Monday, May 27, 2013

Loving the Hard-to-Love Church

I am currently reading, among other things, John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. I am in the beginning of book 4 where Calvin teaches concerning the church. It is a wonderful book, and in one section Calvin makes a helpful point about patience with erring brothers and churches which I hadn't thought of before:
"They exclaim that it is impossible to tolerate the vice which everywhere stalks abroad like a pestilence. What if the apostle’s sentiment applies here also? Among the Corinthians it was not a few that erred, but almost the whole body had become tainted; there was not one species of sin merely, but a multitude, and those not trivial errors, but some of them execrable crimes. There was not only corruption in manners, but also in doctrine. What course was taken by the holy apostle, in other words, by the organ of the heavenly Spirit, by whose testimony the Church stands and falls? Does he seek separation from them? Does he discard them from the kingdom of Christ? Does he strike them with the thunder of a final anathema? He not only does none of these things, but he acknowledges and heralds them as a Church of Christ, and a society of saints. If the Church remains among the Corinthians, where envyings, divisions, and contentions rage; where quarrels, lawsuits, and avarice prevail; where a crime, which even the Gentiles would execrate, is openly approved; where the name of Paul, whom they ought to have honoured as a father, is petulantly assailed; where some hold the resurrection of the dead in derision, though with it the whole gospel must fall; where the gifts of God are made subservient to ambition, not to charity; where many things are done neither decently nor in order: If there the Church still remains, simply because the ministration of word and sacrament is not rejected, who will presume to deny the title of church to those to whom a tenth part of these crimes cannot be imputed? How, I ask, would those who act so morosely against present churches have acted to the Galatians, who had done all but abandon the gospel (Gal. 1:6), and yet among them the same apostle found churches?"
May we have the patience of Paul to work with erring Christian churches, speaking the truth in love, hoping all things in the process (1 Cor. 13:7). May we remember that no church will be perfect, but that all churches will require love and patience. Would you have remained at the church at Corinth?

Thursday, May 2, 2013

The Council of Gangra

The council of Gangra was an eastern church council held in the 300s A.D. (between the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople) and directed to suppress a schismatic, ascetic movement in Armenia. It has some very interesting, biblical points. Here are a couple of them:
Canon I: If any one shall condemn marriage, or abominate and condemn a woman who is a believer and devout, and sleeps with her own husband, as though she could not enter the Kingdom [of heaven] let him be anathema. 
Canon II: If any one shall condemn him who eats flesh, which is without blood and has not been offered to idols nor strangled, and is faithful and devout, as though the man were without hope [of salvation] because of his eating, let him be anathema. 
Canon XIII: If any woman, under pretence of asceticism, shall change her apparel and, instead of a woman’s accustomed clothing, shall put on that of a man, let her be anathema. 
Canon XV: If anyone shall forsake his own children and shall not nurture them, nor so far as in him lies, rear them in becoming piety, but shall neglect them, under pretence of asceticism, let him be anathema. 
Canon XVI: If, under any pretence of piety, any children shall forsake their parents, particularly [if the parents are] believers, and shall withhold becoming reverence from their parents, on the plea that they honour piety more than them, let them be anathema. 
Canon XVII: If any woman from pretended asceticism shall cut off her hair, which God gave her as the reminder of her subjection, thus annulling as it were the ordinance of subjection, let her be anathema. 
Canon XVIII: If any one, under pretence of asceticism, shall fast on Sunday, let him be anathema.

The whole thing is beneficial to read and can be found here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.viii.v.iii.html