Queen's Road Cell

I felt that the lack of good questions in Book 5.2 for these 3 chapters meant that we should focus on the important material inside and do more in-depth studies of 2 passages instead: The important ideas brought up would be: The shift of the centre of global Christianity away from the West, with explosive growth in Latin America, Africa and China. This means a shift in the demographics of missionaries away from white Westerners. It means that, while the intellectual centres of Christianity remain (for good or evil) in the USA and UK, the momentum of worldwide church growth is now creating a disconnect between solid theology and lived out faith in some areas. It will also see a trend of third world countries doing missions in Western countries where the fire of the gospel has burned out. The idea of the 10-40 window as a strategic target for church missions. The concept of a 'world Christian' as a default for all disciples of Christ. I felt that the Joshua project webs...

We discussed what Jesus means when He says (Mt 16:19, 18: 18)   that “whatever (we) bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever (we) loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”. The first quotation is to Peter, and the second generalizes this power to all the disciples. Matthew 16 presents the ‘rock’ on which Christ builds his church either as Peter himself (the archetype of the faithful confessing Christian) or Peter’s confession (as that which all who belong to the church must share). There is no hint here of the continuing apostolic succession claimed by Roman Catholics, or of supremacy of leadership of the church in all matters (c.f. Paul’s correction of Peter in Gal 2:11-14, James’ leadership of the Jerusalem council in Ac 15:7-21) “Binding” and “loosing” in this context refers to the power to discipline in the church regarding right and wrong conduct for those in the kingdom (cf.18:19). This would be equivalent to the setting of permissions and restrictions in...