Servants of God: spirituality and theology in the history of the Church?Franklin Ferreira
Fiel Editor launches, in February, another book by the author Franklin Ferreira, the book “Servos de Deus”, a rich study of Christian spirituality, based on the biography of thirty-two important figures in the history of the Church, whose lives served and served to build, challenge, correct, comfort and stimulate the pilgrimage of today’s Christian.
- As you know.
- Ministério Fiel launches its monthly newsletter with an exclusive and discounted pre-launch for the Faithful community (in addition to many other things.
- Such as: free eBooks.
- The best videos and articles and more).
Christianity is a concrete religion that develops in history, is not based on legends, but on facts that must be witnesses, because they have a direct relationship with the lives of those who believe. Christianity is a religion of deeds, words and life. Well-understood facts have a direct relationship with our lives. Christianity believes in an infinite-personal God. God is transcendent, but not distant, he acts in history by means established by himself, he is the first and final cause of all things.
Is the Christian faith founded?Without divine communication there would be no theism or atheism, we would simply never come to the concept of God or therefore, as DMLloyd-Jones said, “divine communication is the fundamental basis of the Christian faith. “
Without the historical Christ there would be no Christianity; their strength and uniqueness are in this fact better said: in the person of Christ, not only in his teachings; Christianity is Christ Himself. The incarnation is total and even missionary: the Word became flesh and lived among us (Jn 1:14).
The doctrines of creation and incarnation are inextricably united. The historicity of one requires the historicality of the other. Denying the historicality of the first three chapters of Genesis makes the incarnation of God’s Word unnecessary. The denial of the incarnation makes Genesis a mere metaphor or a sign. Incarnation humanizes man who has been dehumanized by sin. Man without God is lost in his self, reference, yet he is always the image of God and it is in the humanization of man that we perceive his beauty and greatness. Evangelism is, in a way, a return to lost humanity. Only the gospel can humanize man. God is glorified for this purpose.
God often acts in history, but not exclusively or necessarily, through His servants. This is a sample of what we have in Franklin Ferreira’s play. In fact, the author intends to objectively write a “history of spirituality”. he selected 32 characters according to well-defined criteria, seeking to “demonstrate the link between disciplined devotion, erudition, theological production and ecclesial and social renewal”.
Without explicit pretensions or disguised as building an hagiography of different servants of God, the author builds his work academically and devotionally. In the context of spirituality, it seems to follow the principle that “true spirituality encompasses the whole reality”, as Francis Schaeffer put it, for this purpose he used primary and secondary sources, always providing the bibliography used, in each chapter there are reading suggestions to deepen the chapter and at the end of the book a general bibliography, he did so lightly, indicating the background of the author , his background, certain peculiarities of his life, his main ideas, his contributions and his relevance.
In this way, we are contemplated with a historical outline that reaches until the end of the twentieth century, through characters who have marked history in a different way, with widely recognized contributions or not, favoring not only a single type of approach or theological tradition. It’s healthy.
However, Franklin has something else in mind. In the end, after using the concept of J. Gresham Machen according to which “liberalism is not Christianity?”And, in a way, Schaeffer’s, is the real difference between liberalism and biblical Christianity not a matter of academic research, but of hypothesis?”Making a well-founded critique of this position,” he says, “If we want to be a faithful church, we must rediscover the central doctrines. of the Christian faith, and this is not an easy task Do we need to study all biblical doctrines, seeking to know which ones are vital to our salvation and which ones we can have different opinions?Thus, based on examples, particularly of the Protestant Reformation and its beliefs, it proposes a revitalization of the Church through the study and teaching of Scripture and its fundamental doctrines, accompanied by a committed devotional practice. Franklin’s right. The path you’ve followed and your goal come together in perfect unity.
He certainly agrees with Edwin Dargan’s interpretation
The decline of life and spiritual activity in churches is often accompanied by a kind of formal, lifeless and fruitless preaching, and this is partly as a cause and partly as an effect. On the other hand, the great revivals in Christian history usually go back to the work of the pulpit and, as they progressed, developed and made possible a high level of preaching.
In July 1922, in a conference addressed to pastors, Karl Barth declared:
It is only a common place where there is nothing more important, more urgent, more useful, more redeeming and healthier; There is nothing, from the point of view of heaven or earth, more relevant to the real situation than speaking and listening to the Word of God in the original and regulating power of his truth, in his sincerity every eradicator and reconciler, in the light that is cast not only upon time and temporal confusion, but also beyond , towards the glare of eternity, revealing time and eternity through each one?The Word, the Logos of the Living God.
Therefore, inspired by Barth’s instructions to the heirs of John Calvin’s thinking, we can say that in Franklin’s work we are urged not to dwell simply on these clouds of witnesses who lived their faith amid the challenges of their time. But, to return to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate God, who speaks to us through His Word with the same intensity as when it was revealed and recorded (Rom. 1:16).
Calvin, with the proper authority of a faithful preacher, commands, “We must understand that Jesus Christ wants to govern his church by preaching His Word, to which we must give all due reverence. “Then: church of the 21st century, return to the scriptures! They bear witness to Christ in whom there is only life and salvation (Jn 5:39: Acts 4:12), so do we, for we must surround ourselves with such a great cloud of witnesses, free ourselves from all weight and sin. that harasses us with tenacity, runs, with perseverance, the career that is proposed to us, looking at the author. And the consummate of faith, Jesus? (Hebrews 12. 1-2).
Pastor Franklin Ferreira’s work is an eloquent and persuasive invitation to this. Congratulations Franklin, congratulations Faithful Editor and congratulations Portuguese language reader. Thank God, amen.
Sao Paulo, spring 2013 Rev. Hermisten Maia Pereira da Costa Member of the team of pastors of the 1st Presbyterian Church of Sao Bernardo do Campo, SP