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31 results for “Church authority”
Clear searchAn unrequited love for the historic Church
Standing at the Door An Unrequited Love for the Historic Church I do not stand outside the historic Church because I despise her. I stand outside because I love much of what I find within her, yet cannot call every later development apostolic. The…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
How Supersessionism Took Root in the Early Church A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension Supersessionism did not appear in one moment through one theologian. It developed as the Church became increasingly Gentile…
Read article →The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God
Israel and the Church: Why This Series Matters The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God Has the Church replaced Israel in the purpose of God? Some Christians answer yes, although the…
Read article →What Jesus promised the apostles about Israel's future
…kward text for any theology in which national Israel has permanently disappeared into the Church. The promise names the rulers, their thrones, the time of their rule, and those over whom they exercise authority. Each part should be allowed to retain its natural force. The promise…
Read article →Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy
…and the fulfilment of Israel's story. Those who belong to Christ are Abraham's seed. The Church receives Israel's covenant titles, the kingdom is taken from unbelieving Israel and given to a fruit-bearing nation, and all God's promises are yea and amen in Christ. There is one go…
Read article →Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ
…in whom God's oath to David reaches fulfilment (Acts 2:25-36). Christ's present heavenly authority is real and universal. The question is whether it exhausts a covenant which also speaks of David's house, Israel's kingdom, righteous government, and the nations under Messiah. The…
Read article →The wicked husbandmen, the fruit-bearing nation, and what Jesus said afterwards
…21:45 Jesus is confronting Israel's blind and unfaithful leaders. They occupy the seat of authority, possess the Scriptures, and exercise stewardship among God's covenant people, yet reject the prophets and are preparing to kill God's Son. Their own answer condemns them: wicked h…
Read article →Earth-dwellers, heaven-dwellers, and the literary structure of the Apocalypse
Where Is the Church during Revelation's Judgements? Earth-dwellers, heaven-dwellers, and the literary structure of the Apocalypse The argument that the word church disappears after Revelation 3 is often…
Read article →Israel's Messiah, Israel's Scriptures, and a gospel for the world
…e understand Jesus, the apostles, the gospel, and the relationship between Israel and the Church. Jesus was born within Israel's covenant world Jesus was not a Gentile religious founder who arrived with an unrelated faith. He was born to a Jewish mother, circumcised on the eighth…
Read article →A sign of Israel's renewal, not Israel's disappearance
…me also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." —Romans 11:5 The earliest Church was born from that believing remnant. Jesus, the apostles, the women who followed Him, the believers gathered before Pentecost, and the thousands added in Jerusalem were Jewish. Genti…
Read article →Responding to five common criticisms without defending what Scripture does not require
…sed by slogans before it is defined. It allegedly began with John Nelson Darby, turns the Church into God's failed contingency plan, ignores the fulfilment of prophecy in AD 70, baptises modern politics, and restores animal sacrifices in competition with the cross. Some dispensat…
Read article →J. C. Ryle · Doctrinal and pastoral essays · 1874
…ctrine intelligible turn the collection into far more than a record of nineteenth-century Church of England debates. Ryle writes openly as an evangelical Churchman defending a particular position within the controversies of his own century. Some chapters depend upon the language,…
View recommendation →Why a loaded label does not settle the question
…secret there. The real question is whether Scripture distinguishes Christ coming for His Church from His later return with His saints. That question cannot be answered by attaching a loaded label to one side. It must be answered by comparing the passages themselves. What Paul ac…
Read article →Edward Burman · Historical survey · 1984
…how it operated in different places and periods, and how religious conviction, political authority, fear, and coercion became entangled. It is disturbing history, but necessary history for understanding what can happen when a church claims the power to compel belief. The history…
View recommendation →Spiritual ecstasy, altered states, and discerning what is from God
…pirit The question becomes especially urgent when extraordinary behaviour occurs inside a church and is attributed to the Holy Spirit. Beginning in 1994, the movement known as the Toronto Blessing attracted visitors from around the world to the Toronto Airport Vineyard church. Pe…
Read article →Irenaeus of Lyons · Early Christian theology and polemic · c. 180–190
…t simply be dismissed as a recent invention. Read Irenaeus as an early witness, not as an authority on every matter. His closeness to the second century makes his testimony historically valuable, but antiquity does not make every interpretation correct. When he speaks of the cath…
View recommendation →Tertullian · Apologetic, doctrinal, and practical treatises · c. 197–220
…nd an uncompromising emphasis on holy living. Tertullian is an early witness, not a final authority. His later association with the New Prophecy, his growing severity, and some extreme practical conclusions require discernment; even his strongest arguments must be tested by Scrip…
View recommendation →Divine judgement, the character of God, and the promise of escape
Is the Church Appointed to the Tribulation's Wrath? Divine judgement, the character of God, and the promise of escape The claim that the Church is not appointed to wrath is sometimes answered too q…
Read article →How Christians can think politically without surrendering conscience to a package deal
Your Party Is Not Your Church How Christians can think politically without surrendering conscience to a package deal Political parties do not merely ask for our votes. Increasingly, they offer an entire identity.…
Read article →The LORD, Zion, and the meaning of Beulah in Isaiah 62:4–5
…h me.” —Leviticus 25:23 The land belongs ultimately to God. Israel possesses it under His authority, by His gift, and for His purposes. This truth gives the land a moral and theological significance that ordinary property does not possess. Israel could not treat it as an autonomo…
Read article →History, heresy, and the temptation of private Christianity
…angelical deformations—secret-key religion, escape rhetoric, elite conversion status, and churchless faith—but fails when it becomes a historical genealogy or a substitute for doctrinal argument. Imagine a Christian whose faith is assembled from prophecy videos, private impressio…
Read article →Hippolytus · Exposition, prophecy, and polemic · early third century
…n faithful and holy living. Treat Hippolytus as an important early witness rather than an authority whose every conclusion is binding. The identity of Hippolytus and the authorship of some works traditionally attached to his name remain disputed, and prophetic details should neve…
View recommendation →Constantine, Arius, the Trinity, the biblical canon—and the myths that refuse to die
…t. Those facts should not be minimised. But he did not introduce the deity of Christ to a Church which had never believed it, he did not decide the outcome by himself, and the council did not choose the books of the Bible. Nicaea was an attempt by bishops, enjoying unprecedented…
Read article →Augustine of Hippo · Spiritual autobiography and prayer · c. 397–400
…e God in whom the restless heart finds its true home. This is a spiritual classic, not an authority equal to Scripture or a template for every conversion. Augustine's later books move from autobiography into difficult reflection on memory, time, creation, and biblical interpretat…
View recommendation →Near-death experiences, neuroscience, and the authority of Christ
Beyond the Tunnel of Light Near-death experiences, neuroscience, and the authority of Christ Many years ago I read Tal Brooke's The Other Side of Death: Does Death Seal Your Destiny? The book stayed with me. Published in 1979, when the modern fascination with nea…
Read article →Signs, expectancy, and the event the Church is told to await
…christ Must Come First, Is Christ's Coming Imminent? Signs, expectancy, and the event the Church is told to await Imminency does not mean that Christ was required to return within the apostles' lifetime. It means that no revealed prophetic event must first occur before the Church…
Read article →Does John 6 teach the literal eating of Christ's body?
…eached the same conclusion from the text. Their testimony is not offered as an infallible authority alongside Scripture. It demonstrates that the interpretation “eating is believing” is not a modern Protestant invention devised to escape an otherwise obvious Roman reading. What R…
Read article →Sources behind Qur’anic narratives
…so expand earlier material imaginatively, combine sources or invent edifying stories. The Church did not reject the Infancy Gospel of Thomas because Christians were determined to suppress the clay birds. The canonical Gospels were received because of their apostolic origin, early…
Read article →Which Gospel does the Qur'an affirm?
…ds, Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Ethiopia and regions connected with Arabia. Their churches disagreed sharply over Christology, councils, episcopal authority and imperial power. They used different liturgical languages. Some lived beyond Byzantine control. Yet the Gospel b…
Read article →Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence
…them. That is not said to mock the converts. Their confusion also belongs at the feet of churches which entertained but did not teach, gathered crowds but did not catechise, and told people to believe without preparing them to explain what they believed. If someone leaves Christ…
Read article →Labour, purpose, and faithfulness in a fallen world
…fear and serve. There are circumstances in which a person genuinely cannot work, and the Church must never turn these passages into contempt for the poor, sick or unemployed. Scripture which commends diligence also commands generosity, mercy and practical care. The purpose is no…
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