Thursday, May 26, 2011

Horton is a'feerd of the church planting movement

Watch this video, pay special attention right at the two minute mark.



There are two things going on here.

One is the obvious reaction of a seminary guy who thinks anyone in a "serious" ministry role needs to go to seminary. How can you possibly plant a church and minister to people without having formal, expensive training in the original languages? There will always be a subsection of the church that cannot envision faithful ministry that does not include formal academic vocational training despite seeing nothing of the sort in the Bible.

The other response is the ongoing backlash against those who embrace God's sovereign grace, i.e. Calvinism, but don't toe the line on the traditions that surround it. I think that some in the “Truly Reformed” camp are victims of their own success. They have done a great job propagating the doctrines of grace and they have rightly gained a large and enthusiastic following. Then something odd and unexpected happened along the way. As many Christians embraced these doctrines, they did not flood into the traditional “Reformed” churches. They are finding new ways of expressing the church gathering and they are moving past the traditions of the Reformed wing of the church. In doing so they are finding that the more seriously they take the Scripture and the more they study it, the easier it becomes to jettison the traditions that have surrounded being “Reformed” since the 16th century.

When God is moving among His people, it is impossible and foolhardy for some men to try to dictate terms or control that movement. That has never stopped them from trying!

3 comments:

Fred Shope said...

Imagine what the apostles could have done if they'd only gone to seminary and learned how to properly do things.

David Rudd said...

i wish it hadn't ended that way...

what exactly did JESUS teach about "pastors, elders, and deacons"?

Arthur Sido said...

Co-Heir

I know! Good thing we have advanced beyond those primitive days...

David

That is part of the problem, everyone assumes we know what Scripture says about pastors, elders and deacons but often have not given it much study