ClarkeComments.com

Hello all:

Lately, I’ve been running into a lot of resistance from people we go to church with about our heritage and history. My wife and I attended the Stone-Campbell Symposim in Eugene earlier this month, and when my wife told someone that we had gone, we were told by someone that they didn’t believe “in any of that stuff.” I was told that if the church of Christ originated from the Restoration Movement, “we are in the wrong church”.

I’ve been talking with someone else, who although they don’t deny our heritage, they seriously question if our heritage matters.

Has anyone else experienced this? I’m sure others question if our heritage matters….but denying that we have a heritage all-together? We all have to come from somewhere, and its pretty obvious that there wasn’t a continous, cogent group practicing just like us that existed throughout history.

I think our heritage matters. History shows us where we come from, shows us our mistakes and shortcomings, and helps to determine our future. Are there things that are more important than our history? Of course…there are many. But that doesn’t negate the fact that we have one and that it has importance as well, in my view. What do you think?

-Clarke

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Also:
I’m sorry I’ve been so inconsistant in writing on this blog lately. I’m going to try to start writing more so that a week doesn’t go by betwen blog posts.

Also, I will be attending the Pepperdine University Bible Lectures May 2nd-5th. I’m taking my laptop and will be blogging on site there. If you are reading this and are going to be there, let me know.
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Hello all:

I thought y’all might find this interesting.

-Clarke

Hello all:

I’m curious about everyone’s opinion regarding the Apocryphal books.

One of the reasons that Luther omitted the Apocryphal books from his translation of the bible was because they appeared in the Septuagint and not the Hebrew version of the Torah. The books were thought to have been written in Greek, not in Hebrew. The Catholics and Orthodox have held them to be inspired in at least some sense, some more than others, while protestant churches have generally held them to be accurate or semi-accurate history but not inspired.

Now, I’ve heard that scholars going through the Dead Sea Scrolls have found fragments of Apocryphal books in Hebrew.

The apocryphal books were part of the canon for 1600 years or so. Do you think they should still be a part of the Old Testament? We in the Churches of Christ have been very anti-Catholic, have we let this color our opinion, or has our opinion been correct?

-Clarke

Hello all:

I am hoping that I don’t end up turning this blog into being only about my experiences in school… because I want to write and discuss the Restoration Movement and Christian Unity, and… I don’t want to bore everyone to death. However, all I’ve done in the last few days is school work, work work, church work, and family. I’ve had very little time to do any thinking about stuff that I want to think about…and when I have, its been on other subjects….

I got a score of 95% on my first week in The Bible as Literature, which is the highest score you can get in that class. So far, so good.

Yesterday we had the funeral for one of our elders. I had asked for prayers for him a while back. He finally succombed, and he is now at Rest in the Lord. I lead singing for the funeral, and it was a stressful day, but I know it was alot more stressful for many others than it was for me. We only had two elders, and no one else qualifies, so our Eldership and Deaconate has been dissolved and we will start being run my committee until such a time as an Eldership can resume.

My son has been sick for the last few days, he seems to have the flu. I stayed home from work today because we were up until about 3am last night, and I was supposed to be at work at 7am. My wife is now sick, and I think I might feel it coming on.

I went to my first class session for History of Christianity. It was interesting….over half the students have zero background in the Bible, so the professor spent half of the four hour class going over the History of the Old Testament, trying to get these kids in a position where they can understand the geo-socio-political-commerical climate that Jesus and the Early Church were born into. It was frustrating, but somewhat interesting as she talked about some biblical symbolism and numerology. I knew about some of the numerology surrouding 3, 6, 7, and 40. But she talked about a lot more. While there I met a fellow city employee who is a member of an Independent Christian Church congregation…we talked about Restorationism for a couple of minutes on the way out to the parking lot.

Finally, I came across some references to Canon Law, which I had heard about in the past but not paid any attention to. Now that my focus is much more on religous subjects, this concept has grasped my attention. I am no believer that there should even be canon law, but I am still curious to know more…. at one time I contemplated being an attorney… and working in law enforcement makes this an interesting subject to me. I’m going to try and do more research as time permits.

So…that was my week. I’ll be heading to Pepperdine ina couple of weeks for the lectureship, which will throw a big knot in my school work, but I can’t wait.

-Clarke