Revolutionary Christianity. John Howard Yoder

Читать онлайн книгу.

Revolutionary Christianity - John Howard Yoder


Скачать книгу
unfair, the mutual reconciling procedure is the way to modify the rules. If, on the other hand, the standards by which the offender is judged continue to be correct, it is in the conversation with the tempted believer that the church will give the most fruitful attention to finding other ways of meeting those needs and temptations which led that person to fall. Thus, the redeeming conversation with the believer is the instrument of ethical discernment in the New Testament church.

      Q. What is the baptismal pledge?

      A. It is a commitment which man makes to God publicly and orally before the church, in which he renounces Satan, all his thoughts and works. He pledges as well that he will henceforth set all his faith, hope and trust alone in God, and direct his life according to the divine Word, in the power of Jesus Christ our Lord, and in case he should not do that, he promises hereby to the church that he desires virtuously to receive from her members and from her fraternal admonition, as is said above.

      Q. What power do those who are in the church have over one another?

      A. The authority of fraternal admonition.

      Q. What is fraternal admonition?

      A. That one who sees his brother sinning goes to him in love and admonishes him fraternally and quietly that he should abandon sin. If he does so he has won his soul. If he does not, then he takes two or three witnesses with him and admonishes him before them once again. If he follows him, it is concluded, if not, he says it to the church. The same calls him forward and admonishes him for the third time. If he now abandons his sin, he has saved his soul.

      Q. From where does the church have this authority?

      A. From the command of Christ, who said to his disciples, all that you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven and all that you loose on earth shall also be loosed in heaven.

      Q. But what right has one brother to use this authority on another?

      If we understand the significance of the promise of the Holy Spirit deeply enough, related so specifically in Jesus’ words to the church which gathers to bind and to loose (Matt 18:19-20), this may even protect us against certain misunderstandings of the use and the authority of scripture. One of the most enduring subjects of unfruitful controversy over the centuries has been whether the words of scripture, when looked at purely as words isolated from the context in which certain persons read them at a certain time and place, have both the clear meaning and the absolute authority of revelation. To speak of the Bible apart from persons reading it and apart from the specific questions which those persons reading it need to answer is to do violence to the very purpose for which we have been given the Holy Scripture. There is no such thing as an isolated word of the Bible carrying meaning in itself. It has meaning only when it is read by someone, and then only when that reader and the society in which one lives can understand the issue to which it speaks. Thus, the most complete framework in which to affirm the authority of scripture is the context of its being read and applied by a believing congregation using its guidance to respond to concrete issues in the witness and obedience of this congregation. Our attention centers not on what theoretical ideas a theologian separated from the church can dissect out of the body of scripture in order to relate the one to another in a system of thought. It is for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in right behavior that the inspired scripture is useful. Let us, therefore, not be concerned as amateur philosophers to seek for truth in itself as if it were more true by its being more distant from real life. The Bible is the book of the congregation, the source of understanding and insight as the congregation seeks to be the interpreter of the divine purpose for humans in the congregation’s own time and place with the assistance of the same Spirit under whose guidance the apostolic church produced these texts.

      A Community of Grace


Скачать книгу