George Blaisdell
April 1st 2003, 11:46 AM
Solly and I, on the infant baptism thread, decided to begin this text as a fresh thread, in the hope that a discussion of Biblical ekklessiology might prove fruitful...
The Eastern Orthodox Church has taught from the times of the writing of this text that the Church is the center of Christian life, and indeed, so central, so essential, is the Church that St. Cyprian of Carthage writes: “He cannot have God as a Father who does not have the Church as a mother.”
And this Church is not some hairy fairy pie in the sky etherial type of new-age imaginative construct of fantasy, but the real, flesh and blood Church of Christ and his holy saints upon the earth, and is the body of our Lord, and the ark of salvation for those in Him...
The text reads very simply:
15 but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou ought to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
The ekklesiastical implication is hard to avoid - If you want the truth, you go to the church of the Living God, which is the house of God, and conduct yourself appropriately in it...
If there is any controversy, one is biblically enjoined here to NOT seek answers outside the pillar and ground of truth.
So having set up the matter, I turn it over to Solly or anyone else who should wish to contribute to a better understanding of the nature and role of the Church in the guardianship of truth and in the salvation of the people of God in the house of God....
geo
The Eastern Orthodox Church has taught from the times of the writing of this text that the Church is the center of Christian life, and indeed, so central, so essential, is the Church that St. Cyprian of Carthage writes: “He cannot have God as a Father who does not have the Church as a mother.”
And this Church is not some hairy fairy pie in the sky etherial type of new-age imaginative construct of fantasy, but the real, flesh and blood Church of Christ and his holy saints upon the earth, and is the body of our Lord, and the ark of salvation for those in Him...
The text reads very simply:
15 but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou ought to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
The ekklesiastical implication is hard to avoid - If you want the truth, you go to the church of the Living God, which is the house of God, and conduct yourself appropriately in it...
If there is any controversy, one is biblically enjoined here to NOT seek answers outside the pillar and ground of truth.
So having set up the matter, I turn it over to Solly or anyone else who should wish to contribute to a better understanding of the nature and role of the Church in the guardianship of truth and in the salvation of the people of God in the house of God....
geo