scholarly journals An investigation into the socio-historical influences overcoming ethnicity in the early New Testament Church

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Humphreys Frackson Zgambo
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
In Christ ◽  
New Testament Church

Ethnicity, tribalism and xenophobia could be found inside and outside church walls. Ethnicity and racism are natural, learned and nurtured in human beings. However, ethnic identity and relations exist whether the ethnic groups are competing or not. The first challenge of the early church in the New Testament Church was to overcome ethnicity and hostile divisions between Jews, Gentiles and Samaritans. This study aims at exploring how socio-historical influences and nature of the message of the New Testament managed to overcome ethnicity and ethnic divisions in the early New Testament Church. The study will also reflect on how the contemporary church could manage ethnicity within its structures and redefine its position on what it means to be one in Christ within the diverse church.

scholarly journals An inquiry into ethnicity in the structures of the church: the case of Malawi

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Humphreys Frackson Zgambo
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Church Polity ◽  
The World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
New Testament Church ◽  
The Church

Ethnicity, tribalism and xenophobia could be found inside and outside church walls. Ethnic and racist behaviours in human beings are natural, learned and nurtured within societies around the world. However, ethnic identity and relations exist whether the ethnic groups are competing or not. The first challenge of the early church in the New Testament Church was to overcome ethnicity and hostile divisions between Jews and Gentles. The New Testament Church’s principles of open plural government overcame the phenomenon. The contemporary church is in dilemma to understand its archaic church polity and order in her own challenging context today.

Soteria

1953 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 406-416
Author(s):  
R. McL. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Good News ◽  
Early Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Love Of God ◽  
Wrath Of God

In the Gospel according to St. John it is written that ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever-lasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.’ In these familiar words is summed up the message of the Bible as a whole, and of the New Testament in particular. In spite of all that may be said of sin and depravity, of judgment and the wrath of God, the last word is one not of doom but of salvation. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is a Gospel of salvation, of deliverance and redemption. The news that was carried into all the world by the early Church was the Good News of the grace and love of God, revealed and made known in Jesus Christ His Son. In the words of Paul, it is that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself’.

scholarly journals Inklusiwiteit as evangelie

2009 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Van Eck
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Common Ancestry ◽  
Religion And Law ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christ Followers ◽  
Historical Memories ◽  
The Temple

Inclusivity as gospelIn antiquity, group identity was based on cultural ethnicity. Groups used their ethnicity to define and delineate themselves as unique. Ethnicity was determined by characteristics like family (kinship), name, language, homeland, myths of common ancestry, customs, shared historical memories, phenotypical features, and religion. The Jewish temple religion and law-abiding Jews in the early church (as depicted in Acts and the congregations of Paul) also used their ethnic identity as argument for justifying the exclusion of other groups/ethnic peoples from the Temple and the early church, respectively. Jesus, Acts and Paul, on the contrary, proclaimed that ethnicity meant nothing when it comes to being in God’s presence, being part of the early Christ-followers, or being part of any local (Pauline) congregation. For this reason, it can be concluded that the New Testament bears witness to an inclusive ecclesiology.

scholarly journals Scripture, Time, and Authority among Early Disciples of Christ

2016 ◽  
Vol 85 (4) ◽  
pp. 762-783
Author(s):  
Seth Perry
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Sole Source ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Disciples Of Christ ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Alexander Campbell ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
New Testament Church

This article explores the relationship between the idealization of the Bible and the material characteristics of printed bibles among the Disciples of Christ in the early nineteenth century. The Disciples were founded on the principles of biblical primitivism: they revered the “pure” Bible as the sole source for proper faith and practice. The tenacity with which Disciples emphasized their allegiance to an idealized, timeless Bible has obscured their attention to its physical manifestations and use as printed scripture. The timeless authority of the Bible was entangled with the historical contingencies of mere bibles, and the ways in which they dealt with these tensions offer important perspective on nineteenth-century bible culture. Scholars have treated primitivism as an ahistorical impulse—the idealization of the New Testament church as a mythical sacred era outside of time that could be perpetually inhabited. By contrast, through an examination of the New Testaments edited and published by Disciples leader Alexander Campbell and the heavily-annotated preaching bible of Thomas Allen, an early Disciples preacher, I argue that in seeking to recover the New Testament era through historicized understandings of scripture, primitivists like Campbell and Allen situated the early church itself firmly within historical, not primordial, time.

scholarly journals Kategeet en spiritualiteit

2006 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
C.J.H. Venter
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Way

Catechist and spiritualityThis article argues that catechetical instruction pertains to more issues than only transferring knowledge. The catechist’s spirituality can also contribute towards effective and convincing cathechetical instruction. The issue of the catechist’s spirituality is scrutinized, as well as the foundation and source of his/her spirituality. For the purpose of this article spirituality is defined as the way in which human beings, as made new in Christ, experience the gospel and apply it to the practice of life, also in teaching the Bible to children in catechetical work. On basis-theoretical level, attention is given to the occurence of the concept “spirituality” in the New Testament and the characteristics required of a catechist in his/her relationship with God. Special attention is given to the issue of modelling, and identification with the catechist. On a meta-theoretical level the focus is directed to the catechist’s personality including emotional intelligence and the way in which it functions within the framework of his/her spirituality. In conclusion certain practice-theoretical perspectives on catechist and spirituality are stated.

The New Testament Church and the Emergence of Religious Identities

2020 ◽  
pp. 102-140
Author(s):  
Savio Abreu
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Born Again ◽  
New Testament Church

This chapter is an elucidation of the process of identity formation among the Catholic Charismatics and the neo-Pentecostals, both at the corporate and the individual levels, with the recreation of the New Testament Church (NTC) as the guiding motif. The process of identity formation for the neo-Pentecostals involves marking clear-cut boundaries with Catholicism and Hinduism, the two dominant religious traditions in Goa. Assuming the identity of the NTC involves appropriating the dualistic spiritual worldview of the early Church and defining their mission as saving the lost, the lost being Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, and all others who are not Born-Again Christians. The identity of the neo-Pentecostals is closely linked with their idea of the mission to include urgent, aggressive proselytization and numerical expansion.

scholarly journals Jewish fish (ΙΧΘΥΣ) in post-supersessionist water: Messianic Judaism within a post-supersessionistic paradigm

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Willitts
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
New Testament ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Messianic Judaism ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

This article defines, explains and argues for the necessity of a post-supersessionistic hermeneutical posture towards the New Testament. The post-supersessionistic reading of the New Testament takes the Jewish nature of the apostolic documents seriously, and has as its goal the correction of the sin of supersessionism. While supersessionism theologically is repudiated in most corners of the contemporary church through official church documents, the practise of reading the New Testament continues to exhibit supersessionistic tendencies and outcomes. The consequence of this predominant reading of the New Testament is the continued exclusion of Jewish ethnic identity in the church. In light of the growing recognition of multiculturalism and contextualisation on the one hand, and the recent presence of a movement within the body of Messiah of Jewish believers in Jesus on the other, the church’s established approach to reading Scripture that leads to the elimination of ethnic identity must be repudiated alongside its post-supersessionist doctrinal statements. This article defines terms, explains consequences and argues for a renewed perspective on the New Testament as an ethnic document; such a perspective will promote the church’s cultivation of real embodied ethnic particularity rather than either a pseudo-interculturalism or the eraser full ethnicity.

‘Verba Christi’ in I Peter: Their Implications concerning the Authorship of I Peter and the Authenticity of the Gospel Tradition

1967 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 336-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Gundry
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Common Stock ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
The New Testament

The Epistle of I Peter has occupied a rather large place in recent critical studies of the New Testament. E. G. Selwyn has advanced the view that the epistle draws from four primary sources: a liturgical document, a persecution fragment, a primitive Christian catechism, andverba Christi. E. Lohse prefers to think that the early church had a common stock oforalparaenetic tradition, from which the epistolary writers drew. F. W. Beare has popularized in English the liturgical-homiletical hypothesis widely accepted in Europe, namely, that the major part of I Peter (i. 3–iv. 11) is the transcription of a baptismal liturgy-homily, transformed into an epistle by the addition of i. 1 f. and iv. 12–v. 14. The view has been carefully worked out by F. L. Cross, but has encountered increasing resistance.

scholarly journals Piety and devotion before God in pastoral counselling work relating to the persons touched by crime

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-85
Author(s):  
Martin Kruklis
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
Pastoral Counselling ◽  
In Christ

The article focuses on an exegetical analysis of the piety and devotion before God as the main personal qualities of a pastoral counsellor. They are revealed as the basis for making a unity with God while performing the activities of a pastoral counsellor. The article deals with the importance of the piety before God in the development of respectful relationships with peers. The understanding of a new creature in Christ is linked with the ability to build a mutual dedicated relationship between pastoral counsellors and persons under their care. Charity is seen as a service to the least brothers, concluding that in the New Testament everything related to the words poverty and suffering reveals the presence of the Kingdom of God on earth, as well as the fact that any person in our lives can become the least brother of Jesus.   Keywords: Piety and devotion before God, pastoral counselling.

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