scholarly journals Tinjauan Teologis Tentang Gereja Sejati dan Aplikasinya Bagi Pelayanan Gereja Kontemporer

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57
Author(s):  
Paulus Purwoto

AbstractThe church is a chosen group or congregation, namely those who are called by God to come out of the world, go away from sin and enter into the realm of grace. The church has a relationship with God's people in the Old Testament, where in the Old Testament God chose Abraham as the embryo of the birth of the nation of Israel, which was God's chosen nation. Theologically, the idea of God's people being called out clearly existed in Old Testament times, as well as in New Testament times. Linguistically the Greek word ekklesia appears repeatedly in connection with Israel in the Septuagint translation. The elements in the Old Testament exist in the New Testament church, however, they cannot be correctly equated between the Old Testament congregation and the church, because the church is a new product, founded on the Lord Jesus, made by the Holy Spirit and contains people from all the races of all nations become one new people of God. The true church has the signs as described in the Word of God. The purpose of this research is to conduct a theological review of the true church and its application to the contemporary church. The method used in this research is literature study method. The true church has signs, joy, holiness, truth, mission, unity, love, proclaims the Word of God properly, uses the sacraments properly, and exercises church discipline. The conclusion of this study is that the true church has signs that can be applied in contemporary church ministry.Key words: Chruch, Contemporer, True, Ministry AbstrakGereja adalah kumpulan atau jemaat pilihan, yaitu mereka yang dipanggil Allah keluar dari dunia, pergi dari dosa dan masuk ke dalam wilayah anugerah. Gereja memiliki relasi dengan umat Allah dalam Perjanjian Lama, dimana dalam Perjanjian Lama Tuhan memilih Abraham sebagai embrio lahirnya Bangsa Israel yang merupakan bangsa pilihan Allah. Secara teologis gagasan tentang umat Allah yang dipanggil keluar jelas telah eksis pada masa Perjanjian Lama, sebagaimana pada masa Perjanjian Baru.  Secara linguistik kata Yunani ekklesia muncul berulang kali dalam kaitannya dengan Israel dalam terjemahan Septuaginta. Unsur-unsur dalam Perjanjian Lama tersebut ada dalam gereja Perjanjian Baru, namun demikian tidak dapat disamakan dengan tepat antara Jemaah Perjanjian Lama dengan gereja, oleh karena gereja adalah sesuatu produk baru, didirikan diatas Tuhan Yesus, dijadikan oleh Roh Kudus dan berisi orang-orang dari segala ras dari seluruh bangsa menjadi satu umat Allah yang baru. Gereja sejati memiliki tanda-tanda sebagaimana dijelaskan dalam Firman Tuhan. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk melakukan tinjauan teologis tentang gereja sejati dan aplikasinya bagi gereja kontemporer. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode studi literatur. Gereja sejati memiliki tanda-tanda, sukacita, kekudusan, kebenaran, misi, kesatuan, kasih, memberitakan Firman Tuhan dengan benar, menggunakan sakramen dengan benar, dan menjalankan disiplin gereja. Kesimpulan dari penelitian ini adalah bahwa gereja sejati memiliki tanda-tanda yang dapat diaplikasikan dalam pelayanan gereja kontemporer.Kata kunci: Gereja, Kontemporer, Sejati, Pelayanan. 

Author(s):  
Angelo Nicolaides

This article unpacks aspects of the Eucharist and how it is understood in various churches using a literature study methodology. It also looks at the notion of the “people of God’. The Greek word εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), means "thanksgiving", appears fifteen times in the New Testament and is a critical aspect of the Christian faith. The weekly celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday’s is an requisite activity of the Church because the Eucharist establishes the Church as the Body of Christ. The Eucharistic celebration is also known as the Divine Liturgy and is believed to impart the actual Body and Blood of Christ to the faithful. In the act of communion, the entire Church, those past, present, and even forthcoming are unified in eternity. It is the source of her life, the superlative act of her thanksgiving and of her sacrifice of praise to the creator God. The Holy Eucharist is the very core of Christian life, and the means by which each believer is nourished by God's grace and tender mercy. At the Divine Liturgy, the Church is continuously changed from a human community into the Body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the holy People of God.


2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-463
Author(s):  
David W. Priddy

In this essay, I pose the question, “How might local congregations participate in food reform and agricultural renewal?” Given the problems of industrial agriculture and the wider ecological concern, this question is pressing. Instead of advocating a specific program, I focus on how the Church might address this question while keeping its commitment to being a repentant Church. First, I discuss the significance of attention and particularly the habit of attending to the Word and Sacrament. This posture, I argue, maintains the Church’s integrity, preventing it from merely branding itself or relying on its own resources. Second, I briefly explore the association of eating with the mission of the Church in the New Testament, highlighting the repeated theme of judgment and call to humility in the context of eating. Third, I draw out the importance of continual remorse over sin. This attitude is essential to the Church’s vocation and rightly appears in many historic liturgies. I argue that this posture should extend to the question of eating responsibly. Penitence demonstrates the Church’s relationship to the wider world and testifies to the source of the Church’s own life, the Holy Spirit, who does the work of renewal.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Leonardo Nunes

The present dissertation examines the function and nature of the heavenly sanctuary/temple and its relationship to the earthly counterparts in the major passages of the New Testament (NT) Gospels, Acts, Pauline and General Epistles where the sanctuary/temple motif is found (a total of twenty-two passages). After the introductory chapter, chapters 2, 3, and 4 are devoted to the exegetical analysis of these major passages following canonical order and divisions of the NT. This exegetical analysis has detected the relevance of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif for NT studies, i.e., how its function, nature, and relationship to the earthly counterparts influence the understanding of important themes of the NT such as salvation, intercession, spiritual gifts, love, holiness, eradication of evil, among others. This investigation has identified that the heavenly sanctuary/temple in the NT function as God’s dwelling place. It is a place for reunion, reconciliation, and sending of the Holy Spirit, from where every spiritual blessing is bestowed upon the believers. In the heavenly sanctuary/temple Jesus is enthroned to exercise authority, power, sovereignty, and rulership; it is where judgment and vindication are made, the new covenant is ratified. It is a place to present praise and worship to God, celebrating Christ's victory over evil. The heavenly sanctuary/temple is where Christ presents His once-for-all sacrifice, "obtains eternal redemption," and intercedes in our behalf, giving assurance that God's salvific purpose and the heirs' hope will be fulfilled. The heavenly sanctuary/temple also functions as the motivation and ground for holy living, the driving force for sacrificial service and endurance of suffering for Christ. The heavenly sanctuary/temple is also the final destination of the Christian journey where all believers will gather together with the godhead and the angels in a festal assembly. Regarding the nature of the heavenly sanctuary/temple in the NT, the passages surveyed show that architecture is not the main concern of the NT writers. However, in tune with the Old Testament (OT), they describe the heavenly sanctuary/temple in terms of a spatiotemporal reality where the corporeal resurrected Jesus is at work and the bodily resurrected believers will live. This NT ontological perspective safeguards the actuality of the heavenly sanctuary/temple many functions. The spatiotemporal nature of the heavenly sanctuary/temple is strengthened when one looks at its relationship to the earthly counterparts. The NT passages examined demonstrate that there is structural and functional correspondence between OT and NT heavenly and earthly counterparts within a typological framework, as well as dynamic interaction among them. Chapter 5 offers a theological synthesis of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif presented in the previous chapters. A summary of the findings is first provided followed by inferences of theological implications in the three main areas of this dissertation (function, nature, and relationship). After these concluding remarks, an appendix is provided with a brief treatment of twenty-five NT passages not dealt with in the main text (including thirteen passages in the book of Revelation) in order to give the reader a more comprehensive perspective of the pervasiveness of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif in the NT. In conclusion, the study of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif in the NT seems to be needed in order to have a sound and balanced understanding of NT theology.


2010 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Dariusz Kasprzak

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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-76
Author(s):  
Peter John McGregor

Some especially insightful and challenging passages in Evangelii Gaudium are those on the importance of a personal encounter with Jesus, the evangelizing power of popular piety, person to person witness, and the need for the power of the Holy Spirit. However, in order to do full justice to the mission of the Church, the document requires more on the priestly aspect of this mission. This element is substantially absent, in part, because of Francis’s veneration of Evangelii Nuntiandi. However, this absent element can be obtained from the missiology of Lumen Gentium, John Paul II, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Based on an analysis of the meaning of leitourgia in the New Testament, this article concludes that this missing element can serve as a link between Pope Francis’s kerygma and diakonia, enabling a harmony which has been missing, to greater or lesser degrees, from the Church’s mission in the 20th and 21st centuries.


2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-143
Author(s):  
Frans Josef van Beeck

This essay offers an interpretation of the traditional catholic teaching that “Jesus Christ, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, was born of the Virgin Mary”. The author reviews recent exegesis and theology, then revisits the tradition of the church, then discusses the contrast between the physiological “facts” involved in human conception as they were understood in the classical periods — and thus at the place and time of the composition of the infancy narratives — and the accepted modern, scientific account of the same “facts”. He argues that neither the New Testament nor the Church teaches that Jesus' virginal conception is a cosmological miracle: rather this is a conclusion of the data of the faith, not an article of faith in and of itself. This should guide our speech in ministry.


2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Helberg

The source of joy of living according to Psalm 1 and what it implies for reformed preaching The article explores the strong emphasis on joy of living and on the dominating meaning of the Torah, the written Word of God, in Psalm 1 and what it means for the proclamation of the Word in public worship today. For that purpose the relation of Psalm 1 to the rest of the psalms, to the Old Testament as a whole and the New Testament is explored. The finding is that the fulfilment of the New Testament implies Word-driven, Christ-driven and Holy Spirit-driven preaching, i.e. kingdom and covenant preach- ing. Public worship is God’s meeting with his covenant people. The preacher’s role is fully one of service and he must confine himself to the interpretation and application of Scripture.


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.


1948 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-240
Author(s):  
G. Johnson

In its classical expression Christianity means a new life which God makes available for all who become apprentices of His Son Jesus Christ. Now sinful men cannot unaided appropriate the blessings of that life. Besides the message of the Prodigal who “ came to himself” the Gospel exhibits in the Cross divine love that has entered the far country and suffers the ordeal inevitably imposed there by human sin. Really to hear the Gospel is to respond in penitent love to the God who was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. But how shall men hear unless there be preachers? The Gospel by God's gracious provision is brought to each new generation by those who enter into the apostolic tradition; apostolic, because in history we depend upon those who were the first eye-witnesses of Jesus and His resurrection. Nevertheless the apostles preached under the authority of the Holy Spirit who testifies to Christ and proceeds from the eternal life of the Father and the Son (see John 14.26; 15.26 f.). Paul the apostle preached in the power of the Spirit (Rom. 15.19; 1 Cor. 2.4); it was God who had given apostles to the Church, inspiring them with wisdom and knowledge (1 Cor. 12.8, 28). We find similar testimony in Eph. 3.5 (a revelation disclosed to the apostles and prophets by the Spirit); 1 Pet. 1.12, which links preaching and inspiration; and Acts where we read of men filled with the Spirit, like Stephen and Philip, going out as evangelists.


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