Lesson 32: How Do We Determine God’s Word?
Throughout our history the Church has determined what it accepts as the Word of God by balancing many elements of tradition: charisma, canon, creed, clergy, ceremony, custom, and community. She is constantly correcting the problems that develop when one or more of these gets out of balance. For instance, the Reformation attacked the Roman Church’s use of custom in a way that ignored the canon. Martin Luther tried to correct this by giving canon authority over custom. The problem was he, too, upset the balance by speaking of scripture “alone”.
Many of our modern problems stem from failing to appreciate the need for appropriate balance. Let’s take a few weeks to examine the problem. First, definitions are necessary.
Charisma: inspiration such as people feeling they are filled with God’s Spirit when they speak to either a one- time event or an ongoing issue.
Canon: the approved sacred writings from the past (The Bible) that are used as standards for judging claims for God’s Words in the present.
Creed: statements summarizing the very basic beliefs about God’s Word.
Custom: practices and teachings that have proved their value for a long time.
Clergy: officers given authority to proclaim and supervise God’s Word.
Ceremony: ritual that regularly repeats proven practices.
Community: the gathering of believers that Jesus defines as two or three gathered in his name.
If you understand these 7 “cs” work together, you can readily see the limitations of our modern denominations that limit our ability to speak God’s Word in unity. The Pentecostal churches promote undisciplined charisma, the Lutherans undisciplined canon, the Fundamentalists an undisciplined version of a modern creed, the Roman Catholics undisciplined clergy, the Episcopalians undisciplined ceremony, the Baptists undisciplined community, and everyone of us undisciplined custom.
Of course, my take is far, far too general. I simply want to emphasize that we have problems when we elevate one element of this tradition in a way that minimizes or ignores the others. My use of “undisciplined” simply points to this. I’ll get more precise about how each of these elements function in the coming weeks. Feel free to ask questions, make corrections, and expand my observation in the “comments”.
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