Heirbyadoption wrote:Sudsy wrote:Heirbyadoption wrote:
Do I suppose correctly that you would apply the same criteria/logic to things like washing feet and greeting fellow believers with a kiss? Must the opinion of "many bible scholars" really force it down to an either/or dichotomy on these sorts things (apply the principle versus apply the literal application given)?
Yes I do think foot washing and the kiss was related to that setting and culture. The kiss I believe in our culture is a hearty handshake and at times also an embrace. Any of these gestures can be just an expected practise or a genuine expression of brotherhood. When it comes to foot washing (not required when we enter homes from walking on dirt streets), there is an attitude of a servant here that we need to retain. Instead of a once a year foot washing practise, often serve your brother in a voluntary and lowly way. Our previous MB pastor often would go around refreshing people's coffee and working in the kitchen showing he didn't regard himself better than others. All kinds of creative ways to serve one another.
You DO realize you depart rather radically from historic Anabaptist Christianity in this, yes? And hence the dichotomy-creating usage of "instead"? I forget you mennos tend to only wash feet once a year... And I don't know your background, so this is a sincere question, but have you considered that the principle and the literal act might still both be relevant and not mutually exclusive, or is that simply incompatible with the view you find yourself holding?
Yes, I do not hold to certain historic Anabaptist practices nor does the MB church I attend. We don't do the foot washing and kiss practise. For those who do find these literal acts are meaningful I believe they would not be discouraged at all from practising them. Same with the head 'covering'. If a woman believes she best honors God by wearing some kind of literal cloth on her head, that too would not be a problem. And often Mennonites from other backgrounds visit our church with head pieces and this would not even be a membership issue.
I don't think the view of 'many bible scholars' needs to be our ultimate practise but we should consider why they view things as a principle and not a literal practise as it was in those days. Some see this as dodging taking Jesus and the apostles in a literal way and therefore it is considered being disobedient. Imo, some practises that our outside our cultural norms or are suspect in today's culture (i.e. men kissing men) detract from the principles Jesus was teaching.
However, if a person is allowed to have their own personal convictions and they are not a practise they must covenant to follow, then if they take these things literally, then accept their choices on how they serve the Lord. Allow for that diversity to occur and not let it interfere with fellowship.
I do agree with you, though, that we need to take into account why scholars view things as principles and not as literal practices. Although, it's interesting how many scholars base their work on previous scholars and can perpetuate error as easily as fact through that. If I may digress for a moment, case in point being the promotion of the Corinthian Prostitute View of the headship veiling which we find referenced in at least 5 of the study Bibles and 4 of the commentaries on the shelf in front of me now. Sorry, can't resist.
I tried not to refer to this hot topic which again is not a salvation belief issue although like Ken Ham and his views on creation some Anabaptists treat this issue as one of extreme disobedience.
The “Corinthian Prostitute” theory, held by many Bible scholars, proposes that Paul’s teaching of the headship veiling was primarily intended to set 1st century Christian women apart from harlots, but this tantalizing little ditty did not appear on the scene (at least as far as I can find thus far, until it was presented in 1885 by T.C. Edwards. He, bless his well-meaning and sincerely-theorizing scholar's heart, offered it with no source references nor evidence, after which his hypothesis was later picked up over the next century by several other commentators and expositors, including G.G. Findlay, A.T. Robertson, Grosheide and Zodhiates, and now seems quite well established in the collective consciousness. Unfortunately, at least in the materials I have accessed, none of the aforementioned individuals quote any sources prior to Edwards, and to date, neither they nor any other evidences have actually presented anything to back up the “Corinthian prostitute” theory. Therefore, with respect to sound documentation of many Bible scholars, this theory seems to have evolved from one Bible scholar’s guess into another Bible scholar’s fact into another Bible scholar's footnote and on into many of our contemporary study Bibles and commentaries, becoming an unfortunate assumption now taken as fact by the majority of professing Christians when it was a relatively recent idea and to date has no evidence to support it. It doesn't mean they weren't sincere, dedicated Christian men, it just means they took material at face value, and people still do, to support a certain (and now in many cased, a preferred) view.
I will grant that this may not be the thread to debate the relevance of practices like the veiling, salutation, foot washing, etc, and I use study material copiously like any bibliophile, but I am also admittedly leery of placing overmuch emphasis on the opinions of Bible scholars, whether they be many or few, if it discounts a historical practice of the Church. I am open to evidence, but too often it begins with words like "it may have been" and turns into "it was." Just something to chew on...
I think we can have things wrong right from the earliest of any group's beginnings and even the early churches. I like to look at the challenges some younger Anabaptists are making and try to discern if they hold water. I agree that historic practises need careful analysis.
(as another random aside, if somebody would like to pursue the Corinthian Prostitute View, and perhaps a dozen other objections to the relevance of the headship veiling, there's much more info to debunk it...)