Christian Education: Interesting read... I would like some thoughts regarding this...
Posted : 7 Jan, 2012 12:08 PM
From fellow brothers and sisters on this. Please read, research, and comment. I'd like to see what you think regarding what the Word says on it.
Thanks. :peace:
"What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" -TERTULLIAN,
THIRD-CENTURY THEOLOGIAN "`The Primitive Church had no New Testament, no thought-out theology, no stereotyped traditions. The men who took Christianity to the Gentile world had no special training, only a great experience-in which `all maxims and philosophies were reduced to the simple task of walking in the light since the light had come."' -B. H. STREETER, TWENTIETH-CENTURY ENGLISH THEOLOGIAN AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR IN THE MINDS of most Christians, formal Christian education qualifies a person to do the Lord's work. Unless a Christian has graduated from Bible college or seminary, he or she is viewed as being a "para"-minister. A pseudo Christian worker. Such a person cannot preach, teach, baptize, or administer the Lord's Supper since he or she has not been formally trained to do such things ... right? The idea that a Christian worker must attend Bible college or seminary to be legitimate is deeply ingrained-so much so that when people feel a "call" of God on their lives, they are conditioned to begin hunting for a Bible college or seminary to attend. Such thinking fits poorly with the early Christian mind-set. Bible colleges, seminaries, and even Sunday schools were utterly absent from the early church. All are human innovations that came hundreds of years after the apostles' death. How, then, were Christian workers trained in the first century if they did not go to a religious school? Unlike today's ministerial training, first-century training was hands-on, rather than academic. It was a matter of apprenticeship, rather than of intellectual learning. It was aimed primarily at the spirit, rather than at the frontal lobe. In the first century, those called to the Lord's work were trained in two ways: (1) They learned the essential lessons of Christian ministry by living a shared life with a group of Christians. In other words, they were trained by experiencing body life as nonleaders. (2) They learned the Lord's work under the tutelage of an older, seasoned worker. Remarking about the first-century church, Puritan John Owen writes, "Every church was then a seminary, in which provision and preparation was made."' Echoing these words, R. Paul Stevens states, "The best structure for equipping every Christian is already in place. It predates the seminary and the weekend seminar and will outlast both. In the New Testament no other nurturing and equipping is offered than the local church. In the New Testament church, as in the ministry of Jesus, people learned in the furnace of life, in a relational, living, working and ministering context."' In stark contrast, contemporary ministerial training can be described by the religious talk of Job's miserable comforters: rational, objective, and abstract. Very little is practical, experiential, or spiritual.
A complete examination of the methods by which Christian workers were trained in the first century is beyond the scope of this book. However, a small chorus of books have been dedicated to the subject.' In this chapter, we will trace the origin of the seminary the Bible college, and the Sunday school. We will also trace the history of the youth pastor. And we will discuss how each of these is at odds with the way of Christ-for each is based upon the educational system of the world.' FOUR STAGES OF THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION Throughout church history there have been four stages of theological education. They are: episcopal, monastic, scholastic, and seminarian (pastoral).' Let's briefly examine each one: Episcopal. Theology in the patristic age (third to fifth centuries) was called episcopal because the leading theologians of the day were bishops.b This system was marked by the training of bishops and priests on how to perform the various rituals and liturgies of the church.' Monastic. The monastic stage of theological education was tied to the ascetic and mystical life. It was taught by monks living in monastic communities (and later cathedral schools).' Monastic schools were founded in the third century. These schools sent missionaries to uncharted territories after the fourth century.' During this stage, the Eastern church fathers became steeped in Platonic thought. They held to the misguided view that Plato and Aristotle were schoolmasters whose techniques could be used to bring men to Christ. Though they did not intend to lead people astray, their heavy reliance on these pagan philosophers severely diluted the Christian faith.'� Since many of the church fathers were pagan philosophers and orators prior to their conversions, the Christian faith soon began to take on a philosophical bent. Justin Martyr (100-165), one of the most influential Christian teachers of the second century, "dressed in the garb of a philosopher."" Justin believed that philosophy was God's revelation to the Greeks. He claimed that Socrates, Plato, and others had the same standing for the Gentiles as Moses had for the Jews.' After AD 200, Alexandria became the intellectual capital of the Christian world as it had been for the Greeks. A special school was formed there in AD 180. This school was the equivalent of a theological college." In Alexandria, the institutional study of Christian doctrine began." Origen (185-254), one of the school's early and most influential teachers, was deeply influenced by pagan philosophy. He was a colleague of Plotinus, the father of Neoplatonism, and drew much from his teaching. According to Neoplatonic thought, an individual must ascend through different stages of purification in order to attain to oneness with God.'5 Origen was the first to organize key theological concepts into a systematic theology." Of this period Will Durant has observed: "The gap between philosophy and religion was closing, and reason for a thousand years consented to be the handmaiden of theology. 1117 Edwin Hatch echoes these thoughts, saying, "Within a century and a half after Christianity and philosophy first came into closest contact, the ideas and methods of philosophy had flowed in such mass into Christianity, and filled so large a place in it, as to have made it no less a philosophy than a religion."" After Origen's death, Christian schools disappeared. Theological education reverted back to the episcopal form. Bishops were trained by personal contact with other bishops.10 The sum and substance of clerical learning at this time was the study of Gregory the Great's pastoral theology.20 Gregory taught bishops how to be good pastors.' By the mid-eighth century, bishops' schools were founded. In the tenth century, cathedrals began sponsoring their own schools." Scholastic. The third stage of theological education owes much to the culture of the university23 By 1200, a number of cathedral schools had evolved into universities. The University of Bologna in Italy was the first university to appear. The University of Paris came in a close second, followed by 0xford.4 The University of Paris became the philosophical and theological center of the world at that time.' (It would later become the seed of the Protestant seminary.)" Higher education was the domain of the clergy.27 And the scholar was viewed as the guardian of ancient wisdom. The present-day university grew from the bishops' responsibility to provide clerical training.28 Theology was regarded as the "Queen of Sciences" in the university.29 From the mid-twelfth century to the end of the fourteenth century, seventy-one universities were established in Europe.3o Contemporary theology cut its teeth on the abstractions of Greek philosophy." University academics adopted an Aristotelian model of thinking that centered on rational knowledge and logic. The dominating drive in scholastic theology was the assimilation and communication of knowledge. (For this reason, the Western mind has always been fond of creedal formulations, doctrinal statements, and other bloodless abstractions.) One of the most influential professors in the shaping of contemporary theology was Peter Abelard (1079-1142). Abelard is partly responsible for giving us "modern" theology. His teaching set the table and prepared the menu for scholastic philosophers like Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).32 Distinguished by Abelard, the school of Paris emerged as the model for all universities to follow." Abelard applied Aristotelian logic to revealed truth, though even he understood the tension between the two: "I do not wish to be a philosopher, if that means I contradict St. Paul; I do not wish to be a disciple of Aristotle, if that means I separate myself from Christ." He also gave the word theology the meaning it has today. (Before him, this word was only used to describe pagan beliefs.)" Taking his cue from Aristotle, Abelard mastered the pagan philosophical art of dialectic-the logical disputation of truth. He applied this art to the Scriptures.3' Christian theological education never recovered from Abelard's influence. Athens is still in its bloodstream. Aristotle, Abelard, and Aquinas all believed that reason was the gateway to divine truth. So from its beginnings, Western university education involved the fusion of pagan and Christian elements." Martin Luther had it right when he said, "What else are the universities than places for training youth in Greek glory. 1117 Although Luther was a university man himself, his critique was aimed at the practice of teaching Aristotelian logic at the university level."
Seminarian. Seminary theology grew out of the scholastic theology that was taught in the universities. As we have seen, this theology was based on Aristotle's philosophical system.39 Seminary theology was dedicated to the training of professional ministers. Its goal was to produce seminary-trained religious specialists. It taught the theology-not of the early bishop, monk, or professor-but of the professionally "qualified" minister. This is the theology that prevails in the contemporary seminary. One of the greatest theologians of this century, Karl Barth, reacted against the idea that theological education should be relegated to an elite class of professional orators. He wrote, "Theology is not a private reserve of theologians. It is not a private affair of professors.... Nor is it a private affair of pastors.... Theology is a matter for the church.... The term `laity' is one of the worst in the vocabulary of religion and ought to be banished from Christian conversation."40 Concerning the seminary, we might say that Peter Abelard laid the egg and Thomas Aquinas hatched it. Aquinas had the greatest influence on contemporary theological training. In 1879, his work was endorsed by a papal bull as an authentic expression of doctrine to be studied by all students of theology. Aquinas's main thesis was that God is known through human reason. He "preferred the intellect to the heart as the organ for arriving at truth."" Thus the more highly trained people's reason and intellect, the better they will know God. Aquinas borrowed this idea from Aristotle. And that is the underlying assumption of many-if not most-contemporary seminaries. The teaching of the New Testament is that God is Spirit, and as such, He is known by revelation (spiritual insight) to one's human spirit.42 Reason and intellect can cause us to know about God. And they help us to communicate what we know. But they fall short in giving us spiritual revelation. The intellect is not the gateway for knowing the Lord deeply. Neither are the emotions. In the words of A. W. Tozer: "Divine truth is of the nature of spirit and for that reason can be received only by spiritual revelation.... God's thoughts belong to the world of spirit, man's to the world of intellect, and while spirit can embrace intellect, the human intellect can never comprehend spirit. ... Man by reason cannot know God; he can only know about God. ... Man's reason is a fine instrument and useful within its field. It was not given as an organ by which to know God."43 In short, extensive Bible knowledge, a high-powered intellect, and razor-sharp reasoning skills do not automatically produce spiritual men and women who know Jesus Christ profoundly and who can impart a life-giving revelation of Him to others.44 (This, by the way, is the basis of spiritual ministry.) As Blaise Pascal (162 3-1662) once put it, "It is the heart which perceives God, and not the reason."45 Today, Protestants and Catholics alike draw upon Aquinas's work, using his outline for their theological studies.46 Aquinas's crowning work, Summa Theologica (The Sum of All Theology), is the model used in virtually all theological classes today-whether Protestant or Catholic. Consider the order in which Aquinas's theology is laid out: God Trinity Creation Angels Man The Divine Government (Salvation, etc.) The Last End47 Now compare this outline to a typical systematic theology textbook used in Protestant seminaries: God Unity and Trinity Creation Angelology The Origin and Character of Man Soteriology (Salvation, etc.) Eschatology: The Final State 41
Without a doubt, Aquinas is the father of contemporary theology." His influence spread to the Protestant seminaries through the Protestant scholastics." The tragedy is that Aquinas relied so completely on Aristotle's method of logic chopping when he expounded on holy writs' In the words of Will Durant, "The power of the Church was still adequate to secure, through Thomas Aquinas and others, the transmogrification [transformation] of Aristotle into a medieval theologian." In another book Durant says that "he began a long series of works presenting Aristotle's philosophy in Christian dress."52 Aquinas also quotes from another pagan philosopher profusely throughout his Summa Theologica.53 Regardless of how much we wish to deny it, contemporary theology is a blending of Christian thought and pagan philosophy. So we have four stages of theological education: episcopal, the theology of the bishops; monastic, the theology of the monks; scholastic, the theology of the professor; and seminarian, the theology of the professional minister.54 Each stage of Christian education is and always has been highly intellectual and study driven.' As one scholar put it, "Whether a school was monastic, episcopal, or presbyterial, it never separated teaching from religious education, from instruction in church dogma and morals. Christianity was an intellectual religion."" As products of the Reformation, we are taught to be rationalistic (and very theoretical) in our approach to the Christian faiths'
THE FIRST SEMINARIES For much of the medieval age, clerical education was minimal." At the time of the Reformation, many Protestant pastors who converted from Roman Catholicism had no experience in preaching. They lacked both training and education. As the Reformation progressed, however, provisions were made for uneducated pastors to attend schools and universities. Protestant ministers were not trained in oratory. They were instead trained in exegesis and biblical theology. It was assumed that if they knew theology, they could preach. (This assumption accounted for the long sermons in the sixteenth century, which often lasted two or three hours!)" This type of theological training produced a "new profession"-the theologically trained pastor. Educated pastors now wielded tremendous influence, holding doctor's degrees in theology or other academic titles that gave them prestige.b� By the mid-sixteenth century, most Protestant ministers were university trained in some way.b' So from its inception, Protestantism promoted a well-educated clergy, which became the backbone of the movement." Throughout Protestant lands, the clergy were the best educated citizens. And they used their education to wield their authority.63 While Protestant ministers were sharpening their theological savvy, about one-fourth of the Catholic clergy had no university training. The Catholic church reacted to this at the Council of Trent (1545-1563). In order for the church to fight the new Protestant Reformation, it had to better educate its clergy. The solution? The founding of the very first seminaries.64 The Catholics wanted the learning and devotion of their priests to match that of the Protestant pastors.6' Therefore, the Council of Trent required that all cathedral and greater churches "maintain, to educate religiously, and to train in ecclesiastical discipline, a certain number of youths of their city and diocese." So we may credit the founding of the seminary to the Catholics in the late sixteenth century. The origin of the first Protestant seminary is clouded in obscurity But the best evidence indicates that the Protestants copied the Catholic model and established their first seminary in America. It was established in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1808.66 Christian education in the United States was just as Aristotelian and highly systematized as it was in Europe.67 By 1860, there were sixty Protestant seminaries on American soi1.68 This fast-paced growth was largely the result of the influx of converts produced during the Second Great Awakening (1800-1835) and the perceived need to train ministers to care for them .61 Before Andover Seminary was founded, the Protestants had Yale (1701) and Harvard (1636) to train their clergy. Ordination was granted upon completing a formal examination by graduation.'� But in time, these universities rejected orthodox Christian beliefs. (Harvard, for example, adopted Unitarianism.)" The Protestants no longer trusted an undergraduate education at Yale and Harvard, so they established their own seminaries to do the job themselves."
BIBLE COLLEGE The Bible college is essentially a nineteenth-century North American evangelical invention. A Bible college is a cross between a Bible institute (training center) and a Christian liberal arts school. Its students concentrate in religious studies and are trained for Christian service. The founders of the first Bible colleges were influenced by London pastors H. G. Guinness (1835-1910) and Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892). In response to the revivalism of D. L. Moody, the Bible college movement blossomed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first two Bible colleges were the Missionary Training Institute (Nyack College, New York) in 1882 and Moody Bible Institute (Chicago) in 1886.73 Their focus was to train ordinary laypeople to become "full-time" Christian workers.74 What led to the founding of the Bible college? From the mid-nineteenth century, little attention had been given to traditional Christian values as an integral part of higher education. Liberal theology had begun to dominate state universities across America. In the face of these elements, the demand for missionaries, parachurch leaders, and ministers provoked the creation of the Bible college to equip "the called" with a Bible education.'' Today, there are over four hundred Bible schools and colleges in the United States and Canada.76
SUNDAY SCHOOL
The Sunday school is also a relatively recent invention, born some 1,700 years after Christ. A newspaper publisher named Robert Raikes (1736-1811) from Britain is credited with being its founder.77 In 1780, Raikes established a school in "Scout Alley," Gloucester, for poor children. Raikes did not begin the Sunday school for the purpose of religious instruction. Instead, he founded it to teach poor children the basics of education. Raikes was concerned with the low level of literacy and morality among common children. Many of the children who attended his school were the victims of social and employer abuse. Because the children could not read, it was easy for others to take advantage of them. Although Raikes was an Anglican layman, the Sunday school took off like wildfire, spreading to Baptist, Congregational, and Methodist churches throughout England." The Sunday school movement came to a peak when it hit the United States. The first American Sunday school began in Virginia in 1785.' Then in 1790, a group of Philadelphians formed the Sunday School Society Its purpose was to provide education to indigent children to keep them off the streets on Sunday.8� In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many Sunday schools operated separately from churches. The reason: Pastors felt that laymen could not teach the Bible." In the mid-1800s, Sunday schools spread far and wide throughout America. In 1810, the Sunday school began to shift from being a philanthropic effort to help poor children to an evangelical mechanism. D. L. Moody is credited with popularizing the Sunday school in America." Under Moody's influence, the Sunday school became the primary recruiting ground for the contemporary church.83 Today, the Sunday school is used both to recruit new converts and to train young children in the doctrines of the faith.84 Public education has taken over the role for which Sunday school was designed.85 It should be noted that the nineteenth century was an era of institution building in America. Corporations, hospitals, asylums, prisons, as well as children's establishments like orphanages, reform schools, and free public schools were formed during this time.86 The Sunday school was just another such institution.87 Today, it is a permanent fixture in the traditional church. As a whole, we don't view the contemporary Sunday school as an effective institution. According to some studies, Sunday school attendance has been on the decline over the last two decades.88 Describing the way of the early church, one scholar says, "There is no evidence to suggest that teachers divided groups on the basis of age and sex. The responsibility of the child's early education and, in particular, religious education lay with the parents.... No special arrangements seem to have been made for children by the early church. The Christian school was a long way off (around AD 3 72)-the Sunday School even more so."89
THE YOUTH PASTOR The youth pastor began appearing in churches long after Sunday schools, largely because society did not recognize or cater to the needs of this age group until the twentieth century.90 In 1905, G. Stanley Hall popularized the concept of the "adolescent" as distinct from the young adult and the older child." Then in the 1940s, the term teenager was born. And for the first time a distinct youth subculture was created. People ages thirteen to nineteen were no longer simply "youths." They were now "teenagers. "92 After World War II, Americans developed great concern for the young people of our nation. This concern spilled over into the Christian church. Youth rallies in the 1930s laboring under the banner "Youth for Christ" spawned a parachurch organization by the same name around 1945.93 With new understanding and concern for the "teenagers," the idea that someone needed to be employed to work with them emerged. Thus was born the professional youth minister. The youth pastor began working in large urban churches in the 193 Os and 1940s.94 Calvary Baptist Church in Manhattan had one of the very first youth pastors. Moody Monthly magazine wrote about him in the late 1930s.95 The majority of youth ministers in this era, however, worked for the emerging parachurch organizations that filled the Christian landscape." By the early 1950s, thousands of professional youth ministers were meeting the spiritual needs of young people, who now had their own music, dress, literature, language, and etiquette.' During this time, the Christian church began to segregate teenagers from everyone else. From the mid-1950s to the end of the 1960s, the youth pastor became an established part of evangelical churches. (The position took off a bit more slowly in the mainline denominations.)" By the end of the 1980s, youth ministry's shift from the parachurch organizations to institutional churches was pretty well complete. Today, youth pastors are part of the professional clergy. Their position is built on the contemporary church's misguided choice to honor a division that was born in secular culture less than a century ago-namely, the division between teenager and everyone else. Put another way, the youth pastor did not exist until a separate demographic group called teenagers emerged. In so doing, we created a problem that never before existed-what to do for (and with) the young people. It is not at all unlike the problem we created when a new class of Christian-the "laymen"-was invented. The question "How do we equip the laity?" was never asked before the institutional church made them a separate class of Christian.
EXPOSING THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM The Greek philosophers Plato and Socrates taught that knowledge is virtue. Good depends on the extent of one's knowledge. Hence, the teaching of knowledge is the teaching of virtue.99 Herein lies the root and stem of contemporary Christian education. It is built on the Platonic idea that knowledge is the equivalent of moral character. Therein lies the great flaw. Plato and Aristotle (both disciples of Socrates) are the fathers of contemporary Christian education.`oo To use a biblical metaphor, present-day Christian education, whether it be seminarian or Bible college, is serving food from the wrong tree: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rather than the tree of life."'
Contemporary theological learning is essentially cerebral. It can be called "liquid pedagogy.""' We pry open people's heads, pour in a cup or two of information, and close them up again. They have the information, so we mistakenly conclude the job is complete. Contemporary theological teaching is data-transfer education. It moves from notebook to notebook. In the process, our theology rarely gets below the neck. If a student accurately parrots the ideas of his professor, he is awarded a degree. And that means a lot in a day when many Christians obsess over (and sometimes deify) theological degrees in their analysis of who is qualified to minister.103 Theological knowledge, however, does not prepare a person for ministry.10' This does not mean that the knowledge of the world, church history, theology, philosophy, and the Scriptures is without value. Such knowledge can be very useful."' But it is not central. Theological competence and a high-voltage intellect alone do not qualify a person to serve in God's house. The fallacy is that men and women who have matriculated from seminary or Bible college are instantly viewed as "qualified." Those who have not are viewed as "unqualified." By this standard, many of the Lord's choicest vessels would have failed the test.106 In addition, formal theological training does not equip students for many of the challenges of ministry. According to the Faith Communities Today (FACT) study released by Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, seminary graduates and clergymen who had advanced degrees scored lower in both their ability to deal with conflict and in demonstrating a "clear sense of purpose" than did the nonseminary graduates. 117 The survey showed that clergy with no ministerial education or formal certificate program scored the highest on tests that revealed how well one deals with conflict and stress. Bible college graduates scored slightly lower. Seminary graduates scored the lowest! The major finding of the study was that "congregations with leaders who have a seminary education are, as a group, far more likely to report that in their congregations they perceive less clarity of purpose, more and different kinds of conflict, less person-to-person communication, less confidence in the future and more threat from changes in worship.""' All of this indicates that a person who matriculates from the theory-laden seminary or Bible college has been given little to no hands-on experience in the crucible of body life. By body life, we are not referring to the common experience of being in an institutional church setting. We are referring to the rough-and-tumble, messy, raw, highly taxing experience of the body of Christ where Christians live as a close-knit community and struggle to make corporate decisions together under Christ's headship without a stated leader over them. In this regard, the seminary is spiritually stultifying on some pretty basic levels. The approach taken by seminaries is also self-referential. It sets its own criteria for who should minister and on what terms. It then often judges those who do not think the criteria are particularly useful or important. But perhaps the most damaging problem of the seminary and Bible college is that they perpetuate the humanly devised system in which the clergy live, breathe, and have their being. That system-along with every other outmoded human tradition addressed in this book-is protected, kept alive, and spread through our ministerial schools."' Instead of offering the cure to the ills of the church, our theological schools worsen them by assuming (and even defending) all of the unscriptural practices that produce them. The words of one pastor sum up the problem nicely: "I came through the whole system with the best education that evangelicalism had to offer-yet I really didn't receive the training that I needed ... seven years of higher education in top-rated evangelical schools didn't prepare me to (1) do ministry and (2) be a leader. I began to analyze why I could preach a great sermon and people afterwards would shake my hand and say, `Great sermon, Pastor.' But these were the very people who were struggling with self-esteem, beating their spouses, struggling as workaholics, succumbing to their addictions. Their lives weren't changing. I had to ask myself why this great knowledge I was presenting didn't move from their heads to their hearts and their lives. And I began to realize that the breakdown in the church was actually based on what we learned in seminary. We were taught that if you just give people information, that's enough!""'
delving DEEPER
1. If you do not believe seminaries provide the right environment for the education of Christian leaders, can you give specifics on how you believe Christian workers should be prepared for Christian service? This is a very big topic. But in short, the way that Jesus Christ trained Christian workers was to live with them for a period of years. It was "on the job" training. He mentored His disciples at close range. They also lived in community together. Jesus did the work, they watched, and then they went on a trial mission which He critiqued. Eventually, He sent them out, and they carried on the work themselves. Paul of Tarsus followed the same pattern, training Christian workers in the city of Ephesus. They were part of the community in Ephesus, they watched Paul, and eventually, they were sent out to do the work.
2. Can you elaborate on your statement that "the intellect is not the gateway for knowing the Lord deeply. Neither are the emotions"? How does Tozer's observation that we can only obtain divine truth through spiritual revelation affect how we should go about providing Christian training? Those who train others in Christian work should be familiar with those spiritual realities that transcend intellect and emotion. Consequently, spiritual formation, spiritual understanding, and spiritual insight are vital ingredients in training for spiritual service. This includes spending time with the Lord, learning to bear His cross, living in authentic community, sharpening one's spiritual instincts, and discerning how to hear God's voice and be guided by Him inwardly.
Christian Education: Interesting read... I would like some thoughts regarding this...
Posted : 7 Jan, 2012 12:32 PM
Mat 28:18 And having come near, Jesus spake to them, saying, `Given to me was all authority in heaven and on earth;
Mat 28:19 having gone, then, disciple all the nations, (baptizing them--to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Mat 28:20 teaching them to observe all, whatever I did command you,) and lo, I am with you all the days--till the full end of the age.'
Mat 28:18 And coming up Jesus talked with them, saying, All authority in Heaven and on earth was given to Me.
Mat 28:19 Then having gone, disciple all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Mat 28:20 teaching them to observe all things, whatever I commanded you. And, behold, I am with you all the days until the completion of the age. Amen.
To be baptizing a person to or into the name of YHWH is to be teaching His name and compound names to others.
Also teaching of who YHWH is,what He is life.
Experience also is a good teacher.
Shalom
Farmer
ps
Btw Agapeton,I have written a few times about this but not as long.
Yet there seems to be a strict steadfastness to the traditions of men,instead of the Word of YHWH.
pss:
In Philthadelphia,PA. we called the seminaries CEMETARIES,as a person would go in alive and exit dead.
Christian Education: Interesting read... I would like some thoughts regarding this...
Posted : 8 Jan, 2012 07:15 AM
POIC, I agree! When I was new in Christ and fresh out of my divorce, my pastor saw that I knew the Word and was very impressed at how I knew things he learned at Moody Bible College nd wanted to make me an Elder. When he offered me this by asking me and telling me that I HAD to take some classes at Moody to mAke it official so he could suggest it to the rest of the elders (There are two "elders" plus him there. One is 30 years old nd has 2 toddlers. The other is in his 50's and his children don't all follow Christ. The "women" cant be called elders nor can teach in church, which is sad because they take the whole women can't teach thing out of context according to the cultural outlay of when that letter was written. But they CAN be called Deaconesses though. Go figure.) They are faithful men and I love them to death but when I mentioned to my pastor that under the stipulations of Scripture I wouldn't be qualified, much less him and the rest of the Elder board and Deaconesses, he just smiled and said, "Sal, one thing I've learned since becoming a pastor is that some traditions you don't question in our day." I was like, "Bro! Seriously!? You mean to tell me this is how we do things in light of Scripture?! What are we Catholic again(My pastor also came from a Catholic back ground, so when we first met we related on how we used to ask priests questions regarding the Scriptures when we were younger and would tell us the same thing my pastor did that day.)?" He just looked down, looked up again and smiled and said, Sal, I love you. You know how we have to follow everything the Bible says to follow God will but there some traditions that we can't break no matter how the Bible shows otherwise.
As far as the ways of God, bro. You just follow the Scriptures. Our Lord said that many will be called and few will be chosen. Plus the fact that he said that when the Son of man comes to earth there might not be faith upon it and that people accept the SAME MODEL in modern way of corporate worship (like they did in the time of a priesthood and temple worship) no matter if THEY ARE A CULT OR NOT within the faith of Christ should say something.
Well, I'm off to fellowship, bro. May our Lord nd Savior keep your eyes on Him and His eyes on your path.
Christian Education: Interesting read... I would like some thoughts regarding this...
Posted : 8 Jan, 2012 06:49 PM
George you or agapeton have nothing to say to anyone concerning Christianity until you yourselves come into the light of it. The Holy Spirit will not have any part in strife.
