Me: We know that sanctification looks different in every person. And there's a time for iron to sharpen iron, and there's a time for bearing with one another and letting love cover offenses. And then I was thinking about how the modern church doesn't look much at all like the early church. We don't concentrate on the same things; we don't even approach the things we do share in the same way. We are united in Christ, though. So I was wondering: would God even want us to look like the early church?
"These things have been written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come"--but we are a different culture, and the current church probably shouldn't reach it like the ancient church reached theirs.
So I guess I'm having another version of the it's-really-okay-not-to-be-just-like-everyone-else question. I suppose the goal is to be Christlike, not earlychurchlike.
Friend's response: Well, the church can't be like the early church in every way, 'cause it's different. The gospel has clearly gone to the Gentiles and beyond (so to speak) and it's not...directly...under the apostles anymore.
I put it to you: how much of the early church should the modern church imitate?
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2 comments:
Well, I'm a traditionalist, so I'm going to say quite a bit.
We're NOT culturally the same, so it WILL look different, of course. But I don't think it's supposed to BE different....
Details change. We talk in English and not Latin or Greek or Aramaic, for instance. Or else maybe we talk in Chinese. Or, sometimes, still in Greek. :) That's cool. God understands. Our relationship to culture is in some ways different, at least in the US -- the government doesn't have and can't have the same relationship with the Church that the Early Church had with their gov't.
On the other hand, I think that there is a great deal of wisdom in knowing and following "what the Church has always believed" as a guide to keep us from dangerous ideas leading to heresy and schism (which are pretty tightly connected, actually). The fact that the Early Church did something a certain way doesn't mean we necessarily have to do it the same way; but we should be able to explain WHY we don't, and I personally just don't buy a lot of the explanations....
Anyway. :) You know my general line of thought on all this sort of thing... or if you don't, you know where to find me and find out.
Peace,
Jonathan
P.S. How does this relate to "the communion of saints"?
Well--I'm not convinced the modern church SHOULD necessarily be the same. Urgh! It's the old question of the one and the many. I think we're going to descend into futile wrangling over words here; it seems that we can agree that the modern church should be like the early church in some ways and unlike in others. The questions is which is which.
I think there is a lot of value in reading works by Christians non-contemporary with oneself; but I'm finding that paying too much attention even to Augustine has distracted me from what Scripture says and sent me haring off in stressful directions.
It seems to me that God makes people different on purpose--the whole Body of Christ thing. The modern Korean church is not like the modern Purcellville church; not supposed to be, I don't think, either. So my theory is that perhaps the early and modern churches are likewise different.
What you demand, you realize, takes a great deal of work, study, and thought, and those are in short supply.
Saints can have communion despite being not all the same, all being SAINTS, one in Christ... am I missing the point?
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