Mission week 3

Tim Stephenson

- 3 minutes read - 452 words

  • what does HS do, what church

  • filioque, without christo-centric could easily go anywhere

  • challenge to evangelicals of revelation perhaps not having stopped.

    • what is the place of prophecy in light of that

  • history never in a vacuum–written by the strong–even studied in a context

  • a summary:

    • 0-1500 => God the Father
    • Reformation => the Son
    • 20th C => Spirit

  • or (same periods):

    • Eucharist
    • Word
    • Music

  • beware of prejudices / lenses that we see history thru

  • Message -> movement -> machine -> monument -> mauseleum

  • take great confidence from this fragile and riven church to still be going

Bosch’s six periods

Primitive Christianity AD 33 - 100 Patristic period AD 100 - 312 Medieval RC Church AD 312 - 1500 Prot Reformation AD 1500 - 1700 Modern period AD 1700 - 1945 Emerging post-mod AD 1945 - present

or Andrew Walls’ classification

  • Jewish
  • Hellenistic
  • Barbarian
  • Western Europe
  • Expanding Europe
  • Global South

Primitive

  • last first hand witnesses died out around AD 100,
  • council of ?
  • canon closed.

Patristic

  • Theology
  • Cannon
  • Doctrine and Heresy
  • Martyrs

Medieval

  • Constantine
  • Great Schism, filioque (significance of Spirit if independent of Son)
  • Institutionlisation
  • Church entering power politics
  • Illiterate and vulnerable populace

Reformation

  • Solas, esp. by faith
  • preaching
  • vernacular

Modern

  • Enlightenment
  • Revival
  • Industrialisation
  • empire
  • Nitzche - God is dead
  • wars
  • acceleration: technolgy, population, education

20th C

  • pentacostalism
  • global south

Anabaptists

  • seeking to restore the early church
  • peasant, separate from state
  • extremists and revolutionary
  • missional

Baptists

  • John Smith: baptises himself as no one legitimately able to do it
  • General: Arminian
  • Particular: TULIPs
  • Anglicans: training of ministers (Wesley)
  • Oxford Movement

‘Spiritual currents’

  • Jonathon Edwards: small town, Mass. 1100 people, dry context.

  • preaches the gospel

  • woman ‘with a reputation’ converted and difference so impressive as make an impact

  • monotonous preacher, read sermons, earnest

  • ‘Sinners in the hands of a vengeful God’

  • William Carey

    • Is Mat 28 still to be taken seriously?

    • If, yes, then organise, plan and structure

    • not thinking about colonialism but jesus and cultural transformation

    • taught himself biblical languages

    • engineer

    • local language newspaper

    • bengali scriptures

    • astronomy

    • sanscrit dictionary

    • against widow burning

  • Pentacostalism

    • 1904, Welsh revival: 100k converts but little discipleship
    • 1905-6, Uzuza St, poor black community
    • Joseph Smale, English Baptist minister at 1st Baptist Church, Los Angeles
    • 7 papers in smal city
    • burnt our, widower, married again, separated
    • recuperation in UK, experienced Welsh revival and simply tells the story
    • daily, prayer meetings thruoghout the city ’ ’the colour line washed away by blood of Jesus’
    • urgency, led by laity
    • bravery of those who just go as missionaries with no equipping, believing their tongues were of their destination

  • Similarities to UK in 1960s

    • renewal of denominations due to calling of charismatics to stay within existing denomination

Conclusions

  • Need regular revival of the Spirit