BWA votes to extend membership to CBF

BB, if you would be willing, I will engage this discussion further with you on another thread. If you copy and paste it elsewhere, send me a PM and I will join in further.

Thanks.

 

Eph. 5:21 does not have a verb but is a participlial phrase. It was a method to tie the passage before to the passage that follows. The passage that follows 5:21 talks about practical ways the husband and wife are to love one another. Phil. says that we are to count others as more important than ourselves. Is that not submission to one another? Love requires that we submit to one another. A pastor is not to lord it over his flock. Is that not submission? Never is submission in a person to person sense ever absolute. It is "as to the Lord." It is my God who is the only person who must receive my absolute submission. Nobody comes between He and me.

The wife shows love by her practical submission. The husband shows love the way Christ does for His church by giving himself up for the body. Is that not submission? Christ willingly submitted himself to the father for us. He also submitted Himself to us when HE came in the form of a man. No leader will ever be effective withour humility. love and submission. A pastor who does not submit himself to others will never learn much.

It takes tremendous strength to submit to someone. All leadership must be filled with love. Leadership without love is not leadership but intimidation and selfishness. Leaders always have followers.

Submission is putting others first. Men are to put their wives first and wives are to put their husbands first. Is that not godly submission?

Any husband who loves his wife as Christ does the church regularly puts his wife ahead of himself. He blesses her with his love and leadership.

 

I am very concerned that the Bible is considered God’s revelation of Himself to humankind. While scripture is certainly written revelation, God has not limited Himself to revealing Himself through scripture alone.

I am also concerned about the omission of the phrase from the 1963 confession, that the “criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.” Certainly the correct way to interpret the Bible is through the life, teachings and example of Christ Himself, who is the very incarnation of the Godhead in human form. Therefore, all of the Old Testament and the New should be interpreted through the revelation of Jesus Christ as presented in the gospels.

Does "interpretation" go like this then? -->

OT: Deuteronomy 27:16 -- Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

NT: Ephesians 6:1 -- Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Jesus Christ as presented in the gospels: Luke 14:26 -- If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.

Honor and love within a family is 'interpreted' through the 'criterion'-- that you must hate the members of your family in order to be a disciple-- by the words of Jesus presented in the 'gospels?'

 

Nope.

You have to exercise good interpretational skills and look at these things in context:

Jesus is talking about commitment to His Kingdom being a personal and profound decision that you have to make even if it means the loss of your family and family structure (v.26), your life and comfort(v.27), and your possessions (v.33).

It comes directly on the heels of the parable of the great feast where invitations were sent out to many people, but they had other things to do (inspect land, test out the oxen, have a honeymoon). Christ is stressing that the Kingdom is of the highest priority and you should not let anything (even very good things like family, possessions and productive work) interfere.

Children should still honor their parents unless honoring them would keep them from obeying God.

 

Then your 'criterion' does not have validity if you are interpreting the words of Christ in the gospels through what is said elsewhere in the Bible. That is the opposite of your stated method. And if the words of Christ in the gospels have superiority over anything else in scripture, they certainly have superiority over any 'interpretation in context' of those words themselves.

 

Um… How did you draw that conclusion?

1.) Using Christ as the criterion for interpretation does not mean that we remain ignorant of the rest of scripture!

2.) Your example attempted to misinterpret the words of Christ themselves and then place them in opposition to the rest of scripture. I pointed out that you misinterpreted Christ’s words, based on the context of that chapter of the gospel of Luke. The OT reference and the NT quote from Paul were irrelevant to your example since you wrenched the words of Jesus out of context.

Where did you get that idea???

The words of Christ must be understood in the context of their utterance and in the context of His life and Person!

 

That's an interesting way of saying "He didn't really mean just what he said."

 

Nope.

He meant what He said - you just have to read it in the full context of all that He said.

 

Back on Topic....

It was inevitable that BWA would eventually extend membership to CBF.

However, they should have waited until the CBF could provide a more distinct list of uniquely aligned CBF churches. This would have countered SBC leaders claims that CBF is just a dissident subset of the SBC. And it would have given legitimacy to CBF's membership.

Given these apparently "new" membership criteria, they could grant membership to the Founders Fellowship, or any other subset within a denomination as well.