The Hsu’s Views

I’ve included two paragraphs from a portion of Wayne Grudem’s systematic theology dealing with “church.” It is interesting to me because while the title retains the two normal categories that most systematic theologies use, “local and universal,” Grudem argues that the term church (ekklesia) can legitimately be used for a group of believers at any level from the house church to the church universal. He writes:

3. The church is local and universal
In the New Testament the word “church” may be applied to a group of believers at any level, ranging from a very small group meeting in a private home all the way to the group of all true believers in the universal church. A “house church” is called a “church” in Romans 16:5 (”greet also the church in their house”), 1 Corinthians 16:19 (”Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord”). The church in an entire city is also called “a church” (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1; and 1 Thes. 1:1). The church in a region is referred to as a “church” in Acts 9:31: “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was built up.” Finally, the church throughout the entire world can be referred to as “the church.” Paul says, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25) and says, “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers …” (1 Cor. 12:28). In this latter verse the mention of “apostles,” who were not given to any individual church, guarantees that the reference is to the church universal.

We may conclude that the group of God’s people considered at any level from local to universal may rightly be called “a church.” We should not make the mistake of saying that only a church meeting in houses expresses the true nature of the church, or only a church considered at a city-wide level can rightly be called a church, or only the church universal can rightly be called by the name “church.” Rather, the community of God’s people considered at any level can be rightly called a church. — Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1994

I’m interested in knowing what happens if we think of church at the level of the entire city or the region. What happens to passages like 1 Cor 12: 12-31 which speak of the church as a body made up of many parts? We usually think of the passage referring to individuals that use their gifting in the context of their local church. How do things change if when we think of the church of the city as the context?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Every once in a while I chase down a few Internet bunny trails and find great riches that I want to save/document for future reference. Such was the case last night when I stumbled across Michael Spencer’s blog over at internetmonk.com. I thought I’d thumb through his “Top Ten” blogs of 2007 and ran across his reference to Trevin Wax’s Kingdom People blog.

I was intrigued with the reference to Trevin’s assessment of the John Piper and N.T. Wright controversy over Paul and the doctrine of Justification. I’ve not understood the concerns yet, but because this is such a cornerstone doctrine, I thought I’d read up.

Trevin posted the transcript of a very interesting interview with N.T. Wright which can be read here and heard here. A broad, useful (and objective?) definition of the issues surrounding the new perspective on Paul can be found at wikipedia.

At the wikipedia entry, there are some links for further reading. I thought I’d post one that was pro New Perspective, The Paul Page. It has lots of interesting reading that I hope to get to soon. On the Anti New Perspective, or apparently, the traditional Reformed position on Paul and justification, there are some nice resources at Theopedia.

John Franke has penned a great article over at Allelon regarding the centrality of mission as the central organizing principle for the church. This stems from the character of God himself and is captured by the term missio Dei. How is God missional by nature?

This missional pattern is captured in the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). God is missional by nature. The love of God lived out and expressed in the context of the eternal community of love gives rise to the missional character of God who seeks to extend the love shared by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into the created order. According to David Bosch, mission is derived from the very nature of God and must be situated in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity rather than ecclesiology or soteriology. In this context the logic of the classical doctrine of the missio Dei expressed as God the Father sending the Son, and the Father and the Son sending the Spirit may be expanded to include yet anther movement: “Father, Son, and Spirit sending the church into the world” (David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991], 390). In this context, the church is seen as the instrument of God’s mission and its various historical, global, and contemporary embodiments may be viewed as a series of local iterations of God’s universal mission to all of creation.

It is an excellent article even it if is a bit technical. His comments regarding how we should approach the doing and teaching of theology are important.