Just click the BOARD link up top there and start a thread about it…if there’s not one already.

That, and the fact that Shaun (Groves) is 10 years my junior, and I therefore get this very “older sibling protection syndrome” when I “assume” (yikes!) he’s being dissed in any way.

If Shaun wants to hug and kiss you, that’s his business, but I hope you’ll settle for a cyber-handshake from me.

Beth

The OT and NT folks also had very different ideas about what “lawful” sex looked like between a man and a woman than most modern people.  Onananism (withdrawal) was considered to be sinful by many Jews and early Christians even within marriage (e.g., Babylonian Talmud and Shulchan Aruch both say that onanism is sinful). Dr. Rodney Stark also cites this difference between pagan culture and early Christian culture as one reason that Christianity grew so rapidly relative to the rest of society.

This is a huge topic that cannot be done justice in this setting.  I just wanted to point out that homosexuality must be considered within the context of sexual mores as a whole before one can come to meaningful conclusions regarding the why’s and what for’s of past Jewish/Christian attitudes regarding the practice.

MB

In fact, when this very blog (and a good friend coming out) caused me to research the issue, the only passage in Scripture that seemed one hundred percent clear on the issue was Romans 1.  Incidentally, it’s also the only place lesbian sex is mentioned.

So I actually think it would have been enormously helpful if there was a report of Jesus saying something about homosexuality.  This is actually a very troubling issue to me and it’s not as clear as whipping out my Bible and reading Leviticus.  In fact, I would love to come to a why answer about it being a sin, just as we are discussing the whys of church.  I think prejudice plays a huge role in the church response and reaction and I often shudder when I think about the way Christians talk about people who are absolutely convinced, to their great sorrow, that they irreversibly are attracted to members of their own gender.  Sorry for derailing, but it’s sort of one those things that gets my attention, because it troubles me so and I’m always hoping someone can give me an answer to put my mind at rest.

I completely understood and my remark was with full sarcasm in tow.

Trey -

My stance is not that scripture gives us comprehensive ways to ‘do’ church – I think is an unbelievable amount of freedom there.  My statement is that both Paul and Timothy give us a structure of leadership that we need to use.

I get what you are saying about the OT scriptures with homosexuality and agree to that excellent point.

For the record, I don’t think you’re calling me a liar. 

Hugs and kisses.

I understand what you are saying about Paul and homosexuality, but even before Paul, homosexuality was clarified as “sin” in the OT. Jesus would agree.

I’m not going to further press the issue of what’s specifically in scripture versus what’s in tradition regarding church practices. I would merely suggest to you that 99.9% of church practices were instituted post assention by fallible human beings, including Paul (heresy alert!) who once even referred to himself as chief of sinners. 

When you read Paul’s writings, you won’t find alot of talk about structure and organization and rituals and rules (except maybe about women not talking in services and having their heads covered), but you will read chapter after chapter about the love of Jesus and the leading of the Holy Spirit being enough to sustain the believer and the Church, and about the love Jesus has shown us being enough for us to love one another and the world. I think, while being fallible, Paul did a great job serving Christ and reinforcing His teachings confirmed by the Holy Spirit.

It’s been my observation that so much debate has been fueled within the Kingdom of God over the issue of how church should be done, because being the Church isn’t enough (or maybe we just forgot what that is) and structure and ritual have come to define the Church.

For a system that even statistically isn’t satisfying the hunger for God that believers and non-believers have today, I personally am ready to scrap the whole thing and go back to the basics the Bible DOES teach, mainly, as Jesus summed up in his NEW Command, “Love as I have loved you.”

Some how people, numbers and money made early believers think…hmmm…how do we organize this…this is growing out of “our” control? And in efforts to keep up with the cultural changes in the various regions of the world where Christianity spread, Christians adopted the practices and idealogies of their former religions, Jewish and pagan, and transposed the Christian faith over them.

My main point, and I think Paul would agree, is that we do alot of stuff that people made up a long time ago and even some new stuff, and call this the Church. Just my opinion though.

If people are looking for explicit instructions on these things in Scripture, they are probably looking in the wrong place.  The nitty gritty details of how things were to be done were passed on by example and word when Paul was in town, not via letter from many stadia away.  What little Scripture does record on communal worship was mostly written to correct mistakes at local churches.  In that sense, it is hard to know in some cases whether the practices described were simply local customs or universal practices.  Even when local seating customs are corrected (as in James 2), it is tough to do more than draw educated guesses regarding the details of the actual seating arrangement for that particular congregation (e.g., where women were seated).  The only thing corrected is the preference given to rich folks. Other details are sparse at best.

If we want to know the details of how the early church worshiped, we are left with 3 options (as I see it).

1) Wait until heaven and assume it is just a mystery to folks on earth.  To some extent, this is the defacto option for everybody.

2) Look at Jewish synagogue worship and assume that the first Christians adopted the same style and structure.  This is probably a good start, but it is far from conclusive.  Did the NT church assume they needed 10 people to have a service? 

3) Read the writings of the early church fathers.  The benefit of this is that there are no assumptions about whether Christians actually did it (as when translating Jewish worship structures into a Christian context).  The problem with this is that the early church writings ignore the topic about as much as Scripture.  No detailed description is given of the actual structure until about 155 AD when Justin Martyr is trying to explain the faith to pagans (not Christians).  The assumption is that Christians don’t need to have the liturgy explained to them.  They experience for themselves on a regular basis, though not even catechumens were allowed to stay for the entire service, but were sent out for what was considered a very sacred portion of the service.  Can we safely assume, though, that the Christian worship service Justin Martyr describes in 155 AD is the same as what Christians did under the guidance of the apostles?

Ultimately, the exact form communal worship takes for Christians depends less on what Scripture says about the actual form itself and more on

A) the role one believes that history and various traditions should play in interpreting Scripture.

and/or

B) A utilitarian view that tries to align practice with fruit: an approach based on pragmatism and assumptions regarding cause/effect for the source(s) of various ills/goods in the life of Christians today.

MB