[Linux4christians] Baptists (was Re: Ex-Muslim's college speech disrupted by arson.)

[Timothy Butler]

> That some choose to draw some sort of historical linkage
> between the momentary Baptist network of local fellowships and past  
> organizations is interesting academia I suppose
> but tells one little to nothing relevant to Biblical
> truth.



	I (obviously) disagree. :-) After all, the Bible is a book of the  
history and story of God's people. It traces the revelation of God  
over time and his faithful interaction with his people. Likewise,  
church history, though not inspired helps us to see God's faithfulness  
over the centuries. It also gives us a great deal of advantage in that  
we learn what has gone on in the past, what worked and what didn't.

	Remember: "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."

	I also think history helps to remind us of our humble estate. No one  
today can really claim to accurately emulate the New Testament church  
because we really don't know what it looks like. When I know only my  
current history and what is all about ME, I can become centered on ME  
and how MY tradition is right. When I see the development of  
doctrines, I'm reminded of the many faithful believers who have run  
the race before me, the great cloud of witnesses, and how my  
tradition, my position is one of receiving many great things from  
God's people, not a sort of a prior, dropped from the sky belief. (I  
don't say that to suggest yours is, but to suggest that is the sort of  
thing I do see a lot... and it isn't good.)

> The true "Church" (believers and local fellowships
> of believers) would be far healthier if every evidence
> of man's religious inventions between the time of the
> authorship of the NT and now would suddenly disappear
> and everyone was forced to rely upon the Bible and
> nothing but.

	A lot of what the Patristics did was bump around looking for terms to  
express things well. Hence, one fellow observed this morning on here  
that the Nicene Creed could be seen as modalist. While I might beg to  
differ somewhat, we also see that as things have worked (and not  
worked) the Church has learned. The early patristics used all kinds of  
sorts of weird ways of describing what we now call the Trinity. Why  
reinvent the wheel?

Probably so, but I doubt any church one happens to fellowship with  
actually would look much like it does now, if you did that. For example:

	1.) Baptism: covenant child or just believer? Immersion or  
sprinkling? The Bible doesn't say.

	2.) Lord's Supper: Wafers? Loaves? A banquet at a table in the  
fellowship hall?

	3.) Sunday services or just a Bible study at a local believer's house?

	4.) Scripture: which books? Canon was settled by the church.

	5) Covenant theology? Dispensationalism? Etc. (The rapture in its  
modern sense appears in the 19th century.)

	As a wise fellow I know jokes: be careful in wishing to be the New  
Testament church... you don't want to be Corinth or Galatia or...

	-Tim