Yeah, HQ, HY, Elvis, WZ... haha... I was thinking of you men when I posted this! Thank God for your hearts to see the Word of God taught properly... and for your hearts to see that our church remains safely grounded in proper Bible theology. I guess, to me, you guys, though you may be in very different life-stations, be it student, fresh graduate, working adult or father-to-be... think God has stirred in your hearts and souls a desire to study God's Word systematically. Be the color-bearers for the next generation of the church... may the Lord make you strong and reliable men, who will be qualified to teach others, especially the younger ones... especially in these last days.
Conner: [...] I would say in my mind the most important subject I would say for any minister any teacher any ministry at all is sound theology and sound hermeneutics or principles of interpreting the Word.
Because now I look back over if people ask me what would be the most important thing I would say as I look back over 60 years of ministry all our preaching, teaching, counselling, witnessing lifestyle, it all comes down to theology, right or wrong.
And hermeneutics and theology is like a coin to me, two sides. Your theology affects your hermeneutics; your hermeneutics affects your theology. If they are wrong then most of our preaching, everything is faulty theology, it’s out. So I would say they are the two most important subjects.
And to me all my preaching teaching whatever I do it all comes out of my theology. So sound theology, sound hermeneutics, they would be the two major things in my mind, and I think they are two subjects that are lacking today because people say, ‘Ah theology, we don’t want theology’, I say we do because everything comes out of that.
CP: What makes sound teaching? Would you be able to perhaps summarise?
Conner: [...] Does doctrine really matter? Doctrine of God, doctrine of Christ, doctrine of Man, doctrine of sin, doctrine of redemption, doctrine of eschatology. I left ecclesiology out because that’s in a separate book itself. So it’s that basic thing, but the approach I don’t think it’s theology that’s dead, I think a lot of the theologians are dead. I don’t know, they’ve killed. And they’ve killed it because they’re not alive and it’s just mind to mind thing, whereas not because of me, it’s just my gifting, people say I make theology alive, so exciting, so alive, that’s people’s comments.
CP: During your message this morning, you talked about how certain groups have been criticising the church and trying to get out of this mold. How would you respond to the criticisms in the sense of what are the areas in which truly the church has failed and needs to recover?
Conner: I think just recently I read about eight textbooks on the emerging church so some people asked me in America when I was there, what do I think about the emerging church. I haven’t read enough to evaluate anything so my big concern is what do you mean by the word ‘church’? I think we need to reclaim the original meaning of the word ‘church’ because today it’s become Presbyterian Church, a building. It’s not.
So we need to reclaim what’s the original meaning of the word ‘church’ in the Greek culture and the Roman application. And a lot of these young people, when you talk about emerging church, what are you emerging from, and what are you emerging into?
And then the more I read these textbooks which I personally think is such a mixture I get concerned about the theology so where is sound theology in the thing, and then what do you mean by the church? Then I think reading a lot of their experiences, I think a lot of their criticisms, instead of saying the church, they should say against institutionalism, denominationalism, dead orthodoxy. Like I said this morning, don’t knock the church because the church is the body of Christ, the church is the bride of Christ. And Paul was willing to suffer and die for the church.
So I believe every minister that has a real vision and understanding of what the New Testament as a body of Christ or bride of Christ is should be willing to live and suffer and die for the church the body of Christ. But not knock the church. And so I would say to these people, you are leaving the church and you are emerging from what into what, and then when you get a hundred people a thousand people what’s that? Are you part of a church, or are you doing something outside the church?
So I disagree very strongly. Some of the preachers today said that God is finished with the church and He is doing something new outside the church. He’ll never be finished with His body! He’ll never be finished with His bride! So we need to reclaim that.
So just recently, I’ve done an article on reclaiming the word ‘church’. Church is not a building, it’s not a denomination, it’s not institution. What is the biblical revelation of the church? So when He said I will build My church what do we really mean?
That to me is foundation. I have very strong convictions on the church. I am part of the church, I love the church. So when people run the church down I say what are you punching yourself in the face for, what do you belong to? Some new thing outside the church? There is no new thing outside the church. So all these things it may be marketplace ministry it may be orphanages it may be leprosy centres it may be hospitals all of these are ministries of the church but they do not constitute the church.
Cell churches, my body is made up of cells, but no one cell is the church, but my body is made up of many cells like the church. So we just need to reclaim that and I think that ministers need to be talking about that and just reclaiming what does the church really mean in the Greek thing what did Jesus mean, and what the church is not.
So in some of my studies church is not a building it’s not a denomination it’s not Judaism and I do that to get what the church is. So I have very strong convictions on that, so it disturbs me very much when I hear people running down the church and saying God is doing a new thing outside the church. Where is that in the New Testament? Not there.
CP: I would like to return back to the two sides of the coin you talked about. Firstly, the sound teaching and secondly the interpretation of Scripture. What are some of the principles behind good Bible teaching?
Conner: Well, I think first main thing would be what I’ve already said. It would be sound theology, if we don’t have sound theology, we can make the Bible say anything.
And one brief illustration like I heard people teach on the parables of the kingdom that the kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal I’ve heard ridiculous things on parabolic teachings the three measures of the meal are the three divisions of the human race, Shem, Ham, Japheth, three sons of Noah, and the woman is the church and the leaven is the gospel. That ends up in universalism that everybody is going to be saved.
So unless you have sound theology you are not going to interpret the parables of the kingdom right, so your theology affects your hermeneutics, so in the hermeneutic textbook we did that, two countries in word studies character studies place studies interpreting the parables of the kingdom, interpreting prophecy, all those types of things so much that I have to look at my books again, but my theology governs that, otherwise you can make the Bible say anything.
CP: You mentioned earlier that your textbook which goes into so many countries around the world and there are people that said that you make theology alive. What’s your secret?
Conner: Well, I think any teacher should do this, teacher, preacher, whatever. When the Holy Spirit inspired the Word, then that is as real to Him now as it was then. And I like one definition said years ago that when we have the communion he says we often say do this in remembrance of Me and we in ourselves try to project our memory back to when Jesus died and trying to project back then doing it in remembrance but he said the real Greek meaning of that is the Holy Spirit bringing the power of the past into the present and making real what was in the past, making real in the present. I believe that’s the key to the whole ministry of the Word... [Read more!]
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