the history of Christianity and beyond. The Spirit inspired the writing of the Scriptures in the past and continues to make them inspiringly effective in the present.


Author(s):  
Cecil M. Robeck

This chapter traces Pentecostal and related congregations, churches, denominations, and organizations that stem from the beginning of the twentieth century. They identify with activities at Pentecost described in Acts 2 and in the exercise of charisms in 1 Corinthians 12–14. Each of them highlights is the significance of a personal encounter with the Holy Spirit leading to a transformed life. These often interrelated organizations and movements have brought great vitality to the Church worldwide for over one hundred years, and together, they constitute as much as 25 per cent of the world’s Christians. This form of spirituality is unique over the past 500 years, since it may be found in virtually every historic Christian family/tradition, and in most churches of the twenty-first century.


1999 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 886-909 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Atwood

“Lord God, now we praise you, you worthy Holy Spirit! The church in unity honors you, the mother of Christendom. All the angels and the host of heaven and whoever serves the honor of the Son; also the cherubim and seraphim, sing with a clear voice: ‘Divine majesty, who proceeds from the Father, who praises the Son as the creator and points to his suffering.’ … Daily O Mother! whoever knows you and the Savior glorifies you because you bring the gospel to all the world.” These lines are from the Te Matrem, a prayer to the Holy Spirit that for nearly thirty years was a regular part of worship for a German Protestant group known as the Brüdergemeine. The Brüdergemeine, commonly called the Moravian Church today, was an international religious community that developed an elaborate and creative liturgical life for its carefully regulated communities. The Brethren's intense devotion to the suffering of Christ is the most famous aspect of their worship, but in the mid-eighteenth century their leader, Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, actively encouraged the Brüdergemeine to worship the Holy Spirit as the mother of the church. Surprisingly, though, this aspect of Zinzendorf's theology has been largely overlooked or downplayed by historians and theologians in the past two hundred years. When it has been discussed, it has been dismissed as a brief aberration or experiment that was discarded after the so-called Sifting Time (Sichtungzeit.) The Sifting Time was a period of liturgical and social excess in the community, the details of which remain quite obscure. The Brethren used the word Sichtungzeit to refer to a time when the community was in danger of becoming a fanatical sect. Dates for the Sifting Time range from a high of 1736–52 to a low of 1746–49, but the most common dating is 1743–50. This article will show that the use of maternal imagery for the Holy Spirit was not a tangential or quixotic aspect of Zinzendorf's theology, but thrived for more than thirty years and was, in Zinzendorf's words, “an extremely important and essential point … and all our Gemeine and praxis hangs on this point.”


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-111
Author(s):  
Ferderika Pertiwi Ndiy ◽  
S Susanto

Church growth is an important study in church history. The Bible has important principles in church growth, therefore these principles need to be analyzed so that they can contribute to the study of church growth. The Acts of the Apostles is a book that has a history and principles of church growth, therefore the author conducted research on church growth based on Acts 2: 1-47. The author uses a qualitative approach to literature study to find the principles of church growth based on Acts 2: 1-47. The results showed that there were three principles for the growth of the early church. The first principle based on the fourth verse is to depend on the Holy Spirit, the second principle based on verses 14-36, 42 is to preach the Word of God, the third principle based on verses 42-46 is to live in fellowship. For the growth of the church today the church must depend on the power of the Holy Spirit, teaching based on the word of God, and the church lives in fellowship.


2012 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Najeeb Awad

AbstractIn their study of Augustine'sDe Trinitate, scholars read the fifteen books which comprise this text as a monolithically written discourse on the doctrine of the Trinity. This article is an attempt to examine if it is possible to argue on tenable bases that pneumatology, rather than any other doctrine, is the subject of Augustine's text by showing that the interpretation of the identity and consubstantiality of the Spirit occupies inDe Trinitatea more foundational and central place than just being part of Augustine's discussion on the doctrine of the Trinity. It ultimately suggests that freeing Augustine's text from diachronic prejudices means also wondering if he really wanted to write an additional version of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity which he already followed, or whether he wanted to contribute something new about a relatively neglected doctrine in the faith of the church.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 95-114
Author(s):  
Andrzej Pastwa

In the communio Ecclesiae reality, of a unitarian, charismatic, and institutiona structure, the crucial concepts of participation and co-responsibility are firmly anchored in the juridical and canonical discourse. This is the way in which the horizon of the subject matter reveals itself, the study of which — from the point of view of the title triad: synodality — participation — co-responsibility — will never lose its relevance. What is, at the same time, important is the idea of “synodality,” which is adequately recognized as the sacra potestas of a sacramental origin (ontological aspect), which gains the dynamism of libertas sacra (existential and dynamic aspect) through the charisms of the Holy Spirit, thus leading to the inseparability of its personal and synodal aspects. Therefore, in the attempt to illuminate the determinant of the aggiornamento of the Church law in this study, it was appropriate, on the one hand, to consistently refer to the essence of the idea of the communio hierarchica, according to which Christ makes selected servants participate in his authority by means of an office, the exercise of which always remains a diaconia in the community of faith. On the other hand, in reference to the contemporary understanding of communio fidelium, the axis of scientific reflection was to be the communion-creative phenomenon of charisms — gifts of the Holy Spirit that awaken in the People of God synodal co-responsibility for the good of the entire Church community. In both cases — without losing sight of the obvious truth that, in the sacramental structure of the Church (communio), both hierarchical and charismatic gifts converge in the service of the bishop, who updates — according to the logic of the Vaticanum II aggiormamento and the ecclesiological principles of the Council: collegiality, the title synodality and subsidiarity — the fullness of Christ’s service: as Prophet, Priest, and King.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredy Simanjuntak ◽  
Alexander Djuang Papay

The history of the church notes that to this day the Protestant Church is a family whose history is most often divided. Nevertheless the development is quite significant in the present. The process of developing the church resulted in various streams in the church such as Lutheran, Calvinist, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Evangelical, Adventist, until Jehovah's Witnesses, in the course of the Pentecostal & Charismatic flow so fertile in today's growth. The flow of Pentecostalism and Charismaticism, in its origin and method, has a unique and phenomenal history in Indonesia. The uniqueness of Indonesia's spiritual context is illustrated by rapid growth. The Pentecostal and Charismatic movements felt their influence in various churches around us. Phenomena such as the ability to speak in tongues, healing, and prophecy and aspects of emotional experience that are so prominent in this movement make the public wonder, is it true that all of this is the work of the Holy Spirit? The purpose of this paper is to provide an observation of facts, spiritual life background, the meaning of faith, and understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit adopted by followers of the Pentecost-Charismatic Movement in the context of the challenges of contextualization and syncretism in the relationship between Pentecostal-Charismatic and Christian spirituality in Indonesia. In light of the significant regional diversity in Indonesian religious thought and experience, the scope of this research is limited to the idea of contextualization also limited to its use in the missiological context.


Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ

Dealing with biblical inspiration within the scheme of the Word of God in its threefold form (as preached, written, and revealed), Karl Barth distinguished between divine revelation and the inspired Bible. He insisted that the revelation to prophets and apostles preceded proclamation and the writing of Scripture. He interpreted all the Scriptures as witness to Christ. While the human authors of the Bible ‘made full use of their human capacities’, the Holy Spirit is ‘the real author’ of what is written. Raymond Collins, in dialogue with Thomas Aquinas, Barth, and others, interpreted biblical inspiration in the light of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on Divine Revelation. He spoke of the Holy Spirit as the ‘principal, efficient cause’ (with the human authors as the ‘instrumental’ causes), rejected dictation views of inspiration, and examined the scope of biblical truth and the authority of the Bible for the Church.


2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-94
Author(s):  
Lyle Story

AbstractThe Holy Spirit is vitally and dynamically involved in the sanctification of individuals and their faith-communities. An examination of the Pauline terms and texts reveal that sanctification through the Spirit includes: 1) God's Provision in his gracious call, 2) The Process of sanctification in Christian growth in moral purity and love, 3) The Consummation at the Parousia. To that end, we will provide brief historical and theological arguments as to how the Spirit works in sanctification, primarily within the holiness Pentecostal traditions. Often, various writings highlight one aspect to the neglect of other emphases. The paper argues for the comprehensive role of the Spirit in the past event, present experience, and future hope of the people of God and argues for a consistency between the three activities related to sanctification, including the essential element of love.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document