I found Elaine Ramshaw’s commentary on this text to be very helpful (“Matthew 18: Power and Forgiveness”) Several observations/preaching points:
Three ways of responding to offense/conflict/sin in the church or in any relationship:
Attack: (blame and shame, passive aggressive behavior)
Retreat: (“things aren’t going the way I would like, so I’m going to take my toys and go [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘ecclesiology’
September 8, 2008
Matthew 18 sermon
June 28, 2008
Missional Cohort (Lancaster)…
The Facebook group Missional Cohort (Lancaster) gathered for the second time last evening. Here is a bit of a summary of our conversation:
1. Read this post by Greg Boyd.
2. We talked about the tension that tends to exist between “institutional/structured” expressions of church and “missional/incarnational” expressions. We explored a number of side trails off this main [...]
April 8, 2008
Sustainable Christian community…
If Christianity is to become aware of what it is, we must abandon the pastoral church which takes care of people, which is the usual form of the Western church. Instead, we have to call to life a Christian community church. Either we set about this church reform by ourselves, or it will be forced [...]
March 25, 2008
Discussion between Tall Skinny Kiwi and McLaren…
I found this short exchange between Andrew Jones and Brian McLaren to be quite helpful. If there is one weakness I see in the Emergent movement it is an underdeveloped ecclesiology. I hear TSK pushing Brian out on this point in this brief conversation.
Amidst the disillusionment with the establishment church, in the prophetic challenge to the [...]
March 13, 2008
Private Jesus versus Communal Jesus: Apostolic Ministry
“For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 3:11
“The Church, the House of the Lord, is built upon the foundations of the faith of the Apostles and prophets.” –St. Basil of Caesarea (379)
“Through the great shepherd of thy flock, Jesus Christ [...]
March 12, 2008
The Private Jesus versus the Communal Jesus: Some (ecclesial) observations…
It was heartening to see the Southern Baptists changing their position on global warming. The story that broke on Monday reports that forty-six influential members of the Southern Baptist Convention, including three of its past four presidents, criticized their denomination for being “too timid” in confronting global warming. It is encouraging to see the Church able to change, [...]
February 21, 2008
Creating a missional order…
In a number of settings recently at SMC, I have been asked about vision for church as a missional community (I am particularly thinking of Melissa’s questions). I feel like I have not yet done justice to answering these questions. It involves a radical re-imagining of church. It doesn’t mean we change the center from historic [...]
February 16, 2008
A stunted ecclesiology…
“To read deeply in history is to cease being Protestant.”
Cardinal John Henry Newman, himself a famous convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism
I’m pretty sure I have ceased to be Protestant (to the extent that I ever was). As a good Evangelical, I grew up with a fairly under-developed ecclesiology (H/T J.I. Packer for the “stunted ecclesiology” [...]
February 15, 2008
The Future Lies in the Past…
Here is an excerpt from a story in the most recent issue of Christianity Today. The article is entitled…
The Future Lies in the Past
Why evangelicals are connecting with the early church as they move into the 21st century.
From Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and living, practicing monks and nuns, they must learn both the strengths and the [...]
February 11, 2008
Orthodox Study Bible…
Thomas Nelson is publishing the first ever Orthodox Study Bible. Here is the way Amazon presents this Bible:
The FIRST EVER Orthodox Study Bible presents the Bible of the early church and the church of the early Bible.
Orthodox Christianity is the face of ancient Christianity to the modern world and embraces the second largest body of [...]
