“Stately and Set Apart”

In Chapter 2, the members of Park Street Church in Boston (founded 1809) wrestle with the question of how to maintain their church’s historic identity without becoming a museum. The solution is an organic interpretation of progress. Park Street leaders believe that, just as a seed contains all the genetic information necessary to become a mature plant, healthy change unfold slowly and logically, according to a predictable trajectory, from a single point of origin. This chapter analyzes how the congregation’s understanding of progress is reflected in its preaching and musical repertoire. Just as God’s covenant with Abraham unites Israel and the New Testament church into a single people of God, so too does a musical “covenant” penned in 1810 by the church’s first musicians unite nineteenth- and twenty-first century congregations into a single Park Street Church.

Is tithing a justifiable development in the Christian church?

With its over 40 000 denominations worldwide, Christianity undoubtedly remains the most fragmented of the religions of the world. One of the main causes of the said fragmentation is apparently the practice of tithing, which both genuine clergy and many shady characters that have disguised themselves as ministers of religion in society regard as the quickest way of accumulating wealth or making money. Anybody who views television programmes on religion and listens to religious leaders who give Christian preaching on various radio stations nowadays cannot fail to observe the aggressive way in which such leaders opportunistically manipulate their followers and listeners to pay tithes using what has come to be generically known as ‘prosperity gospel’. Given the extent to which it has fragmented and continues to fragment the Christian Church, as well as to taint the image of Christianity as a religion, the question asked by many people today about tithing is: Are the Christians as obligated to pay tithes as the Jews under the Mosaic Law? Using typology for its interpretative tool and arguing both scripturally and historically, this article argues that Christians are not obligated to pay tithes because tithing, as part of the temple worship system whose existence ended with Christ’s free self-offering as a sacrifice to God on the cross, foreshadowed free offering to God by Christ’s followers, not obligatory giving by law.Contribution: This article contributes to the general debate on tithing as practised in the Christian Church today. The article argues that there is no scriptural proof anywhere to validate payment of tithes to the New Testament Church or its ministers.

Redefining a relevant Church Government Model for the Contemporary Church: An Analysis of Church Polity Principles in the New Testament Church

The church government in the New Testament deals with how ecclesiastical authority, operations and order were exercised in the church. The historical and Scriptural principles for church government suggest flexibility in orientation. Evidence for church government from the early New Testament Church is inconclusive. Nowhere in the Scriptures do we find an exclusive picture related to any of the fully/ officially developed systems of church government today. In the New Testament Church, there was no such a thing as highly hierarchical, clerical and ecclesiastical power. The principles of church government for the Supremacy of the reign of Christ in organization and operation characterized the New Testament Church. From a Reformed church perspective, the characteristics of hierarchicalism, clericalism and ecclesiastical power are rejected in entirety.

Hallinnoiva diakoni - Diakonian virka Lutherin Ensimmäisen Timoteuskirjeen selityksessä

Martti Lutherin diakonin virkakäsityksen olennaisia piirteitä on löydettävissä Lutherin teoksessa Ensimmäisen Timoteuskirjeen selitys. (WA 26, 1-120). Luther määrittelee kommentaarin kolmannessa luvussa diakonin tehtävät. Tämä artikkeli on John N. Collinsilta vaikutteita saanut tutkimus, jossa diakonian tutkimuslähteitä tulkitaan tietoisena diakonian tutkimusperinteistä. Ensimmäisen Timoteuskirjeen selitys on syntynyt Martti Lutherin vuosina 1527-1528 Wittenbergin yliopistossa pitämien luentojen koosteena. Teos pyrkii hahmottamaan uusitestamentillisen kirkollisen järjestyksen, käyttäen analogiaa Paavalin ajan ja kommentaarin kirjoitusajankohdan välillä. Tarkoitukseni on selvittää teoksessa ilmenevän diakonin virkan funktio ja sijoittaa diakoni ekklesiologisen köyhienhoidon kokonaisuuteen siinä ihannekirkossa, jonka näköaloja Luther hahmotteli Ensimmäisen Timoteuskirjeen selityksessä. The essential features of Martti Luther's deacon's concept of office are found in Luther's Lecture on 1 Timothy. (WA 26, 1-120). In the third chapter of the commentary, Luther defines the functions of the deacon. This article is a research inspired by John N. Collins, where the sources of diaconia are interpreted as aware of the diaconia research traditions. Lecture on 1 Timothy was born as a compilation of lectures by Martti Luther in 1527-1528 at the University of Wittenberg. The work seeks to perceive the New Testament Church order, using the analogy between Paul's time and the time of writing the commentary. My purpose is to find out the function of the deacon in the work and to place the deacon in the ecclesiological poverty care unit in the ideal church, whose views were outlined by Luther in the Lecture on 1 Timothy.

Tying Loose Ends

Though every chapter has some concluding remarks, there is a need to reinforce, qualify, and tie together the different strands of thought in order to assemble together a mosaic image of the contemporary Pentecostal–Charismatic movement in Goa. This attempt to build a cohesive, though not necessarily conclusive, understanding of Pentecostal–Charismatic Christianity is done in the final chapter. Since new religious movements are generally pitted against the mainstream religious establishment and occupy a contested religious space, this chapter discusses themes such as power, identity, evangelization, authoritative discourses, sacred and profane symbols, production of truth and mediation of grace, and terrains of conflict. The mission, the New Testament Church (NTC), the dualistic spiritual worldview, and the formation of a Charismatic habitus that structures and guides the everyday life practices and processes of individual believers are also important strands woven in the book to arrive at a tapestry of Pentecostalism.

The New Testament Church and the Emergence of Religious Identities

This chapter is an elucidation of the process of identity formation among the Catholic Charismatics and the neo-Pentecostals, both at the corporate and the individual levels, with the recreation of the New Testament Church (NTC) as the guiding motif. The process of identity formation for the neo-Pentecostals involves marking clear-cut boundaries with Catholicism and Hinduism, the two dominant religious traditions in Goa. Assuming the identity of the NTC involves appropriating the dualistic spiritual worldview of the early Church and defining their mission as saving the lost, the lost being Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, and all others who are not Born-Again Christians. The identity of the neo-Pentecostals is closely linked with their idea of the mission to include urgent, aggressive proselytization and numerical expansion.

An investigation into the socio-historical influences overcoming ethnicity in the early New Testament Church

Ethnicity, tribalism and xenophobia could be found inside and outside church walls. Ethnicity and racism are natural, learned and nurtured in human beings. However, ethnic identity and relations exist whether the ethnic groups are competing or not. The first challenge of the early church in the New Testament Church was to overcome ethnicity and hostile divisions between Jews, Gentiles and Samaritans. This study aims at exploring how socio-historical influences and nature of the message of the New Testament managed to overcome ethnicity and ethnic divisions in the early New Testament Church. The study will also reflect on how the contemporary church could manage ethnicity within its structures and redefine its position on what it means to be one in Christ within the diverse church.

The Ecclesiological Contributions of Thomas Helwys’s Reformation in a Baptist Context

The English Separatist movement provided the background for which John Smyth and Thomas Helwys emerged to reconstitute a biblical ecclesiology. Through the study of the New Testament, they came to the position that infant baptism and covenantal theology could not be the foundation for the New Testament church. Both men embraced believer’s baptism as the basic foundation in which a recovered church should be built. Unfortunately, Smyth defected to the Mennonites, leaving Thomas Helwys to continue the fledging work known as Baptists. This article will examine the life of Thomas Helwys and his contribution to Baptist ecclesiology; it will also review selected literary works that contributed to the recovery of a New Testament church and the founding of Baptist ecclesiology.

An inquiry into ethnicity in the structures of the church: the case of Malawi

Ethnicity, tribalism and xenophobia could be found inside and outside church walls. Ethnic and racist behaviours in human beings are natural, learned and nurtured within societies around the world. However, ethnic identity and relations exist whether the ethnic groups are competing or not. The first challenge of the early church in the New Testament Church was to overcome ethnicity and hostile divisions between Jews and Gentles. The New Testament Church’s principles of open plural government overcame the phenomenon. The contemporary church is in dilemma to understand its archaic church polity and order in her own challenging context today.