on the local church

Dave Black presents some challenging convictions we all need to think about: 

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

5:05 AM At the risk of repeating myself …  

• I am convinced that the house church rather than the sanctuary church was the New Testament norm.

• I am convinced of the normalcy of tent-making leadership.

• I am convinced that the church exists in part to equip all of its members for ministry.

• I am convinced that the leadership of the church should be shared for the health of the congregation.

• I am convinced that top-down structures of leadership are unquestionably more efficient. Efficient in doing almost everything other than equipping, which is the primary task of leadership.

• I am convinced that the process of appointing new elders is best done on the basis of recognizing who is already serving as an elder in the church.

• I am convinced that any local church that takes seriously Jesus as the Senior Pastor will not permit one man to become the titular head of the church.

• I am convinced that the essential qualifications for ministry in the church have little or nothing to do with formal education and everything to do with spiritual maturity.

• I am convinced that the church is a multi-generational family, and hence one of the things that makes the church the church is the presence of children, parents, and other adults.

• I am convinced that because every local church has all the spiritual gifts it needs to be complete in Christ, believers should be exposed to the full expression of the charisms (grace-gifts) when they gather, in contrast to specialized ministries that center around singularly gifted people.

• I am convinced that the local church is the scriptural locus for growing to maturity in Christ, and that no other training agency is absolutely needed.

• I am convinced that the local church ought to be the best Bible school going.

• I am convinced that Paul’s letters were not intended to be studied by ordinands (a candidate for ordination) in a theological college but were intended to be read and studied in the midst of the noisy life of the church.

• I am convinced that the church is a theocracy directly under its Head (Jesus Christ), and that the will of the Head is not mediated through various levels of church government but comes directly to all His subjects.

• I am convinced that the goal of leadership is not to make people dependent upon its leaders but dependent upon the Head.

• I am convinced that since all believers are “joints” in the body, ministry is every believer’s task.

• I am convinced that pastor-teachers, as precious gifts of Christ to His church, are to tend the flock of God by both personal care and biblical instruction, equipping God’s people for works of service both in the church and in the world.

• I am convinced that the role of pastor-teacher is a settled ministry in a local congregation.

• I am convinced that leaders should communicate that every part of the body is interrelated to the other parts and indispensable; every member will be appreciated, every charism will be treasured.

• I am convinced that the whole church, the community of all the saints together, is the clergy appointed by God for ministry.

• I am convinced that everyone needs to be equipped for his or her own ministry both in the church and in the world. If the church is to become what God intended it to be, it must become a ministerium of all who have placed their faith in Christ. The whole people of God must be transformed into a ministering people. Nothing short of this will restore the church to its proper role in the kingdom of God.

Think about it.

It’s a lot to think about and to be honest, over the last couple years I have been becoming convinced of many of the same points as well.

What about you?

Dave Black’s Greek 23 (a Psalm)

This is Great!  

Greek 23

A Psalm of David (Black)

My textbook is my guide, I am never in need.

It makes me learn the conjugations.

It leads me beside the declensions.

It restores my confidence in grammar.

It guides me along the paths of exegesis

For its publisher’s sake.

Even though I face the scourge of participles

I will fear no evil,

For you are with me.

Your appendices and charts,

They comfort me.

You prepare an answer for me in the presence of my teachers.

You anoint my mind with wisdom.

My soul bursts with pleasure.

Surely my textbook will follow me

All the days of my life,

And I will remain a Greek student forever.

 

13 truths about NT Greek (and Hebrew)

from Dave Black’s blog:

1:36 PM The Reader’s Digest once published an article called “13 Things Used Car Salesmen Won’t Tell You.” Well, here are “13 Things Your Greek Teachers Won’t Tell You.”

1. Greek is not the only tool you need to interpret your New Testament. In fact, it’s only one component in a panoply of a myriad of tools. Get Greek, but don’t stop there.

2. Greek is not the Open Sesame of biblical interpretation. All it does is limit your options. It tells you what’s possible, then the context and other factors kick in to disambiguate the text.

3. Greek is not superior to other languages in the world. Don’t believe it when you are told that Greek is more logical than, say, Hebrew. Not true.

4. Greek did not have to be the language in which God inscripturated New Testament revelation. Truth be told, there’s only one reason why the New Testament was written in Greek and not in another language (say, Latin), and that is a man named Alexander the Great, whose vision was to conquer the inhabited world and then unite it through a process known as Hellenization. To a large degree he succeeded, and therefore the use of Greek as the common lingua franca throughout the Mediterranean world in the first century AD should come as no surprise to us today. I emphasize this point only because there are some today who would seek to resurrect the notion of “Holy Ghost” Greek. Their view is, in my view, a demonstrable cul-de-sac.

5. Greek words do not have one meaning. Yet how many times do we hear in a sermon, “The word in the Greek means…”? Most Greek words are polysemous, that is, they have many possible meanings, only one of which is its semantic contribution to any passage in which it occurs. (In case you were wondering: Reading all of the meanings of a Greek word into any particular passage in which it occurs is called “illegitimate totality transfer” by linguists.)

6. Greek is not difficult to learn. I’ll say it again: Greek is not difficult to learn. I like to tell my students, “Greek is an easy language; it’s us Greek teachers who get in the way.” The point is that anyone can learn Greek, even a poorly-educated surfer from Hawaii. If I can master Greek, anyone can.

7. Greek can be acquired through any number of means, including most beginning textbooks. Yes, I prefer to use my own Learn to Read New Testament Greek in my classes, but mine is not the only good textbook out there. When I was in California I taught in an institution that required all of its Greek teachers to use the same textbook for beginning Greek. I adamantly opposed that policy. I feel very strongly that teachers should have the right to use whichever textbook they prefer. Thankfully, the year I left California to move to North Carolina that policy was reversed, and now teachers can select their own beginning grammars. (By the way, the textbook that had been required was mine.)

8. Greek students think they can get away with falling behind in their studies. Folks, you can’t. I tell my students that it’s almost impossible to catch up if you get behind even one chapter in our textbook. Language study requires discipline and time management skills perhaps more than any other course of study in school.

9. Greek is fun. At least when it’s taught in a fun way.

10. Greek is good for more than word studies. In fact, in the past few years I’ve embarked on a crusade to get my students to move away from word-bound exegesis. When I was in seminary I was taught little more than how to do word studies from the Greek. Hence, I thought I had “used Greek in ministry” if I had consulted my Wuest, Robertson, Kittle, Brown, Vincent, or Vines. Since then I’ve discovered that lexical analysis is the handmaiden and not the queen of New Testament exegesis. Greek enables us to see how a text is structured, how it includes rhetorical devices, how syntactical constructions are often hermeneutical keys, etc.

11. Greek can cause you to lose your faith. It happened to one famous New Testament professor in the US when he discovered that there were textual variants in his Greek New Testament, and it can happen to you. When the text of Scripture becomes nothing more than “another analyzable datum of linguistic interpretation” then it loses its power as the Word of God. That’s why I’m so excited about my Greek students at the seminary, most of whom are eager to place their considerable learning at the feet of Jesus in humble service to His upside-down kingdom.

12. Greek can be learned in an informal setting. The truth is that you do not need to take a formal class in this subject or in any subject for that matter. I know gobs of homeschoolers who are using my grammar in self-study, many of whom are also using myGreek DVDs in the process. If anyone wants to join the club, let me know and I will send you, gratis, a pronunciation CD and a handout called “Additional Exercises.”

13. Greek is not Greek. In other words, Modern Greek and Koine Greek are two quite different languages. So don’t expect to be able to order a burrito in Athens just because you’ve had me for first year Greek. On the other hand, once you have mastered Koine Greek it is fairly easy to work backwards (and learn Classical Greek) and forwards (and learn Modern Greek).

Okay, I’m done. And yes, I’m exaggerating. Many Greek teachers do in fact tell their students these things. May their tribe increase.

Now who wants to tackle “13 Things Your Hebrew Teachers Won’t Tell You”?

(From Dave Black Online. David Alan Black is the author of Energion titles Christian Archy,The Jesus Paradigm,  Why Four Gospels? and  Will You Join the Cause of Global Missions?. Used by permission.)

Go here too to read Henry’s reflection on it all.  I can relate!

Quote of the Day: On getting a PhD

I know I post a lot on here about how it could be good for pastors of churches to think about getting a PhD or for PhD’s who haven’t been able to get into teaching just yet, to work the pastoral ministry.   Well, the following quote, believe it or not, is quite pastoral, and really could even be said of the MDiv, and I think in a lot of cases even the “pastoral ministry itself.”  Consider:

If you can imagine yourself doing anything else besides a PhD, then go do that.

Yup, there it is folks!  The most pastoral advice one can receive regarding academic or vocational work.  It’s true.  As Dr. Treier avers, PhD’s are time consuming labor intensive plain old-fashioned HARD WORK.  As it should be.  If there is something else you can do and find great joy and fulfillment in doing, go do that.  :-)   This is not to say if you are in a program now that you should stop or any such thing.  By all means, pursue thy calling with all thine heart!  It’s just that for those in the consideration – “let those who have ears to hear, hear.”

The rest of what he has to say is quite good too:

The job market suggests that in most fields evangelicals in particular do not need more applicants; we need a few better-prepared ones. The church, meanwhile, quite likely needs more intelligent and intellectually-curious pastoral staff members. Let the one who has ears, hear.

This is good too:

Having said that, I had a seminary professor tell me that I was not well cut out for pastoral ministry in certain respects, whereas “if you don’t go into the academy, you’re wasting your gifts.” If a professor tells you that, then again let the one who has ears, hear [no professor told me that] –although, in the most recent job market, the words are less and less likely to be spoken [indeed].

Perhaps the bottom line is to ask your potential recommenders to be really honest with you before they simply agree to write reference letters. You need to give them the freedom to do this, because–speaking from experience–it is not easy to tell someone with a heart set on a PhD that they’re probably not cut out for it. But you need someone to care for you enough to be as honest and helpful as they can.

This may even go go so far as to suggest that even if you do have the aptitude and gifting, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are to pursue the PhD.   Asks those who you know who have the COURAGE to be brutally honest (and with a loving interest in your personal best interest and personal, mental, emotional, spiritual well-being) with you.  They will let you know.

Nothing wrong with getting the PhD.  Like Marc Cortez says, just do it with your eyes wide open (and I say with your chin up).

Blessings!

B.H. Streeter’s The Four Gospels

For those interested in Gospel studies, B.H. Streeter’s The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins, treating of The Manuscript Tradition, Sources, Authorship & Dates (London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd., 1930) is now public doman and online!

Obviously it is a bit dated and much has transpired since, but is simply a must in Gospel studies.

Great Resource!

HT: Dave Black

Missions quote of the day:

From Dave Black’s blog:

The true scandal of the North American church is that, while we are getting stuffed with the gospel over and over again, most of the rest of the world is waiting to get a single bite.

I hope we start to get it.  Soon…

On the Resurrection

What Eugene Peterson has to say about the resurrection is so good I am reposting it from last year. 

On Recovering our Resurrection Center:

We live the Christian life out of a rich tradition of formation-by-resurrection.  Jesus’ resurrection provides the energy and conditions by which we “walk before the Lord in the land of the living” – the great Psalm phrase (116:9).  The resurrection of Jesus creates and then makes available the reality in which we are formed as new creatures in Christ by the Holy Spirit.  The do-it-yourself, self-help culture of North America has so thoroughly permeated our imaginations that we ordinarily don’t give attention to the biggest thing of all – resurrection.  And the reason we don’t is because resurrection is not something we can use or control or manipulate or improve on.  It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the world has had very little success in commercializing Easter – turning it into a commodity – as it has Christmas?  If we can’t in our phrase, “get a handle on it” or use it, we soon loose interest.  But resurrection is not available for our use.  It’s exclusively God’s operation.

What I want to do is rediscover our resurrection center and embrace the formation traditions that develop out of it. I’m going to deal in turn with the three aspects of Jesus’ resurrection that define and energize us as we enter the practice of resurrection lives.  I will then set this resurrection life lived out of the reality and conditions of Jesus’ resurrection in contrast to what I consider the common cultural habits and assumptions that are either oblivious to or make detours around resurrection.  I will name this “the deconstruction of resurrection.”  Finally, I will suggest something of what is involved in cultivating the practice of resurrection: living appropriately and responsively in a world in which Christ is risen  (13-14).

from: Living the Resurrection: The Risen Christ in Everyday Life (NavPress, 2006).

I’ve been realizing this Easter just how much we evangelicals tend to focus on the cross and how little we spend time reflecting on the fact and reality of the resurrection life of Jesus in us.  Somehow, sermons on the cross come across as more powerful – they garner more response, especially a response of guilt and sorrow and repentance.   In contrast to Peterson – we prefer to live cross-centered lives.  We evangelicals, we like messages on the cross, we like to keep things centered on the cross because we see it as the heart of the gospel.

But what about the resurrection?  Is it a side dish?  A happenstance that is a side note?  A marginal note?  No, it’s none of these things.  Well, we wouldn’t readily admit that but what do our thinking and actions show?

I think Peterson is on to the correct view - our lives should be resurrection centered - centered on the new life we have in Christ not merely because of the cross but almost certainly because of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ.  Without the resurrection nothing would matter (cf. 1 Cor 15:14, 17), not the death of Jesus on the cross, not forgiveness, not “pistis Christou” or “dikasone Theou” or imputation or any of that.  Without the resurrection of Jesus from the dead there is no freedom from the power of sin and death; there is no forgiveness of sins; there is no newness of life; no future; no nothing.

In fact, it is because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead that we have all these things: forgiveness, freedom, new life, healing, redemption, righteousness, and so on.   How can there be anything more important?

Key Question:  Is it fair to say we should in some sense move beyond the cross and on into the resurrection life to which Jesus has called us?

Think about it.  What say you?