to complete my claim with technorati, I must add the claim code: ix2uwqbvn3
Archive for September, 2009
I came across a great resource yesterday: http://www.translatum.gr/bible/download.htm.
Several versions available, and all free 
I’ve written recently about both baptism and church membership.
In those two posts, I argue both that the modern concept of “membership” is wrong, and that withholding baptism from a professing believer implies a more perfect knowledge of the state of someone’s soul than a mere human can claim to have.
If membership is a Biblical concept in some fashion, is there a legitimate rationale for “stages” or “types” of membership, or disallowing membership until the applicant has reached a given age?
What I mean is that if there is a way of defining “belonging” to a church without the manmade additions as seen in modern church membership, is there a reason to have a series of member statuses. For example, junior member, full member, transient/associate member.
Is there any Biblical or otherwise reasonable warrant for limiting the responsibilities or roles of a member because of their age? For example, does it make sense to dismiss “junior” members when issues that need to be handled by the church arise but are of a “mature” nature (perhaps sexual sin, or public incidents involving drugs, etc)?
If there is reasonable warrant for such levels, how does the church determine at what age a person should go from “junior” to “full”? Should it be up to the parents of the member? Is it entirely based on age? Is it a determination that needs to be made from the member’s standpoint, by speaking to the elders about a change in status?
Of course, if there is a staged membership concept, it could be abused by people not wanting to become “full” members, and keeping themselves as “junior” for as long as they could.
My question about associate/transient membership is more related to a person who spends a lot of time traveling or splits his work between a few places for more than just a week or two at a time. Such a transient status could allow a level of local responsibility with a given church, for example in St Louis, while maintaining a similar status with another church in, say, Detroit.
If we use Paul’s commendations of various people from one church to another, then it seems there is warrant for an associate concept of church belonging. Of course, as with the “junior” and “full” concepts, this could be abused by someone who wanted to avoid responsibility at all by claiming they were committed to the other church(es) they belong to, and really do nothing with any of them.
What are your thoughts?
I came across this except recently in my meanderings, and feel it is worth reprinting here.
Many think of Jesus as a weak, sad looking fellow. He has been depicted as such by artists around the world for thousands of years.
I could be wrong, but personally, I think Jesus was a man’s man. Remember, Jesus was a carpenter. In those days, nail guns, circular saws, chainsaws, and belt sanders were not available. To be a successful carpenter, you needed to be patient and strong. You chopped down a tree with your axe, cut it to a manageable length by hand, then carried it by hand or beast to the work area, cut it to finished length by hand, hand shaped it, and hand nailed it. I think Jesus was physically strong, with rough, calloused hands.
With that in mind, let’s look in Mark 11. Here, Jesus is heading to Jerusalem for His final days. In Mark 11:11, He walks through the temple and “looked round about upon all things”, then He went to Bethany for the night. While Jesus was in the temple, He saw that the people had forgotten the significance of what the temple represented. They had become callous to the importance of the building. They had become indifferent, even cold to the presence of Almighty God who was worshipped there. The merchants had taken up space for business within the temple proper, carrying on commerce and haggling over profits on holy ground. People were taking shortcuts around town by wandering through the courtyard, as if the temple was just another building or some obstacle to be crossed through as quickly as possible. It is doubtful behaviour like this would have been permitted in the days of Moses or Joshua. Frankly, as some might say, “they were cruising for a bruising”.
At some point after walking through the Temple and reviewing what was happening there, Jesus sits down and makes a scourge (per Strong’s, the Greek word is phragellion, and means “a whip, that is, Roman lash as a public punishment“). Notice Jesus was not out of control, nor did He throw a furious fit about what He saw in the temple; He simply looked around, then calmly left for Bethany, and made His whip. The next day (per verse 12) Jesus enters the temple again, and begins cleaning house.
Now, consider John 2:15. Jesus goes into the temple, driving out the moneychangers. Can’t you see a greedy merchant, ticked off at Jesus, going to the temple guards, demanding that they stop Him? I can imagine the guards looking at Jesus, looking at his whip, and then looking back at the merchant, and saying, “Hey pal, I’d like to see YOU go try to stop him!”
Is there an appropriate age at which someone can be considered for baptism? Is there an “age of majority” that needs to be considered before allowing someone who professes faith to be immersed in the baptistery?
I am a firm adherent to believer’s baptism. When a sinner is saved by grace, it is both their responsibility, and their privilege to be baptized and join the church.
But at what age can a profession of faith be “trustworthy”? Is there something magical about turning 16, 18, 20, 21, etc that makes a statement about an internal change of heart more true or more believable? I was not converted until about when I graduated high school. I knew for a long time that I was playing by the rules so I didn’t get in trouble. So by the time I was a Christian, no church I knew of would have had an issue with baptizing me.
But what about people I know who were converted around age 6? Or 10? Or 13? What is about turning 16 or 18 that makes some churches think that now they can believe that a person is really saved? What must be going-on in a converted child’s mind when a church won’t let them be baptized for 8 years because they’re only 10? Does that not lead to a great deal of self-doubt and wondering if what they’ve learned and accepted and believed is really true?
If a person has been truly saved, they can never become “unsaved” – but they can struggle with issues of assurance for years because someone they trust (a pastor, parent, Sunday school teacher, etc) has told them they have to wait.
All of the examples we have in the Bible of people declaring their faith in Jesus have them immediately being baptized as soon as a suitable source of water can be found. Yes – the apostles had special insights that our pastors can’t have today. However, even in the Jerusalem church were there found people who agreed to lie to the Holy Spirit about how much money they received for the plot of land they sold.
Were Ananias and Saphira false converts? I don’t know. But they didn’t show well in the only instance we have recorded of them in the Bible.
My personal conviction is that upon a credible profession of faith, any person should be baptized as soon as possible. As humans, we will make mistakes. We will occasionally recommend the wrong person to the church. Or misapprehend a profession as being what we want to hear, rather than what is really going-on. A verbal profession, followed by some [short] time of observation by both the person’s family, the church, their friends, and maybe coworkers ought to be enough to determine the likelihood of their statement being true.
But when that short observational time is done – and they’re still following what they claim to believe, withholding baptism from them becomes no longer a verification that they are what they say they are, but a way for the church to impose extra rules on top of the examples shown to us in the Bible’s account.
