Unity and Diversity in the New Testament

There was an individual who gave me some advice before coming to Fuller. The person said, "Just be sure to stick with orthodoxy Nick... It has stood the test of time."

Orthodox... Ortho (upright), dox (praise). Orthodox = a right sense of praise. Has there ever been a right sense of praise? Is there a right sense of praise? Should there be a right sense of praise?

James Dunn writes...
Dunn: “Perhaps then the tragedy of the early church was its
failure to realize that the biggest heresy of all is the insistence
that there is only one ecclesiastical obedience, only one
orthodoxy”

While often reading through the New Testament over the past year, it seems clear that there were many different communities attempting to work out their understanding of orthodoxy. It also seems that as they chose, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, God blessed. For instance, LEADERSHIP...Within the pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy, there were leadership structures that were being put into place due to the ritualization and institutionalization was happening as the church grew. Those structures of leadership were different when compared to the structures of leadership in Acts (where elder is used as a Jewish or Jewish Christian leader) or in Philippians where the episkopos (overseer or bishop) and deacons (servants) were addressed in the first chapter of the book. Or how about WORSHIP... It is impossible to harmonize the Gospels with Paul when it comes to the tradition of communion. The table fellowship of Jesus was marked with openness throughout his ministry. Through a literary lens, it is clear that the last supper was a final expression of this. This doesn't match the "closed" table that Paul preaches... But poor Paul... People kept getting drunk at the agape feast before the Eucharist...No wonder he wrote, "For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves." Let's consider SPIRITUAL GIFTS... There are numerous lists of gifts in different places in the New Testament... You guessed it... they are different. The truth is that there was no single orthodoxy when it came to leadership, worship, or spiritual gifts. Even deeper, it doesn't seem that there was one orthodoxy of belief either.

Compare Stephen (Acts 6 and 7), with Paul, with Jesus, with Peter (Acts 2-5 and 8-12) with Philip (Acts 8), John the Baptist, with John, with James... And you get a wide range of people, who come from a wide range of places, who have a wide range of beliefs in what it means to follow Jesus within their particular contexts. From the frustration of Jewish bends from Stephen, to the embracing of Jewish bends from Peter, to the struggle in between from Paul. People did not know what to do with the parting of ways between Jusaism and the hodos (the way), later called Christianity. Or how about the comparing of defining the Gospel according to Jesus (Mark 1:15), according to Paul (Romans 1:16-27), or according to James (James 2:24)... They understood the Gospel differently. This conversation could go on and on through many different subjects...

The deepest tragedy came when one group claimed to have the “orthodoxy” therefore pushing another group outside of a right sense of praise. This still happens today. This breaks my heart. In the name of the Holy Spirit, whom is the glue that holds all of this mystery together, people claim the Truth and therefore send others into a place of lies. Fragment after fragment gets chipped away. Sad.

Within all of this diversity in the New Testament... Is there any unity? Is unity even important? Dunn thinks that there is a sense of unity that is found in the kergyma (proclamation) of our need for repentance, confession and forgiveness through Jesus Christ the son of God. This is the unity. Christ, created by the Father, now held mysteriously in place by the Holy Spirit. Our tangible grasp of who God is, what God's will is, and where God's dreams for humanity lay.

“No one pure form of Christianity that can be called orthodoxy. There was never any form of Christianity that was “right”. Always a unifying element within these diversities. In spite of the different theological perspectives in the NT, the unifying element is that there is a single kergyma… Call to repentance, confession and forgiveness. Jesus is Christ, son of God, Lord, person whom we need to put our faith.”

For the person whom told me to stick with orthodoxy, no worries, I plan on doing so... To follow the tradition of the authoritative Scriptures in the orthodoxy of trusting the Holy Spirit to lead in working out what upright praise means within my context, for this set of moments, to “kergyma” the reality of God’s son, Christ, to the cosmos!