Simple Church Minute--on preaching (program 2007)

 On today's "Simple Church Minute" program, I said that the transcript of today's program is located at June 12, 2011, but I have come to realize that, according to the way this blog is programmmed, it would be easier for anyone who might come here to find it under this day's post. 

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2007--preach

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, the definition of “preach” is 1) to deliver a sermon, 2) to urge acceptance or abandonment of an idea or course of action; specifically: to exhort in an officious or tiresome manner. These definitions truly indicate the modern understanding of the word “preach” and also, to a degree, the negative attitude a significant segment of our society has towards what we call preaching. Is that what the Bible means by the word? I know—for me to bring this up implies that I’m going to say “no”, and that is correct. Somewhere after the recording of the Scriptures, preaching became a Christian form of the equivalent of Roman oratory, a one-way form of communication. Interestingly, if one looks at pieces of speaking in the Book of Acts and later, one can find that a speech is preceded by words like “said” or “speak”, and not preach. This does, though, vary by translation.

The Bible tells us Jesus preached. What did he do? His style of speaking was like that of the style common to Jewish culture, in that it was two-way communication. We are fully well aware that Jesus had to tell the disciples that it was ok for children to be around him, John 3 and 4 tells of Jesus speaking one-on-one to two extremely different persons with regard to their spirits. The Jewish religious leaders overtly came up to him to ask him tricky questions. It was the style the rabbis had taught the people with.

In Acts and following, we see that preaching was sporadic, unplanned, without rhetorical structure, delivered on special occasions to deal with special problems, and was dialogue, not monologue. A word found in the original Koine Greek that is sometimes translated preaching is dialegomai, which is obviously where we get the word dialogue from. In the early days of the New Covenant, ministry came from all believers, and worship in the early church included teaching, exhortation, prophecy, singing, admonishment, speaking was conversational and even the teaching of local elders was normally impromptu.

For many years, it was something I noticed, but didn’t understand, that all the times that it seemed that the Spirit taught me the most significant things about following Jesus came through situations that were not what we in our western Christian culture consider regular worship services. I must now say that the reason for this is that those informal gatherings of believers, whether we call it a home or cell group, Bible study, prayer meeting, or maybe even no meeting, but just believers living and working together, outside the building walls, are more congruent with what the books of the New Covenant, that is, Acts to the end of the Bible, showed as being church than what we call church in our culture. Conversely, our ritualistic services, and any regular way of a service that is always or almost always the same way is ritualistic, is not taught in the Word. A regular order of worship is common for most beliefs in the world, and the Roman Empire forced buildings, paid leaders, and official structures into the church, and those structures have morphed over and over again over the centuries, An unbeliever can understand that structure, as a strong head person structure is used in government, military, and business, but God gave us, the true church, the Holy Spirit for us to follow where He wills. When we don’t do that, we get messed up. If there is any official titular office in the New Covenant church, it is in Colossians 1 verse 18 and Ephesians 5 verse 23, which mentions what could be a title, head of the church, which is filled by Jesus. I believe a further indication of God’s blessing upon living informally and meeting informally as the proper way to honor Jesus in our lives is how we see the church throughout history in persecuted areas see the blessing of growth, where the organizational church in the West has forgotten the Great Commission for centuries and has tied itself up in its bureaucratic complexity, and has not seen such growth.

You can contact me at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or by phone at 757-735-3639. If you wish to review what I just said, a transcript is posted at my blog, tevyebird.blogspot.com, at the entry dated June 12, 2011. You can find out more about being church without corporate structure in this area at www.hrscn.org.

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Almost all of what I said here comes from Frank Viola and George Barna’s book, “Pagan Christianity” page 88. That, in turn, has seven footnotes for the person looking to verify the historicity of what I said. As most bookstores in this area, Christian and secular, will not have this book on the shelf, one can obtain it quickest from www.frankviola.com or www.amazon.com.

For reference, the Greek word dialegomai appears in Acts 17:2, 17:17, 18:4, 18:19, 19:8-9, 20:7, 20:9, 24:25. None of the other words translated “preach” imply a speech, oration, or rhetoric, either.

2002--13 definitions of church (revision)

This blog I have redone a number of times.  It’s original title was “8 definitions of church”.  With this update, the number is now 13.  With each update, I feel that I am learning a little bit more of what God has said to us, the church, and a little bit more of how toxic the unscriptural traditions that have morphed into the church over the centuries are. 

2002—13 definitions of church

            My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  Today a word study on the greek word “ekklessia” and its English equivalent, church.  I, so far, have found 13 distinct definitions.  Six began developing a minimum of two hundred years after the writing of the New Testament, and, therefore, are not anything the writers of Scripture had in mind.  Those are:

1) the Roman Catholic Church, which in the western world was perceived to be a virtual equivalent for over 1200 years,

2) a denomination, of which others came about after the Reformation,

3) a building—buildings were forced into Christianity only after the Roman Empire legalized Christianity, or a general style of building that is exclusively used by institutional churches.

4) a special type of not for profit corporation—a benefit that the Roman Empire had for paganism, and extended to Christianity upon legalization, and

5) the special tax-favored corporation, and

6) the persons who make the policies for the not for profit corporations.

            The following definitions are connected to the word “ekklessia” in the original writings of the New Testament. 

7)  All believers in history.  Hebrews 12 verse 2, even though it doesn’t use the word, described this group.  This is the group that is going to be admitted into heaven. 

8) All believers in a city or area.  We only have one overt mention of a meeting of all believers in a city, in Acts 5 verse 12.  It is easy to picture that some of the early churches Paul describes were small enough that at some point they all met together.  Today, there are so many divisions that it is hard to imagine all believers in a city coming together, but I must mention it as one of the definitions. 

9)  A group of believers that meet together to worship, which is described in Acts 2 verses 42 to 47.  I believe that many do not wish to teach this scripture due to verse 45, where it speaks about sharing everything in common.  We must recognize the context of most of this early church being poor, under persecution from both the Romans, who saw them as a Jewish group, and the Jewish establishment, who had Jesus put to death.  The Non-Jews who had just come to faith in Jesus were travelers, as Jerusalem was on a trade route.  We see later in scripture that the Romans years later force everyone to scatter, and these non-Jews would have spent time growing in faith, and taking faith in Jesus back to their homeland upon that scattering.  This has and continues to happen.

 

10)     1 Thessalonians 5 verse 11 tells us that the church is a group of people that meets to build up each other.  This indicates that a local church is small enough for everyone to know each other, care about each other, and if everyone mentors one another, no one person is dominating all the teaching and mentoring.  Every believer gains wisdom to share as they desire to follow Jesus. 

11) As few as two believers, when meeting in agreement.  Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst.”  Further Colossians 1:18 tells us Jesus is Head of the Church.  Conversely, Heb. 10:25 tells us not to not forsake gathering together with other believers, but to exhort one another.  One can gather together with as few as two, but if one meets in the hundreds or thousands, but exhorting one another is not allowed or is not expected by others, we need consider the possibility that our traditional large gatherings do not meet the scriptural definition of church.  Also, Jesus was said this in a way that negated to the disciples’ minds the Jewish tradition that it took ten persons to have a congregation.

12)  This is a bizarre reference, but the believer in Jesus knows that God knew what He was doing in commissioning the books of Scripture.  In Acts 19, we have the story of the idol makers of the temple of Diana, a fertility cult, organizing a protest against the work of Paul in leading persons to faith in Jesus.  Apparently, enough persons were coming to faith in Jesus, and abandoning the town worship that was built on sailor’s giving money to the temple in trade for sexual acts, that their bottom line was affected.  In verses 32, 39, and 41 of our English Bibles, this mob is described as a “assembly” or “gathering”, but in the Greek, the word was “ekklesia” the word everywhere else translated “church.”  This tells us that an ekklesia isn’t religious, could be temporary, and the word is quite vague, more like our modern English word, “group,” and not much like the very religious, stiflingly organized meaning most persons in our culture associate with the word “church.” 

13)  To that effect, given that the early church met in meetings where everyone could share what God had done in their lives or taught them, with minimal structure, one scholar says that, if we were translating ekklesia into English for the first time now, the most appropriate way would be the phrase "town meeting".

Therefore, my conclusion is that many of the informal groups of believers meeting in business break rooms, college dorms, and informally in homes, where “two or three are gathered” align more with the biblical concept than our structured rituals, and by rituals, I am as much referring to modern soft-rock praise and worship as to centuries old liturgie. If you or I personally enjoy it does not make it any less a ritual.  How do we worship in Spirit and truth?  It takes work on every believer’s part, and openness on every leader’s part, to allow Jesus to be Head of the Church in reality, and not just a quote from Colossians 1 verse 18.

  You can contact me at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or by phone at 757-735-3639. To review what I just said, visit my blog, tevyebird.blogspot.com, as this is the entry for June 20, 2012.
 For more information about simple, organic worship in this area, visit www.hrscn.org.
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Information for this commentary was obtained from:
Frank Viola and George Barna, Pagan Christianity,
On point 2) Actually, Orthodox and Thoma (in India) predate the Reformation, and a variety of small groups of believers (and also heresies) were in hiding, particularly in mountainous areas of central Europe, before and somewhat after the time of the Reformation.
On point 11) Jon Zens, in The Pastor Has No Clothes, opines that the modern phrase "town meeting" is closest to ekklesia.  In the five minute format that I am working with in this commentary, there wasn't time to more than mention that idea.

1007--the minimum for church

On the night of September 28, I was laying in bed, and it came to me that the scriptures below, albeit that they are all short, together present a solid explanation of this concept, and would fit into a one minute time frame.  It is really difficult to say anything reasonable in only one minute, which may be why commercials almost never say anything logical.
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1007—the minimum for church

            This is Simple Church Minute.  In Matthew 18 verse 20, Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.”  Colossians 1 verse 18 says, “And He is the head of the body, the church.  Ephesians 5 verse 22 also does.  First Corinthians 12 verse 12 says, “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.” The most basic definition of the church is two or three with Jesus to lead.  Nothing was said about buildings or corporations.  First Thessalonians 5 verse 11 tells us to comfort and edify one another.  Nothing was said about one person doing all the edifying.  Acts 2 verses 42 to 47 tell us about caring for each other and the poor.  Look those up—I did not quote any of those out of the context the early church knew, but seems out of context for the society we live in.    For more info on being church without human structure, visit ww.hrscn.org.

Simple Church Minute 65--post-Reformation clergy wear

65—post-Reformation clergy wear

NOTE:  I originally wrote a segment for each of the 61 points Frank Viola and George Barna make in their book, Pagan Christianity, about traditions in the institutional church not based on scripture.  After writing it, I chose to not include this segment merely as I felt that in wouldn’t be an interesting radio commentary.

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenburg church door, he had no intention of splitting the Catholic church.  Nonethless, like Nehemiah in the Old Testament, the deed happened at just the right time in secular politics. Those who opposed him had their own agenda which was disconnected with what was proper understanding of the Bible.  This controversy about right belief did not touch right practice (that is what this series of blips is about).  Therefore, it didn’t immediately effect a detail such as what clergy wore.

            Those Reformers who paid particular attention to the ideas of John Calvin developed an extremely intellectual understanding of faith, and so they eventually adopted the philosopher’s gown.  Some wore it all the time, and some reverted back to only wearing during the communion ceremony.    In the 16^th century, black became the traditional color for doctors and attorneys, and Calvin thought of himself as an attorney, not a theologian.  All the way up to the 1940’s, some flavors of the church saw clergy wear change from the gown to a black frock coat, and, shortly afterward, a black suit.  In other traditions, the change was to a clerical collar, which became the universal symbol for a clergyman.

            What does the Bible say?  Jesus and the disciples did not wear special clothing.  Jesus didn’t authorize special clothing because he didn’t authorize a clergy class. Colossians 1 verse 18 says Jesus is the Head of the Body, the Church.  The Holy Spirit dwells in his people, and is sufficient to direct spontaneous, living worship, and guide his people, moment by moment.  Today, we see the church is growing fastest where government oppression prevents human organization, and slowest where the money flows fastest.

            You…

Simple Church Minute 40--covering

40—covering

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            In the early church, there were leaders, but no flow chart type hierarchy such as one would find in government, military, business, or our modern institutional churches.

Jesus is the head of the church; we are told that in Col. 1.18 and Eph. 5.23. Each believer can be prompted by the Holy Spirit.  Believers might be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors/teachers, elders, deacons/deaconesses, presbyters, workers, overseers, servants not as a matter of an appointed office with title, but according to faith, gifting, experience, character, and obedience to the Holy Spirit.  The Revised Standard Version has First Timothy chapter 3 verse 1 say “office of an elder”, but that is not in the original language.  This is an example of a translator putting in, possibly without realization, his cultural experience instead of what the writing actually said.

            Just one generation after the the apostles trained by Jesus, the idea of covering crept into the church. Cyprian of Carthage taught that every believer was accountable to a spiritual authority, with only the top person in a hierarchy being accountable to God alone.  This structure solidified in middle ages Catholicism, the Reformation removed some layers, but the idea never disappeared.  The covering doctrine reappeared in the charismatic flavor of the church under the teaching of Juan Carlos Ortiz in Argentina and the New Wine Magazine writers in the U.S.  All this runs contrary to the priesthood of all believers in which ministry is functional, organic, and shared by all believers before God.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more information on simple forms of honoring Jesus corporately, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/, or locally at (local website).

Simple Church Minute 19--what "pagan" means

19—what pagan means

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            In other blips, I have mentioned things in the church that have pagan origins.  I wish to clarify that the word “pagan” doesn’t mean bad or evil; it refers to an ancient religion that was the state religion during the days of the early church.  Greek mythology is connected to it.  It isn’t true, no significant amount of people believe it anymore, but that’s not the point.  Having a connection to it isn’t in and of itself bad—the names of the seven days of the week come from it, we can’t do anything about it, any seven words would do.  Roman paganism used chairs and carpets in their temples before the church did.  That doesn’t make chairs and carpets bad.  If you have a picture of the Roman sun god on your carpet, that’s another story.  Colossians chapter 1 verse 18 tells us Jesus is the head of the church.

            A Sunday or whatever day worship meeting is different.  An order of worship comes from paganism.  The Bible tells us about the Holy Spirit, not any person, determining order.  First Corinthians chapter 14 verse 26 tells us about mutual participation and edifying each other in worship.  That is impossible when one person does all the talking and believes its his job to set the agenda.  Preaching, as we see it today in most churches, isn’t what the Bible means by the word, and suppresses mutual edification.  Many services, when God isn’t allowed to be spontaneous, are boring.  Large numbers of people make mutual participation impossible.  How many people did Jesus mentor?  12, the disciples, and possibly at a lesser level, 70.  Personally, I’d advise against trying to do more than Jesus without specific guidance by the Holy Spirit.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, see http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.