Ronald V. Huggins

I mentioned in my previous post that I was reading Jason G. Duesing’s contribution to the book, Shepherding God's Flock: Biblical Leadership in the New Testament and Beyond (ed. Benjamin L. Merkle and Thomas Schreiner; Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2014). It is entitled “A Cousin of Catholicism: The Anglican Understanding of Church Leadership.” As often happens when I am reading something that's said sends me off in another direction. I had mentioned that the New Testament had a two-tier model of leadership elder/bishops and deacons. I questioned Duesing a little on the statement on the persistence of the New Testament model in this Church in the centuries following. But in fairness I should say that he was not writing so much as a scholar himself but as a popular writer reporting what different scholars had said in standard reference works and popular books. This being the case, the statement about the terms "bishop" and "elder" being used intercha...

I am reading Jason G. Duesing’s interesting contribution to the book,  Shepherding God's Flock: Biblical Leadership in the New Testament and Beyond  (ed. Benjamin L. Merkle and Thomas Schreiner; Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2014). It is entitled “A Cousin of Catholicism: The Anglican Understanding of Church Leadership.” Deusing is exploring the issue of the dependence of Anglican Ecclesiology on Roman Catholicism. I think I’m going to agree with his overall thesis, but so far I have run up against a couple of things calling for clarification. The author seems to overestimate both the power and influence of the Roman Church in its ability to control things and shape institutions in early centuries of Christianity. We see this, for example, in his statement: By the late sixth century, the churches throughout the Mediterranean region followed the increasing consensus that the bishop of Rome held greater authority over all other bishops. The bishop of Rome served in successi...

Many scholars date Mark as the earliest Gospel after 70 AD because in it Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple, which took place at that date. They then date the other Gospels later accordingly,usually arbitrarily placing them ten years apart. The underlying argument is, of course, a naturalistic one, namely that since no one can really predict the future, Jesus couldn't have done so either, and therefore Mark or somebody must have made that up later and placed it on Jesus' lips. This is illustrative of the  larger fact that in many cases our acceptance or rejection of Christianity's supernatural claims precedes rather than follows from our scholarly work. We judge what we believe could have happened on the basis of our our own experience or lack of experience of the spiritual realities the Bible describes. In this case however there are a number of problems that go beyond that basic nature/supernatural divide: (1) Even granting a naturalistic poin...

The Gospel of Luke's special emphasis on wealth and poverty is shown in both the material he has exclusively and the way he presents material he shares with the other Gospels. It is only in Luke, for example, that we find the famous parable of Lazarus and the Rich (Lk 16:19-31). Similarly, where in Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount the first beatitude begins, "Blessed are the poor in Spirit...," (Mt 5:3), Luke has simply "Blessed are you poor" (Lk 6:20). Luke also includes, as Matthew does not, a series of Woes to the rich immediately following his version of the Beatitudes (Lk 6:25-26). I mention the above as a preface to another passage found only in Luke, where Jesus, in response to someone who wants him to intervene in an inheritance dispute: Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “W...