shadmans Musings  

Since I have brought up customs and practices in my last blog, I wanted to shift gears a little in part 21 of this Sola Scriptura series and give some examples of customs and practices that were confused with ‘traditions,’ one of which in the 2nd century nearly split the Church in two. You might be asking what on earth could have been so severe that it jeopardized the unity of the Church in the 2nd century? Well, we’ll get to that, as well as a couple of other examples of misunderstood ‘traditions’ better known as customs and practices. But the point of this blog is that calling some extra-biblical beliefs, ‘tradition,’ does not make them so, just because some modern day Catholic apologists see the word ‘tradition’ in the writings of some of the early church fathers. This does not mean they taught or believed in the current Catholic teaching of an unwritten body of oral teachings that were co-equal to Scripture. And likewise, just because some later Church fathers believed in this con...

(28) We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. (29) For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. (Col 1:28-29) In these two verses, Paul explains the hard work of what ministry is all about. We all want to be instructed in the ways we are supposed to live in Christ, but how many of us want to be admonished by having our bad conduct called into question? But that is exactly what Paul is saying. His goal was always to confront believers about their sin in one breath, and then teach them how to walk out their faith in Christ in the next breath. And all of this was for the purpose of maturing us so that we might become complete in Christ. He also knew that it was not by his own human ability to accomplish this work, but that it was what God had called him to do, and then empowered him to be able to complete. The Method of Ministry We proclaim Him, ad...