This is part one of four in a series calling for confessional renewal in the EPC. Part I of this series can be found here. All posts in the series, as the become available, can be found here.
The aim of this call to renewal is to begin confessional revival and resourcement. The desire is that this series will prompt meaningful conversation in the EPC over the role of the Confession and Catechisms, conversation that will lead to action and revision. Since as elders of the EPC we have given our sincere word that we affirm and receive the WCF, WLC, and WSC as containing the system of doctrine found in the scriptures, we already affirm their importance: What unites us theologically is our sincere affirmation of, and submission to, the Confession’s and Catechisms’ faithfulness in presenting God’s rule of faith and obedience The Confession and Catechisms of our church are serious, and should be the primary theological framework for the lives of our congregations and our ministerial practice.
Part I of this series evaluates the modifications to the Westminster Confession of Faith held by the EPC…
I have written previously on how the teachings of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms proscribed chattel slavery as practiced in colonial and Antebellum America. An additional basis for this position was brought to my attention in John Murray’s excellent book on Christian ethics, Principles of Conduct. Murray includes a brilliant chapter on the ethics of labor and its implications for slavery…
What’s the point of the pronouncement at the end of worship of God’s blessing? And why does the pastor raise his hands when making it? One of the most important principles of worship is that God has decided how he is to be worshipped. So a third question must be, Where do we find a biblical warrant for this element of worship?
This final part of the worship service is called the ‘benediction’, which comes from the Latin word for blessing, ‘benedictus’. For example, Zechariah in Luke 1:68-79 pronounces a prophecy that begins with, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.” This prophecy is known as the Benedictus…
Michael Bird provided an outline of the biblical and historical case for episcopacy, wherein “church governance centres on the bishop as the fulcrum of faith, order, and ministry…The diocese is the basic unit with a single bishop overseeing a number of priests and parishes. The bishop is distinct from and above the priests and deacons, who serve in an individual congregation.”
For this presbyterian, the strength of Bird’s position came down to two key arguments. First, that ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos, “bishop/overseer”) and πρεσβύτερος (presbuteros, “elder”) are not synonyms, but perionyms, meaning that their meanings overlap rather than being interchangeable. Citing the work of Alistair Stewart, Bird suggests, “that early congregations had a single episkopos, but when the many episkopoi of a city met together, they became a federated council of presbyteroi (emphasis original).” Second, that the apostles functioned as a college of bishops from which the episcopate is modeled and derives its legitimacy. There was originally a cohort of apostles leading the church in Jerusalem, then just Peter, James, and John, and finally, just James. “The Jerusalem church evolved from an authority consisting of apostles with elders and deacons, to a monoepiscopacy with the bishop acting as first among equals among the elders.”
So, the crux of the argument that precludes presbyterianism is that, a) ἐπίσκοπος and πρεσβύτερος are perionyms, and b) we see monoepiscopacy in scripture with James in Jerusalem, which illustrates the overlapping, and yet distinct, nature of bishops and elders.
I was left unpersuaded. This argument is begging the question. I acknowledge that Bird was providing a sketch of the alleged biblical and historical basis for episcopacy, and that some of the points he mentioned might not be his own position. In the same spirit, this is a sketch of why the biblical and historical argument for episcopacy is rejected by presbyterians…
A friend passed along this insightful review by Hillel Halkin of Robert Alter’s one-man literary translation of the Old Testament. A great portion of the review uses Alter’s translation of the Jephthah account in Judges 11 as an example of the difficulty in translating ancient Hebrew well. Jephthah’s exclamation when his daughter comes through his front door can have a range of emphases depending on the way Hebrew worked colloquially:
In the Hebrew, Jephthah’s exclamation is, “Aha, biti! Hakhre’a hikhra’tini, v’at hayit b’okhrai.” This is difficult. If one were to try to translate it literally, one would arrive at something like, “Ah, my daughter! To bring to knee have you brought me to my knees, and you have been one of my troublers”…
How should this be translated?
As Alter does [“Alas, my daughter, you have indeed laid me low and you have joined ranks with my troublers”]?
As: “Ah, my daughter, you surely have undone me. You have done what no enemy could do”?
As: “Damn it all, child! You’ve tripped me up, you have, and trouble is all you are”?
Without knowing whether this is formal or casual Hebrew it is impossible to say for certain how Jephthah’s statement should be translated. Halkin states, “Much of the Bible is like this. Its translators work in a closed circle. To understand the nuance of a line, they must understand the passage in which it occurs, but they often cannot understand the passage without understanding each line’s nuance. Before objecting that ‘Damn it all, child!’ can’t possibly be the tone in which Jephthah is speaking, we need to consider the monstrously self-centered person he can be viewed as being…
