Thinking through the Tension of Congregational and Elder Authority

I have long appreciated the ministry of 9Marks. They have consistently provided extremely helpful resources for the local church. In a recent article they demonstrated another commendable quality: they talk about tough issues.

The title of the article: How Congregations with Authority Submit to Elders tells us something of where this is headed. You have a situation where the church is led by the elders while the congregation serves as “the final court of appeal.”

The author, Bobby Jamieson, asks two helpful questions:

If the congregation as a whole is the final court of appeal, what does it mean for a church to submit to its leaders?

and

Do you see the dilemma? If the Bible located church authority exclusively in the elders, the idea of submission would be simple: the elders would make the decisions, and the congregation would submit to those decisions. But what does it mean for a congregation to submit to its elders when the congregation itself holds final authority?   Keep Reading>>>

Calvinism, Systematic Theology and Scripture

At some level, every Calvinist who is not hyper embraces a paradox (you can call it tension, antinomy, aporia, really deep mystery, or whatever you like, but I prefer "paradox"). This is properly true of every Christian, but it is especially true of Biblical Calvinists. Our theology generates paradox, whether it's the apparent duality of divine wills, multiple senses of God's love and hatred for fallen humanity, or the compatibility of deterministic divine sovereignty and real human choice/freedom/responsibility. Calvinism without the essential balance of Biblically-derived paradox is in danger of going the way of Herman Hoeksema and the PRC. Characteristically, hyper-Calvinists eschew paradoxes in every possible way. Arminians, for their part, also seem reluctant to embrace paradoxes. Some take great delight in calling Calvinistic paradoxes "contradictions," ignoring the fact that these are unavoidable if we take divine revelation and historic/orthodox Christianity at face value.
 
THEOparadox is essentially a call for Calvinists (and others) to do two things:
 
1. Go whole hog and embrace every Biblically justified paradox, refusing to exegetically "adjust" any verse or passage of Scripture that might create a seeming contradiction in Systematic Theology.

 2. Be rigorous in trying to understand, explain and evaluate possible resolutions to these paradoxes, but accept the fact that we can ultimately have no greater certainty than the very words of Scripture afford us.    Keep Reading...

Does Calvinism Create Tensions in Churches?

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