The Church, Part 1 - December, 2009

Biblical Moorings

If the dough offered as fruits is holy, so is the whole lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches (Romans 11:16).

As a tree is connected with the root, so are the descendants of Abraham. The Lord God planted this tree as a precious planting. Many branches have been broken. But the tree still stands, and many broken branches shall be grafted in again. Children fallen away shall return to the faith of their father, Abraham.

The essence of this verse is its witness to the faithfulness of God. What a great comfort this should be to us Christians with whom God has also made a covenant. This is a "better covenant” (Hebrews 8:6). We, branches of the “wild olive tree,” have been grafted into the tree whose root was Abraham; that is, we through faith are united with the first congregation and with Abraham because we are united with Christ (Romans 6:4).

C. O. Rosenius (1816-1868), Romans: A Devotional Commentary, J. Elmer Dahlgren and Royal F. Peterson, translators (1978), p. 152.

The church, in the New Testament sense of the word, is not a building erected for the worship of God, nor an organization of people more or less interested therein and supporting it. The church is vastly more than that; it is made up of persons who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, Lord, and Master, persons who are resolved to follow, obey, and serve him and have united into a Christian brotherhood open to all true followers of Christ.

The word “church” is derived from a Greek word, kyriaka, meaning “the Lord's.” It may originally have been applied to the house or place--the Lord's house--where the believers were wont to assemble for worship 0n the Lord's Day. But we find that the worshipers themselves, the group of believers, were also called “God's house” (1 Timothy 3:15), “God's building” (1 Corinthians 3:7-9), and “temple of God” (1 Corinthians 3:16). The implication is that the followers of Jesus Christ, joined together in a Christian church, belong to Christ and are consecrated to his service.

Hjalmar Sundquist (1869-1949), “The Christian Church,” in Covenant Church Membershi(Late 1930s), p. 8.

From the biblical point of view there is nothing that can be called “free churches.” Certainly, Covenanters hold the view that the local church must maintain a certain independence, so that it might fulfill its missionary task by addressing the unique needs of people living in its own area. A certain independence is necessary as a guarantee for faithful ministry to the Gospel. But that certainly does not mean freedom in the sense of total independence. Every church is related to other churches in the same community or far away. The interdependence of Christian churches is total. A Christian church in Minneapolis is related to churches in Mexico City, Matadi in Zaire, Mjölby in Sweden, and Minsk in the USSR. There is no way out.

The blood shed for us on Golgotha and handed to us as a gift as we celebrate Holy Communion is what gives nourishment to the whole body. It is the same blood in Minneapolis and in Minsk. When two women drink from the cuat the Lord’s table in Minneapolis and Minsk, they feel the pulse of the body of Christ, the heartbeat of Golgotha. How could they ever live as if they were not members of the same body, dependent upon each other? Above all, they are brought together by Christ himself.

“Free churches” do not exist if we take seriously the Gospel. Christ’s life is one, indivisible. Only as such can it be a sign of hope for a divided world, a challenge to all the disrupting and distorting powers of the earth. Those who proclaim only the independence of their own church or denomination are nothing less than heretics, weakening and betraying the vision of Pentecost.

Olle Engström (1920- ), “Together with All the Saints.” From Amicus Dei: Essays on Faith and Friendship, PhiliJ. Anderson, ed. (1988), p. 164.

Chosen seed and Zion’s children, ransomed from eternal wrath,
trav’ling to the heav’nly Canaan on a rough and thorny path:
Church of God in Christ elected, you to God are reconciled;
but on earth you are a stranger, persecuted and reviled.

Still rejoice amid your trials, nor regard your lot amiss,
for the kind and loving Savior is the source of all your bliss.
May he ever be your portion, he who gave you life and breath;
in his keeping fear no evil, now or in the hour of death.

Pleasantly your lines have fallen underneath the tree of life,
for the Lord is your salvation and your shield in all your strife.
Here the timid bird finds shelter, here the swallow finds a nest,
trembling fugitive a refuge, and the weary pilgrim rest.

Faith and love are the conditions--all on faith and love depends;
love of law is the fulfillment, faith God’s mercy apprehends.
Who has faith shall see salvation, who has love shall life obtain;
may, O Lord, your love possess us and your Spirit in us reign.

And upon this blest foundation, Lord, our Lord and Savior King,
may your Spirit e’er unite us, to it may we ever cling.
May we, members of one body, grown into a perfect whole;
grant, O Lord, that in your people there may be one heart and soul.

Anders Carl Rutström (1721-1772), “Chosen Seed and Zion’s Children,” tr. Claude W. Foss (1855-1935), alt., from The Covenant Hymnal: a Worshipbook (1996), No. 421.

Body of Christ

The Church is often spoken of as the Body of Christ. Paul, for example, says, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). Everyone understands that the important thing about a body is the life within it. If you took that away the body would be incapable of any action. So it is with the Church. It is the body in which Christ lives and through which he carries out his work. A body has many members--eyes, ears, nose, arms, and legs. The Church also is made uof many members, each differing from the other but all sharing in the life of the whole.

In one sense the Church may be said to be invisible. It is made uof all of those who sincerely believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Some of its members are now living on earth and some are in heaven. It is the company of the redeemed who make uthe great family of God. We call it invisible because God alone knows all who belong to it.

In another sense, however, the Church must be visible. Here on earth the Church is always a visible reality. It is an organization of men and women who acknowledge Christ as Lord--a company of Christian people in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. It is an imperfect Church. While it strives toward perfection, it is aware of the fact that it falls short of what it ought to be. Nonetheless God has chosen to work through this imperfect Church, and every Christian should gladly take his [or her] place in it as a servant of God.

Clifford W. Bjorklund (1921-1986), Harry J. Ekstam (1918- ), Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), and Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), According to Thy Word (1954, 1955), pp. 395,396.

While faith is always personal, it is not subjectivistic or individualistic. Faith is experienced in community. It cannot be lived in seclusion; to be a Christian is to be a member of the Body of Christ and to share in the koinonia of the Spirit. The grace of God reaches us through the ministry of others and calls us into a ministry to others.

Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), “To Teach the Faith,” from Bound to Be Free: essays on being a Christian and a Covenanter, James R. Hawkinson, ed. (1975), p. 54.

A person must be introduced to the body of Christ as well as to the head. The Book of Acts gives us a picture of people being added to the church as the body of Christ (Acts 2:41; 2:47; 5:14). Only when an individual begins to draw his resources from the body can we have assurance of his conversion. The actual conversion may, in some cases, take place after a person has been introduced to the Christian fellowship. Reasons for this may be many. He may not have been as inwardly convinced as he appeared to be. He may have been saying words that he did not understand. He may not have realized what he was actually doing. These are matters we cannot know. However, our work of introducing a person to Christ is not complete until the person we are visiting has become an active participant in a Christian fellowship.

Wesley W. Nelson (1910- ), Learning to Love People (1973), p. 29.

It is important in the church and in our common fellowshiin the body of Christ to be as clear as we can with each other about our understandings of God in Christ, the rock on which we place our faith, and of our doctrinal formulations. It is also crucial to remember that the Church has been attempting to do this for two thousand years and has not yet succeeded in finding a formulation that is wholly adequate to express the fundamental mystery to which it points. While it may appear to be intellectually sloppy, it is a matter of wisdom to adopt the position of early Covenanters in their debates about communion, atonement, last things, and so on. Skogsbergh [an early Covenant evangelist, often called “The Swedish Moody,”1850-1939] said, “It is not always so important to know everything. It is always tremendously important to preach the gospel.

So whether I am free or whether I am bound, I may be either and yet preach the gospel. So let us try and stop being omniscient, and get on with the work of planting.” And, I think he would have added, in its appropriate way, of church building, and necessarily of fencing. The thing at all costs we have to avoid is the state of mind and the kind of movement that begins to insist that the Christian life is fundamentally a life of doctrine, that that is what the life is. Most Covenanters have not and will not take that position.

Zenos E. Hawkinson (1925-1997), “Fencing” (1978)
From Anatomy of the Pilgrim Experience: Reflections on Being a Covenanter, Edited by Philip J. Anderson and David E. Hawkinson (2000), p. 45.

The kingdoms of this world are by their nature characterized by law and order–by the freedom and security of the life and property of their subjects--while the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost for them who belong to it. The kingdoms of this world commend themselves to people, take root, and are established through various external laws and institutions, whereas the Kingdom of God comes to men only through the Gospel, which, because it proclaims the righteousness of Christ, appropriated through faith without the works of the law, addresses peace to the conscience, imparting the Holy Spirit, and filling the heart with joy and a glad confidence in God.

Paul Peter Waldenström (1838-1917), “Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity”
From Glenn P. Anderson, Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations (1980), pp. 116,117.

In flesh and blood families, children grow up and are scattered. Husbands and wives die, leaving lonely widows and widowers. Many people are denied marriage and family love. Some families break uthrough misunderstanding or unfaithfulness. At best, flesh and blood families remain intact for only a few years. With passing years, ties are broken by death, and we must adjust to being left alone. In deecontrast with all this is the church, as God intends it to be. No matter what our background, personality, maturity in Christ or the cause of our alienation, this church will become closer to us even than flesh and blood families, for we know it will never desert us or be removed from us by death.

Jesus said that he considered his followers to be his true brothers and sisters (Matthew 12:49-50). The New Testament teaches that the church is intended to be a body, of which Christ is the head, in which the members are as close as the parts of the human body (see Ephesians 4:15-16).

The ideal church, therefore, is a close knit body, like a family that is always there to care, to minister, to discipline, and to reach out in love to one another. The head of this family is Christ, whose love holds the entire family together in ties that are stronger than flesh and blood. This love will be nurtured by the Holy Spirit, who lives in the members of the body. This same love will reach out to the people who have not yet begun to trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Therefore, this same love will be the motive for evangelism.

We have generally thought of the church this way in theory. In practice, however, it has not reached this ideal. There are members who are out of fellowship with the body, who have cut themselves off from it, and the love of Christ in the church has not been strong enough to break through. Even among the most active members, there sometimes are areas that have been sealed off from the ministry of the brothers and sisters in Christ. [We must] seek to develop a means of nurturing this love and family spirit until it becomes the strongest force in the church.

Wesley W. Nelson (1910- ), A Plan for Letting the Church Become the Family of God (1973, no page numbering).

The church, with the pail and dipper, is still the bearer of God's invitation--good news for the thirsty. There is a meeting place with an address where you are not only welcome but where your thirst can be quenched. There is a Word. There is a font of life. There is a table. There is broken bread. There is a water pail and dipper. “In, with, and under” these earthy things is the presence of the living Christ, God's chosen One, the Bright and Morning Star, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The One who offers the gift of eternal life freely to all who thirst says, “Come, the gift is yours, without money and without price.” There is no better menu any place. The source of life is not a concept, nor a theology, nor a ritual, nor an organization, nor even an experience however ecstatic. The source of life is a Person--Jesus, the living One who speaks and with outstretched hand says to you, "Welcome!"

Glen V. Wiberg (1925- ), This Side of the River (Published by Salem Covenant Church, New Brighton, Minnesota, 1995), pp. 56,57.

Influence of Pietism

By the end of the sixteenth century the spiritual fires of the Reformation had grown cold. In each country, every citizen was a member of the State Church whether or not he or she was a true believer. Faith itself was reduced to a cold intellectualism, the formal assent to official doctrines, which bred intolerance of divergent views or practices. Once again, the Holy Spirit moved to stir souls to revival. In 1605-09 Johan Arndt, a German Lutheran pastor and bishop, published Four Books on True Christianity in which he called for a return to a genuine spirituality exhibited in “new life” in each believer. His influence has earned Arndt the title, “the Father of Lutheran Pietism.” Pietism began to spread throughout the Lutheran Church, aided greatly by a new hymnody that stressed devotional themes.

In 1675 a German publisher planned a new edition of some of Arndt's sermons, and asked Philip Jakob Spener, the leading pastor in Frankfurt-am-Main, to write a suitable preface. Spener obliged, calling his remarks Pia Desideria (Pious Wishes). After cataloging the spiritual problems that existed in the church, Spener set forth six proposals to renew the spiritual vitality of the church:

1) There should be a more extensive use of the Bible among us, not only in preaching but in private reading, discussion, and meditation.
2) The spiritual priesthood of all believers should be established and diligently exercised in the church.
3) Christianity consists of the practice of love rather than merely the knowledge of the faith.
4) We must beware of how we conduct ourselves in religious controversies.
5) The reform of the church must begin with the process of calling and training pastors, with an emphasis on practical piety.
6) Sermons should be plain, powerful, and pointed for the salvation and edification of the hearers.

The heart of Spener's proposals was not to form a new church but to reform the church from within through small groups (collegia pietatis) of clergy and lay people committed to true spirituality. Spener occupied several positions of great influence through which he was able to guide the whole Pietist movement. Even before his death in 1705 he was able to pass on the leadership to a successor, August Hermann Francke, professor at the newly established University of Halle. Pietism continued to spread from its base at Halle and through extensive publishing efforts....

The Pietism of Arndt, Spener, and Francke made its way northward from Germany into Sweden.

Paul A. Day (1952- ), Unity and Freedom: One Hundred Years of the East Coast Conference, (Published by the East Coast Conference, 1990), pp. 5,6.

The Pietists believed with the sectarians that salvation must be individuated by choice, but they also believed that the Church played a crucial role in bringing the child to the place where such a choice was possible. The Pietist believed that in some sense every person was his or her own interpreter of the Bible, but they also believed that the historic Church had played an indispensable role in establishing canonical Scripture, cleansing it of improper accretions, providing accurate readings, developing the sciences of hermeneutics and theology, and relating it meaningfully to the changing scene of human history and culture.

That is why the Pietists tried to live in the middle place between the seculum (the order of this world) and the kingdom of God which is the order of the world to come. They did not want the Church so closely identified with the secular order that it served only that order or was corrupted by it, but, on the other hand, they did not want the Church to live in a sour disregard of the orders and structures of this world, as if they were already condemned, or to purge its own life of the presence of sane and healthful coherence.

That [the Lutheran Mission Friends] survived at all as a synod and were able to play a vital role in the formation of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant in 1885 was due to the existence of a strong synodical community, to the commitment on the part of the leadership to a New Testament principle of “order and decency,” and also to the presence and strength of the founders themselves.

Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), Into One Body...by the Cross, Volume One (1985), pp. 98,99.

Only Believers, All Believers

The Covenant's policy in regard to church membership is that only believers shall belong to the church of God--that is, persons who have experienced new birth and know that they are children of God, and thus lead a Christian life.

The Covenant's principle in this matter we may say is very narrow and at the same time very broad. It is so narrow that there is room only for believers in Jesus Christ, and so broad that there is room for all such believers and that they on that ground are entitled to membership and all the privileges of the Christian Church. The Covenant Church stands for and is anxious to practice what the New Testament teaches in reference to the Christian Church.

E. G. Hjerpe (1853-1931), “The History and Principles of Our Denomination”
From Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations Glenn P. Anderson, ed.(1980), p. 109.

Concerning church order, the Mission Friends have a principle which is still more unique and takes a very prominent place in their program. Namely this: they held that the local church shall consist of only believing members but at the same time to have room for all true believers no matter what their viewpoints are on controversial doctrines. It is this principle which really distinguishes Mission Friends from other Christian denominations, and which justifies their existence as a particular church.

In the context of accepting this New Testament and ideal church principle, there naturally followed the surrender of any established confessions (creeds) as conditions for membership in the churches. The Bible became the only in fallible rule for the faith and life of a people and consequently the only necessary confession of faith. All human decisions about how the Bible should be interpreted were abandoned as being not only untrustworthy but also superfluous. Beyond this a greater interest in the spiritual life was evidenced than for dogmas. For that matter one felt safe from deviating heresies in doctrine in the Lord's promise of the Comforter who would lead to the whole truth. Therefore, a limited and wholesome freedom concerning the presentation of doctrine became another distinguishing mark of the Mission Friends.

C. V. Bowman (1868-1937), “About the Principles of the Mission Friends”
From Glenn P. Anderson, Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations (1980), pp. 85,86,87.

The believer’s church is not simply a human institution or organization but a people whom God has called. Emphasis does not fall on buildings or hierarchical structures, but upon a grace-filled fellowship and active participation, through the Holy Spirit, in the life and mission of Christ.

Membership in the Evangelical Covenant Church is by confession of personal faith in Jesus Christ. It is open to all believers. Considerations of class or race, education or pedigree, wealth or prestige do not enter. Uniformity in creedal details is not expected. What is required is that one be “born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). But if membershiis open to all believers it is also open only to believers. “The doors of the church are wide enough to admit all who believe and narrow enough to exclude those who do not,” said our forebears. We affirm no less today.

Covenant Doctrine Committee, Covenant Affirmations (Booklet, 1976), pp. 16,17.

Christ's Church is the association of all who believe in Christ, both universally and in particular places. It is made up of those who, through faith in Christ, have been recreated to be new people.
The Church's founder and Lord is Christ who acquired her for himself with his own blood, cleansed her by the washing with water and sanctifies her by the Word. The calling of the Church is to visibly grow upon the earth and above all to be perfected for her final goal, which is God's Kingdom. Her task relative to the world is, so far as possible, to make all people into disciples of Jesus and receive them into her fellowship. This occurs through the proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the means of grace. In relationship to the state the Church shall be autonomous and independent in administering her own affairs, but in other matters she shall subject herself to the human order so long as it is not in conflict with God's Word.

Local congregations represent God's universal Church in their specific localities and ought therefore faithfully to reflect the same. They should receive all who are known as true Christians, but no one else. Local congregations ought to stand in a relationshito each other of Christian harmony and cooperation for the common goal of the conversion of the world and the upbuilding of the congregations.

Axel Mellander (1860-1922), “What We Believe and Teach”
From Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations Glenn P. Anderson, ed. (1980), pp. 142,143.

There can be no question about the fact that [the Mission Friends] believed that only believing Christians should belong to their societies, later called churches. This, they felt, was clearly taught in the Word of God. This did not mean, of course, that the unconverted did not attend their public services. They did–and in much larger numbers than today. Nor did it mean that there was no room for human weakness in the congregation. Their confessions of weakness are abundant. It meant simply an evident devotion to the Word and to Jesus Christ as well as devotion to the work of the congregation.

At a meeting of the central board of the Mission Synod in December, 1878, this question was asked: “When persons are found in the congregation who neither, by Christian experience or life, contribute to the inward or outward edification of the congregation but only criticize, blame, and cause disorder–can such, with reason, consider themselves members of the congregation?” Answer: “In such persons, where no sense of spiritual understanding is found, one cannot expect that they shall judge themselves or anything within the kingdom of Christ as they ought. Therefore such persons must be informed by the Christians that in their condition they are not members of the congregation of Christ. Such people find their condition and actions recorded in the Holy Scriptures in several places, among these Romans 16: 17,18: “I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.” Also Jude 1:16: “These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own passions, loud-mouthed boasters, flattering people to gain advantage.

Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), pp. 82,83.

It is essential to differentiate the believer’s church from sectarian Protestantism. The early Covenanters were challenged not only by the Augustana Lutherans and the anti-union Free Mission Friends; they were challenged by those who felt that a believers’ church should insist on believers’ baptism, as opposed to infant baptism. In short, they felt that a believers’ church had to be baptistic. Others believed it was necessary to believe in sanctification as a second work of grace. As the years past, others insisted that a belief in the baptism of the Holy Spirit was required for full obedience to the Gospel. Others felt that certain views regarding the second coming were required. To be sure, many Covenanters have shared some of these particular beliefs. What the founders realized, however, was that to insist on any of these doctrinal distinctions was, in fact, to move beyond the believers’ church to sectarian Protestantism. They felt and Covenanters everywhere to this day believe that while church is for believers only, it is for all believers.

...The Covenant has attempted to take a middle course between “churchly” inclusivism and “sectarian” exclusivism. It is on this precarious tightrope that the Covenant over the years has sought to stand. And on this stand it need make no apology to those churches who feel the Covenant’s insistence on conversion is too narrow and romantic. Nor does the Covenant need to be apologetic about receiving anyone into fellowship solely on the basis of simple trust in Jesus Christ.

Paul E. Larsen (1933- ), The Mission of a Covenant (1985), pp. 12,13.

The Holy Spirit - November, 2009

Biblical Moorings

The Covenant Church believes in the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.

He is the inspirer of the Word, and the guide into its truth. He is the wise and insightful convictor of the world, the testifier to Jesus, the witnesser of Jesus, the bringer of new life in Christ Jesus. He is the one Spirit that fuses the church to Christ, its head, the gatherer of that Body, the occupier of that Temple, the sovereign dispenser of gifts to and within the Church, the director of its ministries, the empowerer of its life for mission and witness (2 Timothy 3:16; 1 Peter 1:10-12; John 16:13; 16:8-11; Romans 8:16; John 3:5-8; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Ephesians 4:3; Acts 2; 2 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Corinthians 12:11; e.g. Acts 13:1-4; Acts 1:8; 4:29-31).

He is the prevenient actor in the drama of salvation, the creator of hunger for Christ’s life, and the fulfiller of that hunger. He is the one who baptizes the newly “born of the Spirit” into the Church; he is the indweller of every Christian; the creator of the likeness of Christ in individual believers; the bearer of Christian character though the believer. He is the indwelling monitor of morality and conduct. He is the enabler for every Christian responsibility. Ultimately he is the glorifier of Jesus Christ (John 3:8 [the Wind]; e.g. Ethiopian Eunuch, Acts 8:26-40; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:9; 2 Corinthians 3:16-18; Galatians 5:22,23; Ephesians 4:25-32; John 16:14).

...We are commanded to seek the fullness of the Spirit in the common worship of the Church (Ephesians 5:18ff). We are to manifest the gifts he imparts and the fruit he bestows. We believe in the Holy Spirit.

Covenant Doctrine Committee, Covenant Affirmations (Booklet, 1976), pp. 19,20,22.

It has been contended by many that the gifts of the Spirit are given in a “second blessing” (as in the Wesleyan movement) or is a “baptism of the Holy Spirit” (as in Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement). It is held that these occur subsequent to the experience of conversion, thus introducing two stages into the course of Christian life. Some would hold that the “baptism of the Spirit” is accompanied by speaking in tongues as a sign of the outpouring of the Spirit.

The Evangelical Covenant Church, emphasizing as it does the new life in Christ, appreciates every emphasis upon openness to the powerful and life-giving work of the Holy Spirit. It has, however, insisted, as does the New Testament, that to become a Christian is to receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). All who are redeemed have the gift of the Spirit (Galatians 4:6). Paul states it bluntly, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9). As we have often observed...it is only through the Holy Spirit that the Christian life becomes a possibility at all.

Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), Covenant Affirmations: This We Believe (1981), p. 166

Spirit and Word

The Holy Spirit, for Spener [1635-1705], is the third person in the triune Godhead. [He] was intent upon demonstrating the close connection between the Holy Spirit and the Son of God. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, who proceeds from him and was sent from him to illuminate people with faith. Therefore, Paul calls him “the spirit of faith” (2 Corinthians 4:13). Paul's reference to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8:11) prompted Spener's remark that what the Spirit teaches, he has learned from Christ. In fact, the task of the Holy Spirit is to clarify (verk1ären) and glorify the Son, just as the Son seeks to glorify the Father.

Spener took pleasure in describing the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. The Holy Spirit is poured out upon persons as an invisible and divine water along with the waters of baptism. He lives in believers, not as a guest in a hotel, but as Lord of the manor. As such he is the pledge of our inheritance and the inner witness that we are sons and daughters of God. However, when a person resists the Spirit's good work, does not follow him, or gives place to an evil spirit and thus serves sin, the Holy Spirit will no longer remain. Thus, through false doctrine or a godless life, we lose the Holy Spirit. A list of characteristics was provided by Spener for those who wished to test whether or not the Holy Spirit abided in them. He admitted that the Holy Spirit was not completely bound to Scripture in his working. There could be revelation in dreams, for example. However, all “special revelations” needed to be judged by Holy Scripture. A close collaboration between the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures was to be found in Spener's writings.

Spener was solidly trinitarian....

K. James Stein (1929- ), Philipp Jakob Spener: Pietist Patriarch (1986), pp. 160,161.

The Covenant Church affirms the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Our understanding of the Holy Spirit is thoroughly trinitarian: we believe in the mystery of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe that the Holy Spirit plays a strong and active role in the life of the church and of the believer. The Holy Spirit illumines the truths of the Scriptures and enlivens the believer from deep within. The Holy Spirit leads the church and its believers into truth and through crises. The Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin and prompts repentance by believers.

Some Covenant churches place a more visible importance on the experience of the Holy Spirit in worship than do other churches. By and large, the Covenant is not a charismatic church in the sense of widespread speaking in tongues and other manifestations in worship. But neither does the Covenant deny that expression of the Holy Spirit in the church. The Holy Spirit works through Scripture and equips each believer and church for their own ministries. Again, the key question we ask is, “What do the Scriptures say?”

A Family Matter: An Exploration in Believing and Belonging (Inquirer’s Class Manual of the Evangelical Covenant Church, 1994), p. 32.

The Holy Spirit accompanies the Word of God as it goes forth to accomplish its work. God may be said to work with two hands: the one is the Word; the other is the Spirit which makes the word effective in our lives. Word and Spirit are conjoined and cannot be separated. The Spirit does his work through the instrumentality of the Word, and does not work redemptively apart from the Word. On the other hand, the Word is without effect unless the Spirit gives it power. “My Word...shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), Covenant Affirmations: This We Believe (1981), p. 23.

Power Unlimited

Salvation in Christ becomes ours through the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Man cannot through his own understanding or his own power acquire salvation, but is brought by the Holy Spirit to a sense of the importance of God's grace and a true faith in Jesus Christ. He is not saved against his will, however, but must voluntarily surrender himself to the work of God's Spirit and let himself be saved.

Axel Mellander (1860-1922), “What We Believe and Teach”
From Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations Glenn P. Anderson, ed. (1980), p. 141.

It is the presence of the Holy Spirit that makes the Christian life an abundant life, that is, a life of meaning, richness, and purpose (John 7:37-39; 10:10). Without the Holy Spirit the early church would have been left with only the memory of some dramatic events. With the Holy Spirit its life was a continuing drama of triumph. Without the Holy Spirit the early Christians would have been left to explain nothing but their weaknesses. With the Holy Spirit they were continually required to explain the power of their movement. Much of the preaching in Acts comes as a need to explain the events that were taking place because of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit the Christian life would become a tedious effort to adhere to principles laid down in the past. With the Holy Spirit the Christian life becomes the expression of the presence of the living Christ in continuing experience.

Wesley W. Nelson (1910- ), Salvation and Secularity (1968), p. 48.

Often one hears the complaint that the Christian church lacks power. But in the Holy Spirit unlimited power is available–power which is released through prayer and through action. Power, however, is a precious gift which God does not bestow indiscriminately. He gives as much as is needed for a specific task. Too often we lack power because we do not accept tasks and responsibilities big enough to merit such strengthening from above. The mediocre lives which multitudes of Christians love do not require great strengthening and hence there is little evidence of its presence, but let a Christian seriously attempt the demands of the Lord in the church and community and strength would be given in proportion to the task. What world-shaking things the church could accomplish if we prayerfully accepted the full responsibilities that now confront us!

Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), What Christians Believe (1951), pp. 19,20.

Our Need to Receive

Speaking of the folly of resisting when the Holy Spirit calls, [E. A. Skogsbergh, d. 1939] said, “If you were drowning and somebody tried to save you, you would not say to your rescuer, ‘Not yet. Let me sink a little deeper before you pull me out.’ But if you leave the Tabernacle tonight without having turned to Christ, you are just that kind of fool.”

Reminding his hearers that none of them needed to leave with unforgiven sins, he told of a minister who closed a sermon on the Samaritan woman with the words, “Today you have heard about the well. Next Sunday you will hear about the water in the well.” Then Skogsbergh added, “As if the story of salvation needs to be told in installments, like the serials in our magazines. Oh, no! It is so short and simple that it can be told in three sentences of a few words each: You are a sinner. Christ is your Savior. He is calling you now.”

Erik Dahlhielm (1880-1955), A Burning Heart: A Biography of Erik August Skogsbergh (1951), pp.196,197

ET IN SPIRITUM SANCTUM*

There is no life
save as the Spirit's breath
touches, trembles, turns
the soul from death

and darkness ... to light.
There is no life except
the Spirit wakes
the slumbering, long-slept

soul. There is no waking
way but to receive
the Spirit as holy breath...
and, breathing . . . to believe.

*And in the Holy Spirit

Fred Moeckel (1929-1966), Recording Angel (1969), p.107.

God gives the Gift of the Spirit to everybody who believes and obeys him. It is a free gift of grace, just as salvation in Christ is free. We do not have to and cannot earn it. We do not have to win it through some kind of spiritual torture, self-judgment, or battle. We must be careful not to think that we must have some kind of emotional experience to cause God to give us the Spirit. Such experiences often are not spiritual but psychic, yes, physical.. No, this is not what the Scriptures teach. And it is the Scriptures we must investigate, not such and such a man's experiences or ideas. God gives the Spirit as a free gift. He gives it freely and willingly: “How much more will not your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him." Let us then with courage and joy come to the throne of grace and ask for this gift, just like all other gifts.

The Lord is willing, yes, waiting to give us the Spirit in a continuous higher measure, in a richer fulless, to a heavenly clearness, to the assurance of faith. God is willing, has promised,
is willing to give us more and more. The free gift is lying and waiting at our door. It depends on me; how much I am willing to accept; how much I am willing to give the Spirit of myself. “With the measure you measure, it shall be measured to you” (Romans 12:1,2).

A. G. Sporrong (1867-1934), “The Gift of the Spirit”
From Små tal-Stora ting, an unpublished series of articles (1927-1928), Chapter 6, tr. Algot A. Sporrong (1914-1983).

Inviting Prayers

Heavenly Spirit, gentle Spirit, O descend on us, we pray;
come, console us and control us, Christ most fair to us portray.

Hear us pleading, interceding, O interpreter of love;
with your fire us inspire, holy flame from God above.

Pilgrims, strangers, ‘mid life’s dangers, we on you would e’er depend;
Spirit tender, our defender, guide us, keep us to the end.

Joel Blomqvist (1840-1930), “ Heavenly Spirit, Gentle Spirit,” tr. Gerhard W. Palmgren (1880-1959), from The Covenant Hymnal: a Worshipbook (1996), No. 287.

CUM SANCTO SPIRITU*

How can man believe
what passively he knows
no need for? Reason's
practical doors close

hard on the rushing wind,
and snuff the flame,
and shun the bird
of heaven. The same

passive disinterest,
so able to numb
our naivete,
ends our faith. Come

Holy Spirit, enter
quickly, quickly, before
the reasoned closing
of the cruel door.

*With the Holy Spirit

Fred Moeckel (1929-1966), Recording Angel (1969), p. 106.

The Word of God, Part Two - October, 2009

Inspiration

The Bible, which is composed of the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the foremost source of our knowledge about God. It was written by holy men of God at the command of God, and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for our instruction unto salvation. It follows from this that the Bible is God's Word, a true and correct expression of God's will and his way of salvation, and is also trustworthy in all its parts and possesses absolute authority in all that concerns Christian faith and conduct.

Axel Mellander (1860-1922), “What We Believe and Teach”
From Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations Glenn P. Anderson, ed. (1980), p. 135.

What...is inspiration? It is the Spirit of God taking possession of an upright and devout soul who listens for the voice of God, using him and all his mental faculties as his messenger. The writers of the Scriptures are not like water pipes taking water from a distance to bring it a long way and deposit it for you without you taking the trouble to dig for it, or to go and get it. Writers of the Bible are more like the mountain side, saturated with water which pours from its side in springs for everybody to come and drink. The Bible writers were saturated with Divine truth; then out of that saturation the truth sprang forth into utterance. That is inspiration.

Hjalmar Sundquist (1869-1949), The Credentials of Jesus (1930), p. 64.

There is an overwhelming agreement in the tradition of which we are a part that the Scriptures are inspired by God, but discussion continues as to the manner of that inspiration. The Scripture speaks of the fact of inspiration, using such terms as “inspired,” “God-breathed,” “moved by the Holy Spirit,” but does not develop a doctrine as to how inspiration occurs. Is it of the words and the word order? Is it of the writers? Does divine inspiration imply inerrancy? These are difficult questions which continue to be discussed within Evangelicalism and within the Evangelical Covenant Church. We affirm with the Bible that “all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16). “The Covenant has not chosen to be more precise than this in stating its view of inspiration,” as indicated in Covenant Affirmations [Tract And Booklet].

Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), Covenant Affirmations: This We Believe 1981), p. 21.

Since the emergence of modem scientific thinking in the Western world, truth and certitude have often become identified, perhaps over-identified, with correct inferences from data. Truth is what can be proved to be so by a probable or necessary inference. The surety thus attained has been identified in the minds of many believers with the certitude of Christian experience. The Bible has been asked to be scientifically true in the same way as certain natural laws are said to be true. In the 1925 discussions between David Nyvall and Gustaf F. Johnson about the nature of biblical truth, which were printed in the denominational press (see Volume One, chapters 25,28), Nyvall suggested that the creation account in Genesis should not be considered biology; although true, it was not that kind of truth. But many of his readers were not happy with the distinction.

Such an equation between Christian certitude and the surety we may derive from the connections between natural phenomena is sometimes made by evangelicals anxious to establish the reliability of the Bible. I once heard Billy Graham tell about a flight between Korea and Tokyo in which landing in Japan was complicated by fog. It required the utmost instrumental precision to consummate. In commenting on this event Graham argued that just as the landing in order to be safe had to be scientifically certain with no allowable approximations or mere probabilities of any kind, so the biblical truth cannot admit any element of uncertainty. For it also functions as a carefully calibrated instrument of guidance. This illustrates the fact that as the demand for precision in science and technology grows and grows, so does the expectation for an analogous precision in scriptural truth.

The Bible is now asked to be true in a way never expected of it in the earlier centuries. The concern for verbal exactitude suggests that we are in effect asking for the veridity of the micrometer and ultimately of a super-micrometer. But if we are willing to be open to the historic facts as we know them, it must be obvious that the Scriptures, although trustworthy in their own way, do not attempt to offer us any such scientific reliability....

My intention with this brief and all too simple exegesis is not to discredit the passage or to reflect in any way upon the authority of the biblical word. Despite variations in the telling of the story which I cannot deny or explain away, the basic message is clear. My aim is rather to indicate what degree of verbal accuracy the early Church demanded of its texts in order to make them reliable testimony to the Gospel or to salvation history. We must conclude on the basis of what the texts tell us and the manner in which they are communicated that criteria such as verbal inerrancy could not have been demanded.

This circumstance does not dispense with the need for the greatest possible accuracy in the conveying of a text. If the New Testament tells us anything, it is that the witnesses gave a very high value to textual and historical veridity and consistency. According to Acts, the apostles were credentialed on the basis of their witness to the resurrection. What further qualified them for this witness was their presence with the disciples “all the while we had the Lord Jesus with us, coming and going, from John's ministry of baptism until the day he was taken up from us” (Acts 1:21-22, NEB). The witnessing is crucial and so is the reliability of the witnesses; even more so is the intention and the work of the Holy Spirit in informing the Church of the meaning of these things, in other words, in providing a primal hermeneutics of the saving truth.

Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), Into One Body...by the Cross, Volume Two (1986), pp. 317,318,319.

Two-Edged Sword

The Bible is no apothecary shop with all kinds of medicines but it is my prescription. It does not contain truths simply to be observed but truth to be obeyed. The biggest misuse of the Bible is to make its contents a neutral science. The Bible is a partisan book. It enjoins me to choose, to take a position for or against. And it is hardly possible to insult this book more than by putting a muzzle on its claims and its demands.

David Nyvall (1863-1946), “Abide in the Word”
From Herbert E. Palmquist, The Word Is Near You (1974), p. 112.

There was revival in those days. The law plowed deep furrows in the field of human hearts. People were separated into two camps and it was a matter of each and every person taking a stand. This ranting about Christian character without true conversion and new birth would never do then. The question was, “Is he converted, has he passed from death to life, is he in truth made free through Jesus Christ?” They acted high-handedly with these questions, they sought to pull people out of the fire, just as there is no politeness or fawning or soft speech when people are sleeping in a burning house. Do you remember the fire, the blazing zeal in the revival sermons in those first days? Nor did the fire cease to burn when the preacher said Amen; rather in the personal contact after the meeting he continued to drive in the nails of truth which had been included in the public message.

Now the preacher is often the polite gentleman, the happy jester, as soon as he comes down from the pulpit, so that the people get the idea that he didn't think it was as serious as it sounded a moment ago, and the thoughtless young people say: “Oh, he is fine, he makes you feel so good.” And in addition, the sermon itself is often constructed more to entertain, yes, what is worse, amuse and divert, rather than to awaken and convert the people. How are they not praised, those who can “interest” as it is called and “keep” the crowds even though they remain in their fleshly minds! Jesus preached so that it created distance between him and his hearers, they went away, those who were not with him in truth. The word offended them and they went away, and they were allowed to go, and only a little group was left. This principle also characterized the early period of our work.

Otto Högfeldt (1861-1948), “Our Original Principles”
From Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations, Glenn P. Anderson, ed. (1980), pp. 98,99.

Source of New Life

Our forebears were Bible searchers. They had a profound, emotionally-toned feeling about life--its sinfulness and mortality, its tragedy and unequal fortunes, its helplessness in the face of actualities and ideals. This was a matter of experience with them and not philosophical formulation. It was a matter of simple and felt human observation about life. As such, they came to the Bible and found the answers to the ancient and elemental questions that brood in the mind. In the biblical answers they found comfort and release and faith to believe over against unbelief. Their discussion and sermons give clear evidence of their faith in the Bible as the Word of God. The sermons and discussions sparkle with Bible quotations, not as arguments to prove a doctrinal point but as means to conversion, comfort, and guidance for the Christian life. One is fascinated by this mastery of the biblical message and its readiness for use by men who did not write their sermons or spend many hours in preparation.

Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), p. 131.

The Christian life was primary [in the early days of the Covenant], but life was presumed to rest upon an unshaken and unshakable belief in the truth of Scripture. You believed in the Bible. You believed in Christ. You believed in the life in Christ. This permitted you, with Waldenström, to raise questions about the authorship of Second Peter and the errors in the liturgical passages in Hebrews. It did not commit you to Ussher’s chronology, to a tortuous doctrine of inspiration, or to any single view on the atonement, the second coming, baptism, and the meaning of communion.

But you held an unshakable conviction that the Bible was the Word of God–all of it was the Word of God. You believed the Bible, you read it, you revered it; in it and through it God spoke his word of salvation to you. There were many dark things in the Bible and hard to understand. You did not always seek to parse, to collate, to reconcile everything. You did not grub. You studied and you listened. That is the way it was.

Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), By One Spirit (1962), p. 532.

The more I read the Bible and put faith and trust in it, the more it reveals itself to me to be true. Personally, I must say that as the Bible staked out the way for me to walk when I was young and was seeking a way in life, it now is the great comfort for my heart as it speaks to me in the terms of the great truths of the Christian faith.

I do not wave the Bible, I press it to my heart. It is my time table, my lamp shining in a dark room, my spiritual Duncan Hines (my Adventures in Good Living, if' you will), my travel guide. I trust it implicitly and I am never let down. I find that “all the sages said is in the book my mother read.” And I have no greater desire in all the world than that others shall find such treasures in the Bible as I find every day of my life.

Herbert E. Palmquist (1896-1981), Wait for Me! (1959) , p. 91.

If one goes to the Bible with an eye for errors, contradictions, grammatical anomalies, historical mistakes, or imprecise information and numbers, then the Bible is only great enough for scholarship about just these matters. But if one goes to the Bible with an eye for the life that surges like mighty waves rising from bursting streams here and there, then one will be rewarded infinitely more. The Bible occupies a world that should be studied with a telescope rather than a microscope. What a loss it would be to study the stars and the Northern Lights with a magnifying glass! But let us admit that it is also worthwhile to study the Bible with a microscope.... This is the right of the research process. . . . But according to Hebrews, faith looks through a telescope and notices that which is invisible under the research microscope, that is, the Bible that embraces the whole world of light and life, of comfort and guidance. And it is certainly true that no discovery of formal errors can take away anything of essential value from the Bible's contents, just as if during a morning walk one's admiration for the fresh, newly-born nature would be destroyed through the discovery of a leaf containing irregular, faulty edges or of stones which are not all cut into four square edges.

David Nyvall (1863-1946), Minnepolis Veckoblad, September 27, 1898, p. 3, quoted in Scott E. Erickson, David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church (Acta Universitatis Upsallensis, Uppsala, 1996), p. 211.

The "Readers" did not come to the Bible because they had been convinced by theological and dogmatic discussions of its inerrancy or infallibility. They came, and continued to come, because they had found life and inspiration for themselves. They knew that speaking about food could not satisfy hunger and that speaking about thirst could not quench thirst. They trusted the Bible to be its own defense as well as their own, not by speaking about it, but by proclaiming its message in testimony and sermon, song and living.

In minutes of the Swede Bend Mission Society, dated April 18, 1870, we read: "There are around us so many views of the Word of God and so many different voices regarding the salvation of the soul. In spite of this, the way to life is but one. How then shall the people find assurance that they are on the right way and not lost on other ways? We find an answer in God's Word that he who believes in the Son of God has the testimony within himself." The Mission Friend came to the Bible with the confidence that God would speak to him personally. It became for him an answer to the ultimate and remaining questions of life, a means of devotion and inspiration in the context of the believing fellowship.

Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), p. 110.

There are cities and congregations which have faithful teachers who, with ceaseless preaching, plow and sow and with intercession and tears water the seed. And still there is a pitiable condition among the people. There is no report of any lasting power or evidence of Christian truth, no practice in faith and godliness. There is only a rather loose ostentation of concepts and feeling. What is the reason? Look into the situation and you will discover that the people themselves have not begun to use God's Word. So all these good things they hear from the pulpit escape them and bear no fruit. There are places and times in which powerful revivals come, people are active, life becomes verdant, and flowers appear everywhere. One begins to rejoice in the thoughts of rich fruits from this beautiful planting of the Lord. Then a few years pass, and when you visit this field, you no longer recognize it. You look with sorrow upon the plundered land. You see only thistles and thorns, increased insolence and ungodliness. What is the reason? A strong worker was taken away, there was no one to take care of the people, and they had not had time to live themselves into the Word and to use it rightly.

Contrary to this, you will find other areas where no outstanding personality was in leadership as the head of God's work but where the people had begun to edify themselves with God's Word. There you see God's work not only sustained but notably increased, expanded, and matured. How shall this be explained? Well, think of your own experience if you are a Christian who for some time has been attending the school of the Spirit. What do you have that praises yourself as the means for the sustenance and growth of your spiritual life ? Have you been so strong, so faithful, so watchful, so illumined that you have been able to stand in all lamentable plights? No, you would praise nothing but God's faithfulness.

But God is equally faithful to all. Where Christianity has died out, it is not to be seen as a lack of God’s faithfulness. No, the difference lies in this, that there the means of grace have been neglected....

C. O. Rosenius (1816-1868), “On the Purpose and Necessity of Using God’s Word”
From Eric G. Hawkinson, Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), pp. 112,113.

Whether from the lectionary or in a free selection of texts, one thing remains certain: Christ proclaimed in his fullness was the point of reference for interpreting the biblical text. The Bible was food and drink, the source of nourishment and identity; but even more, it was the voice of the Shepherd going ever before his own, calling them by name, leading them in and out to find pasture, ever seeking them when they strayed, restraining and disciplining them when needed. Whether in mission house, tabernacle, or church, preaching was not for the purpose of defending the Bible or setting forth opinions about it. Preaching was for a personal and communal meeting with Christ. “The Master is here and is calling for you.”

In the great tradition of preaching over the centuries, this mystical meeting occurs by finding oneself, coming to oneself. When you read of the sinful woman, there you were with Christ. When you heard of the Pharisee in the temple, you stood there as a poor creature depending on your own miserable works to merit the mercy of God. When you listened to the story of the disciples caught in the storm and Peter coming toward Jesus on the water, you were the one sinking in the waves as Christ reached out his hand to save you.

Glen V. Wiberg (1925- ), This Side of the River (Published by Salem Covenant Church, New Brighton, Minnesota, 1995), pp. 50,51.

It is beautiful–absolutely beautiful–the prominence the Bible gives to reconciliation and unity. I remember when I was just a child on the family farm in North Dakota. It was Sunday afternoon and I had been playing baseball with my brothers. When we had almost finished I stepped into the little farm house, our home, for a drink of water. As I entered I heard my father reading to my mother the story of Joseph from the Old Testament. He was at the place where Joseph, now the governor under Pharaoh, recognized that it was his brothers who had sold him who had now come out of the arid and non-producing land of Canaan into Egypt to purchase grain. I paused to listen for a moment, then turned around to leave, but I couldn't. The tone of my father's voice, so completely absorbed in relating the account, made me want to hear again the whole sequence: the struggle within Joseph, his disguise, the testings of his brothers, the return to Jacob and back to Egypt--this time bring Benjamin with them--and finally the revelation and reconciliation. It was all just too overpowering; I could do nothing but stand and listen. I can still hear my father reading, trying to conceal his emotions; but the tears and sobs could not be held back as he read, “I am Joseph; is my father still alive? ... and he kissed all his brothers and wept ... and after that his brothers talked with him” (Genesis 45). There is little that is more beautiful to a human being than reconciliation that breaks down the walls of separation and leads to communication, conversion, sharing, and belonging. God's Word sets before man example after example, and they are beautiful.

Milton B. Engebretson (1920-1996), “To Foster Unity,” from Bound to Be Free: essays on being a Christian and a Covenanter, James R. Hawkinson, ed. (1975), p. 90.

Have you not experienced after some longer period of being without the Word that you have become cold, disinclined in your inward life, weak for every temptation, worldly and carnal? Opposite to this there have been times when you have diligently sought the Word; have you not, then, felt better in your inward man? Again, were there not times when you were near to a fall into a sense of security and sin when a Bible verse or a sermon awakened you out of slumber and saved you? Were there not many times when you were cold and dead, the whole world seemed dark and dismal to you, and you remembered a verse from the Bible, something from a good book, or you met a friend who had God's Word in his mouth--then you received new life, new warmth, and the world was brightened again? Did you not then have David's experience: “Remember thy word to thy servant, in which thou hast made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction that thy promise gives me life.” Thus you see that the Word was the means through which God sustained your life in grace. It is the same way with the church and with all Christians. God's Word is not called a means of grace in vain. Without this word it is impossible to keep a life in grace.

C. O. Rosenius (1816-1868), “On the Purpose and Necessity of Using God’s Word”
From Eric G. Hawkinson, Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), p. 113.

Rain in abundance, O God, thou didst shed abroad; thou didst restore thy heritage as it languished; thy flock found a dwelling in it; in thy goodness, O God, thou didst provide for the needy (Psalm 68: 9,10).

How can deliverance come from such a fearful misery [as drought in the heritage of God]? Only through this, that God gives a merciful rain and lets grace overflow much more. Just as dew worms cannot be whipped up by sticks in the drought, so no soul can be driven to God through the remedy of the curse of the law. But when rain falls, then the dew worms come forth. Then, also, when God lets righteousness rain, this draws the sinner out of sin. Each word which Jesus speaks is a drop of this merciful rain that refreshes the soul; as we are told about him in the gospel: all bore witness and marveled at the words of grace that went forth from his mouth. His words are spirit and life; they bring and give life to lifeless and spiritless sinners.

If you are sitting there dead in sin and shame, dear one, sit then where it rains.... It is always raining in the Word. Sit there, and you will soon be drenched through and through.

August Pohl (1845-1913), Sermon in Missions-Vännen, September, 1878
From Eric G. Hawkinson, Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), pp. 65,66,67.

The highest joy that can be known by those who heav’nward wend–
it is the Word of life to own, and God to have as Friend....

The Word does give me wealth untold, all good it has in store;
my deepest sorrows lose their hold to joys forevermore....

How often when in deep despair my soul has been restored;
and when the tempter would ensnare ‘twould strength to stand afford....

It tells me of a love divine, how Jesus’ blood was shed;
each day this joyous song is mine as paths of grace I tread....

When stars above shall shine no more, God’s Word is still my light;
when pleasures of this world are o’er my joys will reach their height....

Nils Frykman (1842-1911), tr. Signe L. Bennett (1900-1996), Andrew T. Frykman (1875-1943)
The Covenant Hymnal: a Worshipbook (1996), No. 533.

The Word of God, Part One - September, 2009

Scripture’s Role

The Scriptures are both the witness to God's redemptive action in history and the interpretation of that action. Both the redemptive action in history in which God discloses himself and the interpretation or meaning which the Scriptures give of that action together constitute revelation. The Church sees in such revelation the glory and mystery of God who condescends to speak his Word through the words of men and finds in it a mystery which can be compared to the Incarnation of the Eternal Son in the Man Jesus. It looks upon the revelation, writing, gathering, and preserving of the Scriptures as a great work of God.

While the Scriptures address themselves both to the mind and heart, the proof of their authority is not determined ultimately by the tests of human reason but by God himself as he bears witness to the Word through the inward work of the Holy Spirit in our minds and hearts.
Because there is no other channel through which redeeming knowledge of God is now disclosed to man, the church is bound to the Scriptures. Only in and through them does it find the source of its life. Therefore, its faith, its worship, its conduct, its fellowship, and its freedom must all arise out of, be judged by, and be renewed by the Scriptures.

Because the Scriptures have arisen within history and are transmitted to us through historical processes the church in its educational task is obliged to use the best available methods of scholarly research to answer questions pertaining to text, authorship, circumstances of origin, content, and meaning.

Because the Bible is the Word of God the church is obliged to treasure its message, guarding against every temptation to obscure its plain teaching or evade its truth, and humbly submitting itself to responsive obedience in the Holy Spirit.

Covenant Committee on Freedom and Theology, Biblical Authority and Christian Freedom, (1963), pp. 5,6.

Our way into the Bible is to read, to understand, and to believe. It is possible to read but not understand. It is possible to understand and yet reject in unbelief. But to believe in the Bible is not the same as to believe in God. It is possible to believe the Bible instead of believing in God. The worst way to lose the Bible is to make it into an idol.

The Bible is God's book, but it must in a special sense be the Christ book. The Bible's meaning and unity is Christ, But the Holy Spirit needs to witness to Christ in our hearts. Hence to keep the Bible means at the deepest level that it becomes God's Word about Christ made fruitful through the Holy Spirit.

David Nyvall (1863-1946), “Let Us KeeOur Bible”
Quoted in Karl A. Olsson, Into One Body...by the Cross, Volume One (1985), p. 261.

Pietist Views

Spener's theology was...much more biblical than dogmatic. Herein lies one of his major differences with the Orthodox Lutherans, who had virtually equated the authority of the symbolical books (the Lutheran confessions) with Scripture. Disagreement erupted over both the Scriptures and the symbolical books. Regarding Scripture, Spener [1635-1705] was seen as undermining its authority. The question of scriptural inerrancy was a point where the battle was joined. Scripture, for the Orthodox Lutherans, was truly and properly the Word of God. The Bible itself was God's writing by the Holy Spirit. Its style and character were from God himself. If the Scriptures were infallible in teaching God's way of salvation, they must also be unerring in every other way.

Spener disagreed on several grounds. There was no uniformity of style among the biblical authors because the Holy Spirit had accommodated himself to each one's individuality. The Holy Spirit spoke now good Greek and then not-so-good Greek The Bible had more of a spiritual than a mechanical authority. There was also a higher form of revelation in the New Testament than in the Old Testament Fred Holmgren notes [ in The Covenant Quarterly, 1970, p. 53] that Spener actually counseled preachers not to proclaim the inerrancy of the Scriptures in such areas as history, geography, and chronology.

To be sure, Spener had a high view of biblical authority. God was the author of Scripture and the Bible has Christ for its heart and kernel--in the Old Testament as well as in the New. It is infallible in containing all that we should believe, do, and hope for our salvation. In matters of faith we are guided exclusively by Scripture. Here Spener's departure was clear. The Orthodox Lutherans insisted that the Bible was inerrant on all counts; he limited inerrancy to what the Bible said about human salvation....

Spener readily admitted that the Scriptures were the Word of God, as the Augsburg Confession had said, but until they were used they were a dead letter. They were like Moses' rod, which was quite ordinary until it was used at God's command. God had filled his Word with heavenly power and in its use this power breaks forth. The Holy Spirit was with the written Word--just as the Orthodox had said. Still the Bible must be used, if its value was to be received.

K. James Stein (1929- ), PhilipJakob Spener: Pietist Patriarch (1986), pp.151,152.

When PhilipJacob Spener laid down his famous proposals for the renewal of the Church in 1675, his first concern was with the centrality of the Word of God in the life of the congregation. He wrote: “Thought should be given to a more extensive use of the Word of God among us. We know that by nature we have no good in us. If there is to be any good in us, it must be brought about by God. To this end the Word of God is the powerful means, since faith must be enkindled through the Gospel.... The more at home the Word of God is among us, the more we shall bring about faith and its fruits.” What was new in Spener’s proposal was not another doctrine of inspiration (there was general agreement on the divine inspiration of Scripture in his day), or a new recognition of the authority of Scripture (that was accepted by his fellow churchmen). What was new was his recovery of the living nature of the Word of God. The Word is the “powerful means” to the creation of new life through the Holy Spirit. For many in Spener’s day, the Word of God was simply information, or law, or rules; for Spener the Word was power–power to effect change in the life of the hearer through the Holy Spirit.

Covenant Doctrine Committee, Covenant Affirmations (Booklet, 1976), pp. 10,11.

Conscience and Scripture are the standards of the Christian life. The awareness of the sin of disbelief and the manifest sins to which disbelief leads is born in the individual through the reading and hearing of the Word. One is stricken in one's conscience and overwhelmed by the fact that every facet of one's life is ruled by sin. We only beg forgiveness (often with tears) of the gracious God who gave his only Son for sinners. But refreshment follows; the new person in Christ enters upon a path full of new life and hope.

Again, the Word of God becomes the measuring stick against which Christians gauge their performance, and conscience registers the difference. Although believers are aware that they are washed in the blood of Jesus, there still dwells in them a “childlike fear” and the need for self-consciousness. Where the unregenerate would dismiss a sin as minor because everyone does it, the Christian sees this error as as an abomination. Where the old nature is content to attend church, confession, and go its merry way, the new nature strives in every situation and always to be pious both outwardly and inwardly. As we have seen, self-examination plays a large role in the psychological life of the Halle Pietist. The heart, mind, and conscience are constantly plowed uand pored over, dissected under the light of Scripture and the Pietist understanding of the Christian life.

Gary R. Sattler, God’s Glory, Neighbor’s Good (1982), p. 103.

The Covenant Church was born in the Pietist movement, and in the Scandinavian revivals of the 19th century. It found its source of vital spiritual life in a renewed appreciation of the Scriptures. The established church of the day honored the Bible and accepted its authority, but its concern was more often with the letter than with the spirit. Although it was rigidly orthodox, it often did little to meet the needs of the heart and made difficult a warm-hearted and vital relation to the message of Scripture.

The spiritual power of the Pietist movement lay in its recovery of a vital and dynamic use of the Bible. This early Pietist approach to the Scriptures was not new. Rather, it was the rediscovery of the living view of the Bible which characterized the early Reformation....

Because there is no other channel through which redeeming knowledge of God is now disclosed to man, the Church is bound to the Scriptures. Only in and through them does it find the source of its life. Therefore, its faith, its worship, its conduct, its fellowship, and its freedom must all arise out of, be judged by, and be renewed by the Scriptures....

If, as individual Christians and as a Christian community, we learn to listen to God’s voice to us day after day, and week by week from the pages of his chosen Book, we will discover a deepening of our love for him who saves us, a widening of our love for this sinful world, a strengthening of the bonds of fellowship and mutual trust within the Christian community, and a growing Christ-likeness in the lives of his saints.

Covenant Committee on Freedom and Theology, Biblical Authority and Christian Freedom, (1963), p. 5.

Covenant Understandings

The Evangelical Covenant Church is a community of people which “believes in the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, as the Word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine and conduct.”

What does this statement mean for the understanding of ourselves as a Christian community?

It means that we are a people of a Book. We believe that the Bible is the place where God is to be met, where his forgiveness is proclaimed, and where his will is made known. This is not to say that he is unable to speak through other means; but it is to affirm that he has chosen to speak to man through the Bible. The Bible is the means by which God has chosen to reveal himself to us. Accordingly, we believe that when God speaks through a sermon, it is because the sermon is the message of the Bible. When he speaks to us in prayer, it is because our prayer is prayer according to the Bible. When we hear him speak in the events of history, or in the world of nature, it is because we have learned through the Bible to understand what it is that he is saying in these areas. The Bible is for us a meeting place with God.

Our statement of faith also means that we believe the Bible stands in judgment upon our sinfulness. Its message is the story of God's love for the world, of his calling us men from our sin, and of his demand that we share in his redemptive ministry; as such it stands in judgment upon the Christian Church and condemns all thought and action which does not conform to the will herein revealed. The carelessness that would distort the Gospel out of concern for success or growth; the excessive concern for the comforts of life in a world of misery and need; the failure to live as persons accountable to God for all expenditures of money, talent, and time; the factionalism and exclusivism by which the members of Christ's Body are separated from one another; the sinful pride and prejudice which prevents loving of persons of other races, religions, and classes; the failure to understand appreciatively those in the Christian fellowship with whom we disagree; the unwillingness to extend to individualists and non-conformists the freedom required for creative spiritual growth, and the joylessness sometimes attendant upon the Christian community in its excessive concern for self and its neglect of the grace and power available in Christ--all these the Bible condemns, and in judgment calls the Christian to repentance and renewal.

This message of judgment, then, is only the context for the more positive function of the Bible. It is not only a book that judges. It is also a means of grace, and as such the Christian community has experienced it. Through its message God confronts men with the grace of forgiveness and the gift of new life, and through the reverent reading of it God's Spirit nourishes the faith, deepens the love, guides the conduct, and encourages the hope of the Christian man.

Clearly implied in our statement of faith is the conviction that a spiritually healthy Christian community must be sustained by a right use of the Bible. For the Bible, through which we hear God's judgment upon our sinfulness, is also the means by which there comes God's saving and healing Word of Life. To receive these words of judgment and renewal we must restore the Book to the place which our Fathers gave it. It must be the center of our life and worship. It must be the daily bread of every Christian; it must be the constant diet of every church.

Our times of Bible study are to be regarded as times of prayer. After using all our resources to determine the original meaning of a passage, our task is to turn its message into a prayer, marking its relevance for our lives as members of a Christian community in a world that needs salt and light.

Covenant Committee on Freedom and Theology, Biblical Authority and Christian Freedom, (1963), pp. 6,7.

In reviewing a hundred years of Covenant history under the banner of Psalm 119:63, “I am a companion of all them that fear thee and of them that keethy precepts” (AV), it becomes clear that the ever-blooming promise of the denomination has been this amplitude of community that seems to offer almost total freedom of thought and action within the boundaries of Scripture. It is equally clear, on the other hand, that the amplitude has posed a vexing perennial problem. Doctrinal spaciousness has not infrequently bordered on anarchy. A constant struggle has been required in order to establish and maintain a denominational identity.

...Covenant piety has emerged in a conscious communal setting where propositional truths and even traditional norms, though meaningful, have carried less weight than the process of living together as a family of faith and applying principle to life through shared reflection and day-to-day decisions.

...Scriptural faith has shaped the Covenant Church.... Covenant faith is based on the strong belief that the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, are the “Word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct.”

What this means for the Covenant Church is that its aims, and to a large extent its methods, are determined by the Scriptures. God’s design, as it emerges in the Scriptures, is to fashion the body of Christ through the cross and through the healing, reconciling, and unifying power of the Holy Spirit. Hence the ultimate nature of this church body in history (i.e. the Covenant Church) cannot be dissociated from God’s purpose.

...Throughout its history the Covenant Church has no doubt been tempted, in the midst of the embarrassment of its doctrinal freedom, to change the constitution and establish more precise theological norms. Some of the faithful have wanted to return to the Lutheran confessions of its origins. Others have argued for an evangelical alliance as reflected in the confessional statements of the National Association of Evangelicals or a number of cognate denominations.
Now undoubtedly there may be greater hearts ease and tranquility in such prescriptions than in the jangled tunes with which theological diversity assaults our ears... However, ...the hundred years of history under the guidelines of Psalm 119:63 and the present constitution have been preponderantly good and should be celebrated as to the greater glory of God.

Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), Into One Body...by the Cross, Volume One (1985), p. xii.

So it is...in this fellowship we share: this Covenant, these thousands of people, these hundreds of congregations, these institutions, this living web of relationships, visible and invisible. All that the Covenant has been, is today, and will be tomorrow, begins and lives on under the sovereign impulse of the Word.

First, is the Incarnate Word, the living Christ who came striding over the stormy waters of their disrupted lives to our fathers and mothers in the faith, bringing that healing, that meaning, that liberation we call salvation. The same living Christ whose coming to us has made us alive to serve, the same living Christ who will come to generations unborn, until the Father's loving work is completed and all is made ready for the final celebration.

Second, is the Inspired Word, the endlessly rich, the endlessly sufficient well from which thirsty creatures draw image, acquaintance, metaphor, story, instruction. This is the Bible, the whole Word of God, suffused so mysteriously with the presence of the Holy Spirit that believers and unbelievers alike testify to its power.

Beside Jesus and the Bible, I add a third word, hoping to be understood: the Word which we are, as persons, both in our creation and in our recreation. Imperfect as we are, we are yet, in ourselves, messages from God to each other, in that incarnated form we creatures most readily understand. The Word who created us, the Word who saves us, the Word who inspires and instructs us is also the Word of that great cloud of witnesses that intersects our lives both in recollection and in our daily work.

Zenos E. Hawkinson (1925-1997), “The Covenant: Being” (1985)
From Anatomy of the Pilgrim Experience: Reflections on Being a Covenanter, Edited by PhiliJ. Anderson and David E. Hawkinson (2000), p. 86.

The Covenant, despite its love for and commitment to biblical faith, has never been and probably never will be a fundamentalist church. In all likelihood it will continue, as uto the present, to welcome into fellowship those of conservative, even inerrant views, but it will also continue to safeguard the right of less conservative Christians to belong to this family of faith as long as they confess their belief in the Scriptures as reflected in the Covenant constitution.

Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), Into One Body...by the Cross, Volume Two (1986), p. 409.

‘Only Perfect Rule’

The format of the organizational meeting in Chicago was not unlike that of a typical “mission meeting,” so common among these early Mission Friends. Here were believers gathered to hear the Word of God preached. Then a discussion of its implications for their lives ensued in which they sought biblical guidance regarding the possibility of organizing their movement. The fellowship with Christ and with one another was attested to as being healing balm for weary pilgrims. Out of their several days of meetings emerged the Evangelical Covenant Church of America.

F.M. Johnson preached a sermon on the text, “1 am a companion of all who fear thee, of those who keep thy precepts” (Psalm 119:63). In that text alone you have en capsulated the heart of the Covenant. “All those who fear thee” clearly attests to their awareness that their salvation was from God. The validity of such an experiential faith rested on the authority of God's Word--"Those who keep thy precepts" Given the anti-denominational strife these Mission Friends had just experienced from the Free people, you can then clearly perceive their understanding of the doctrine of the church–“I am a companion of all those who fear thee.” They longed for the freedom to organize and structure their ecclesiastical life. That freedom they found in the Scriptures as they searched for a biblical warrant regarding the possibility of organizing and structuring. When they finally adopted a constitution they had officially dropped the references to the creedal statements of the Mission and Ansgar Synods which included the ancient symbola of the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and the unaltered Augsburg Confession. In its place they had settled simply for this confession: "This Covenant confesses God's Word, the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, as the only complete rule for faith, teaching, and life." There was no mistaking their authority for new life in Christ, for doctrine, and for a lifestyle of creative freedom.

Glenn P. Anderson (1923-1985), Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations, ed. Glenn P. Anderson (1980), pp. 7,8.

We consider it wrong and harmful to propound such doctrines as stand in open or indirect conflict with the clear Word of God. In those points where God's children, in a sincere searching of God's Word, come to a differing understanding because we see in part, there we desire to respect each other's convictions in a brotherly way. We consider it wrong and harmful if anyone so insists upon his interpretations that conflict follows with the tearing of the bonds of love between God's children. For that reason we see it wrong and harmful if such activity is not exposed together with all secret activity. All work which is of God will bear the light.

...We believe and confess that the Holy Scripture is the only infallible rule and guide for people's faith and conduct and we accept especially the New Testament as our Constitution or unchanging statute which we from the heart will obey and follow as long as God through his Spirit gives us understanding and grace to do so.

Organizational Meeting Discussion, 1885, Part of Report from the Kansas Brethren
From Glenn P. Anderson, Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations (1980), p. 34.

Give us any old, any new convincing interpretation of truth, and we have already adopted it by having adopted the New Testament faith. Besides offering the only workable formula for an all-inclusive unity of believers, the New Testament way is the only unassailable position of defense.... Without being a confession, and just because of that fact, the New Testament excels all written confessions by the number of truths expressed and implied, by the absence of errors, and by the fact that whatever truth it has in communion with any confession is more amply and more clearly expressed in the New Testament.

David Nyvall (1863-1946), “Covenant Ideals”
Quoted in Glenn P. Anderson, Covenant Roots (1980), pp. 189,190.

The supremacy of the Bible is a cornerstone in the structure founded by our spiritual [forebears]. The question constantly raised in pioneer days was: What do the Scriptures say? There may have been a tinge of ridicule in the epithet “läsare,” or “reader,” sometimes translated “readerists,” but the title was abundantly deserved. To our trailblazers; the Bible was the Supreme Court from which there could be no appeal. It is not by chance that the constitutions of our churches almost invariably begin with a statement that the Bible is recognized as the only adequate standard for faith and conduct, for individual Christians and for groups of believers.

Theodore W. Anderson (1889-1972), “Covenant Principles” (1935)
From Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations, ed. Glenn P. Anderson (1980), p. 206.

The Covenant Church believes in the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, as the Word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct. To our [forebears], the Bible was a supreme court from which there could be no appeal. Their watchword in regard to doctrine and conduct was “What do the Scriptures say?”

This means something more than making the Bible a static, inflexible measuring-stick. The Word of God is “spirit and life” and always meets us as such, and therefore requires of us a spiritual and living response. This is faith not as a frozen posture, but as an adventure of trust in God and his faithfulness to his Word. This is doctrine, not as a petrified proposition, but as an ongoing exploration in the Word, led by the Spirit of whom Jesus said, “He will lead you into all the truth.” This is conduct, not as a dull conformity to society’s pressures as “those who live like the Gentiles,” but as a radiant walk in the light and in the newness of life according to “God’s good, and acceptable, and perfect will.”

Clarence A. Nelson (1900-1971), from Covenant Principles (1965).

[An] important element in Covenant identity...is the Covenant’s confession of the Bible to be the Word of God, the only perfect rule of faith as stated in its constitution: “This Covenant confesses God’s Word, the holy Scriptures of Old and New Testament, as the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct.” This confession has been sometimes misunderstood. To some it means that the Covenant has no firm beliefs. It is assumed that the Scriptures are like putty, which may be twisted to anyone’s preference. The opposite is the case. The Covenant believes that while the Scriptures may not be identically understood in all places by all believers, all things sufficient for our salvation are clearly taught. It is the creedalists that would seem to imply that the Bible is not sufficiently clear on those things important for salvation. Creedal requirements beyond that necessary for our salvation would undercut the Covenant’s commitment to be a church open to all believers.

Paul E. Larsen (1933- ), The Mission of a Covenant (1985), p. 13.

To believe the Bible is more than believing everything in it, from cover to cover. One can do that and yet be a stranger to the Bible's message and unmoved by the Bible's purposes. A living faith in the Bible as God's word is the same as faith in God. The Bible's promises and threats, the whole content of the Bible becomes real when God becomes real. It is possible to believe in the Bible instead of believing in God. That is not only possible but common in countries which have the Bible. The holiest objects are the first to become idols. Doubtless there are altogether too many in Protestant Christendom who imagine they that they believe in God because they never doubted the Bible and have a sure and comprehensive knowledge of Christianity, as there are Catholics who imagine that they believe in God because they believe in the church and the Pope. But no institutions and no book, no matter how holy it may be, can replace a living faith in the living God. And man cannot lose his Bible in a more frightful way than in this way: that it becomes an idol.

David Nyvall (1863-1946), “Let Us KeeOur Bible”
From Minneapolis Veckoblad, Article 5 (October 13, 1925).

Pastoral authority will be curtailed and compromised if two issues are not attended to, both of which relate to the use of the Bible. One issue has to do with maintaining a proper distinction between what is a command in Scripture and what is counsel. To treat counsel, warning, common sense, or wisdom as a command is misusing the text and misleading to people (cf. Proverbs). I recall past years as a camp counselor talking with young people who were often taught not to go to movies because it was worldly. Some were asked, “If Jesus were to return, would you want him to find you in a theater?” Then television was brought in and movies appeared in the living room. Gradually it came to be that movie-watching was not a sin and the eschatological threat no longer loomed. What was a sin one month ago was no longer. This confusion resulted because certain texts like 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 were treated as forbidding movies on the grounds that they were worldly. There is in this text a command to separate from unclean things. What “unclean” refers to in our culture, however, is not always self-evident and needs to be discerned. When counsel is treated as command and enforced with pastoral, churchly, and parental sanctions-without paying attention to common understanding-authority is curtailed and compromised.

A second distinction is required. In logic, there is a differentiation made between connotative and denotative expressions .42 If one refers to skyscrapers, one speaks connotatively--that is, to a class of things. The total significance of a word most likely includes more than a definition and reaches even to the emotive significance of that word or sentence. A denotative expression refers to the concrete, e.g. the Empire State Building. When “Empire State Building” is said, one thinks, “skyscraper.” When “skyscraper” is said, one does not necessarily think, “Empire State Building.” Some may think of Sears Tower in Chicago.

To be sure, some things in Scripture are denotative. An example is the missionary command: go into all the world and preach the gospel. The meaning and responsibility is explicitly stated. But does spreading the gospel include more than evangelistic work...? In order for the church to decide that, other less explicit texts need to be used. In Luke 4:18-19 Jesus quotes Isaiah 61 to outline the scope of his ministry. In Matthew 11:5, Isaiah 61:1 and 35:5 are used similarly. How do these texts shape the concerns and forms of the church's ministry? What tasks do they imply with regard to that which may institutionalize racism, foster poverty, or deny people health care? Are these issues that belong to the doctrine of creation? In the absence of command and/or denotative statements, one turns to connotative texts to determine meaning and responsibility. Or take another example. Medical advances have made it difficult to define death and have virtually necessitated the writing of living wills, stating personal choice regarding life supports and other “heroic measures.” Decisions in those cases are connotatively made because our generation asks questions not known to biblical writers. As with the apostles in Acts 15, multiple texts need to be read, adequate information regarding the issue at hand needs to be known, and prayerful discussion of texts and information need to proceed.

C. John Weborg (1937- ), “It Seemed Good to the Holy Spirit and to Us: Clergy and Laity in Interaction,” from Servant Leadership, Volume One: Authority and Governance in the Church, James R. Hawkinson & Robert K. Johnston, editors (1993), pp. 132,133.

The most important content of the Bible is neither law nor history but matters of faith and salvation. And it is these we threaten by our manifold legislation in the name of the Bible. We hold so many clubs over the heads of people that there is little time and less passion to speak the gospel to them. But it is the gospel and not the law that is a power unto salvation.... Where the Bible is concerned, our worst enemies are not outside but within the walls.... There is only one place where the Bible is certainly ours. And that is neither in laws nor in schools nor even in churches, but in our hearts.

David Nyvall (1863-1946), “Let Us KeeOur Bible,” quoted in Scott E. Erickson, David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church (Acta Universitatis Upsallensis, Uppsala, 1996), p. 217.

[Human beings] need an objective standard by which [they] can gauge [their] thoughts and emotions. In the Scriptures and the Christ they present our [forebears] found such a norm. The Bible therefore became their creed. Above all man-made statements of faith, however valuable, they placed the Bible itself. They were convinced that every truth in any human creed is found in purer form in Holy Writ.

This does not mean that a cold, dead orthodoxy was accepted as the standard for the Christian life. Our [forebears] had seen the hopeless inadequacy of such an attitude. The Bible was to them a living message from the heart of God, vibrant with the love of the heavenly Father. It came to them with the freshness of the morning dew. While other books often are obsolete before the ink is dry, the Word of God is perennially new, an unfailing spring of spiritual life and light and power. The pastor was wise who, when asked for the best book on the Holy Spirit, sent the Bible.

Theodore W. Anderson (1889-1972), Covenant Memories, 1885-1935 (1935), p. 9.

Behind our predecessors' serious intent of telling the biblical story to the next generation, there was a recognition--sometimes with hesitation and even reluctance--that it could never be done only once or by a single method or experience, or even only in one's own mother tongue. Likewise, it was a matter of utmost urgency that there be new participants in telling the story, so that in moving to new times and places each new retelling would be an event of saving, transforming significance.

What moves one in Salem's story is the undeviating fidelity of earlier generations in telling the old, old story. And with it, there was always the continuing struggle to find better ways of telling it and so reenter the primal event of the story again, each time with “more discernment and awed mystery.” If the gospel remains a compelling passion among those telling it now in ways that impact every aspect of contemporary life, both personal and communal, the next generation will catch on!

Glen V. Wiberg (1925- ), This Side of the River (Published by Salem Covenant Church, New Brighton, Minnesota, 1995), p.113.

What was Waldenström’s [1838-1917] concern? It was that the Bible be used rightly and effectively in the Christian community.... Since the Bible is the source of all spiritual life, it should be in the hands of all the people and be read by all.

In God’s Eternal Plan of Salvation this concern is a basic theme, played with many variations. The Scriptures are to be read “to learn the reason for and the purpose of God’s coming into this world.” When you approach the Scripture:

Read in a humble disciple-spirit, in prayer believing, in order that you may “walk in the light.”

Read willing to learn the truth, not confirmation of your opinions or those of others. Place yourself under Scripture’s judgment, testing your life and thought again and again by its norm, willing to forsake everything not in accord.

Read prepared to give unconditional obedience, whatever it costs.

It is clear that Waldenström is calling for a radical biblical piety in which the Word is to shape and rule all aspects of our lives as individuals and in community. To that end, says [he] quoting Paul, let the Word dwell among you rightly. It [the Bible] is not to be a stranger, or an occasional visitor, but “the light, the life, the spirit, the all-penetrating and ruling power in one’s house.” The Word of God is the spring to which you turn for living water, the table at which you are nourished, the element in which you move, the power which sustains you. Hence, “reading the Word is not a service which you do for God, but a service he wants to do for you.”

Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), Covenant Affirmations: This We Believe 1981), pp. 26,27.