Should We Still Have Denominations?
Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear
J.D. Greear
4.9 • 624 Ratings
🗓️ 20 June 2022
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
Show Notes:
* One of the criticisms of Martin Luther was that there would be as many kinds of churches as there are protestants.
* But while I would love for the church to be totally united, I think you've got to seek truth over seeking unity at times.
* Did Jesus give authority to the apostles? Sure. But I don't see anywhere in Scripture where he intended for that same authority to be passed down from one leader to another. Instead, we think that authority was then encoded in the New Testament which outlines for us the rules about heaven and hell and what the church is.
* The Word of God is always the authority in the church.
* We've got to hold the tension between truth and pursuing unity.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | All right, everybody, welcome to another episode of Ask Me Anything. |
| 0:21.3 | And as you know, this is a podcast where Pastor J.D. Greer gives quick answers to some of your toughest theological, ethical leadership questions. |
| 0:28.6 | I am Matt Love. |
| 0:30.1 | And there is just no hiding the fact that over the last few years, our denomination has been in the news for some failures of leadership, failures to |
| 0:39.6 | protect people that needed to be protected. And so, J.D., I feel like this season that we've been |
| 0:45.1 | in as a denomination does have some people asking, I would say a question that's valid, |
| 0:49.8 | should we have denominations? And if so, why? Why should we have them? So, J.D., that's the question I have for you. |
| 0:55.2 | Let's take a step back. |
| 0:56.1 | Should we even have denominations? |
| 0:58.4 | Yeah, that's a great question. |
| 0:59.5 | And it's one I actually get a lot, particularly, in that I lead a Baptist church. |
| 1:03.7 | And we Baptist are not just Protestants. |
| 1:05.8 | We're actually, what they call part of the offspring of the radical reformation, which was like, you know, |
| 1:11.7 | Protestants of the Protestant. One of the things that Luther was criticized about when he was |
| 1:18.2 | essentially begrudgingly launching the Protestant Reformation, he didn't mean to, he didn't want to. |
| 1:23.1 | He wanted to reform the church. That's why he's a reformer. But eventually he got to where he felt |
| 1:28.5 | locked out and he had to choose between the truth of scripture or the unity of the church and he |
| 1:33.5 | went with the truth of scripture. But one of the criticisms he got is Luther, if you do this, |
| 1:38.3 | then there's one day going to be as many different, you know, kinds of churches as there are |
| 1:43.8 | Protestants, |
| 1:45.4 | because everybody's just going to say, well, this is how I interpret the Bible and they're |
| 1:48.1 | going to start their own brand of church. And that's something, honestly, we, I live with. I mean, |
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