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Discussion Forum : General Topics : Has anyone utilized resources at NTRF dot org?

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dolfan
Member



Joined: 2011/8/23
Posts: 1727
Tennessee, but my home's in Alabama

 Has anyone utilized resources at NTRF dot org?

The folks at NTRF dot org promote home fellowships. Their views are somewhat different from the views expressed by the brothers of Gospel Fellowships and SI's moderators.

They have a number of brief articles and some longer books and teachings, along with audio teachings, about home churches and life in a home church fellowship. Their logistics, so to speak, differ some but --- at least as far as I can tell no more than I've perused things there --- do not appear to be drastically different. (For one thing, and it jumped out at me, they encourage you to meet in a place that can accommodate up to 70 people based on the likely architecture of homes in the first century that included courtyards and atriums. But, they don't insist that it must be that way or anything.)

Just fishing for anyone's thoughts on them.


EDIT ---- I originally typed RTRF instead of NTRF. I've not been very sharp on a number of fronts today. Sorry, folks.


_________________
Tim

 2014/12/10 13:52Profile
savannah
Member



Joined: 2008/10/30
Posts: 2265


 Re: Has anyone utilized resources at NTRF dot org?



"Just fishing for anyone's thoughts on them."

I'm very familiar with them.

My thoughts on them:

I'd give them and their resources an A+ along with an amen!

My thoughts in a nutshell...

Go in peace

 2014/12/10 16:19Profile
sermonindex
Moderator



Joined: 2002/12/11
Posts: 39795
Canada

Online!
 Re:


I have spoken with Steve Atkerson who runs this ministry and at one conference he handed out his book: House Church ~ Simple, Strategic, Scriptural to others at the conference. I feel the book is very simple and helpful for saints who desire to meet as house churches in the West.

They have a network of 30+ house churches. The ministry is strict reformed in theology therefore it is not the right fit for many brothers but I am glad for them and that they are meeting and glorifying our Lord.

Steve is very down to earth and accessible, saints could learn alot from him towards house church ministry.


_________________
SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2014/12/10 16:38Profile
dolfan
Member



Joined: 2011/8/23
Posts: 1727
Tennessee, but my home's in Alabama

 Re:

bro Greg, it is that practical help I'm trying to read more on as we go on with what we've been doing.

Started watching one of their videos, and the straightforward presentation is helpful. Like you, though, and most others who frequent here, I'm not all the way in their reformed boat and I'm happy for them to keep rowing strongly as they will.


_________________
Tim

 2014/12/10 17:42Profile
savannah
Member



Joined: 2008/10/30
Posts: 2265


 Re: deipnon



Steve Atkerson writes on the Lord's Supper -

Foreign though it may seem to the contemporary church, the first century church enjoyed the Lord’s Supper as a banquet that foreshadowed the marriage supper of the Lamb. It was not until after the close of the New Testament era that the early church fathers altered the Lord’s Supper from its pristine form into a memorial service. We advocate a return to the way of Christ and His apostles.

Some traditional churches feel that only an ordained clergyman can officiate at the Lord’s table. This is evidently a holdover from Roman Catholicism. The New Testament makes no so such requirements.

Its Form & Focus: A Feast & The Future

The very first Lord’s Supper is also called the Last Supper, because it was the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples before His crucifixion. The occasion for the meal was the Passover. At this Passover Feast, Jesus and His disciples reclined at a table heaped with food (Ex 12, De 16). Jewish tradition tells us that this meal typically lasted for hours. During the course of the meal, "while they were eating" (Mt 26:26), Jesus took a loaf bread and compared it to his body. He had already taken up a cup and had them all drink from it. Later, "after the supper" (Lk 22:20), Jesus took the cup again and compared it to his blood, which was soon to be poured out. Thus, the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper were introduced in the context of a full meal (the Passover). Would the Twelve have somehow deduced that the newly instituted Lord’s Supper was not to be a true meal? Or would they naturally have assumed it to be a feast, just like the Passover?

"The Passover celebrated two events, the deliverance from Egypt and the anticipated coming Messianic deliverance" (Reinecker, Linguistic Key to the Greek NT, p. 207). Soon after that Last Supper, Jesus became the ultimate sacrificial Passover Lamb, suffering on the cross to deliver His people from their sins. Jesus keenly desired to eat that Passover with His disciples, saying that He would "not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God" (Lk 22:16). Note that Jesus looked forward to a time when He could "eat" the Passover "again" in the kingdom of God. The "fulfillment" (Lk 22:16) of this evidently was later written about by John in Re 19:7-9. There, an angel declared, "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!" The Last Supper and the early church’s Lord’s Suppers all looked forward to a fulfillment in the wedding supper of the Lamb. (And what better way to typify a banquet than with a banquet?)

His future wedding banquet was much on our Lord’s mind that night. He mentioned it first at the beginning of the Passover feast (Lk 22:16). He mentioned it again when passing the cup, saying, "I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes" (Lk 22:18). Then, after the supper, He referred to it yet again, saying, "I confer on you a kingdom . . . so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom . . ." (Lk 22:29-30).

Whereas twenty-first century Gentiles associate heaven with clouds and harps, first century Jews thought of heaven as a time of feasting at Messiah’s table. This idea of eating and drinking at the Messiah’s table was common imagery in Jewish thought of the first century. For instance, a Jewish leader once said to Jesus, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God" (Lk 14:15). In Mt 8:11 Jesus Himself said that "many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven."

The eating that is associated with the coming of Christ’s kingdom is even seen in the model prayer of Mt 6:9-11. In reference to the kingdom, Jesus taught us to pray, "your kingdom come, your will be done." The very next sentence is "Give us today our daily bread." Interestingly, the Greek underlying Mt 6:11 is difficult to translate. Literally, it reads something akin to, "the bread of us belonging to the coming day give us today." Linking 6:11 with 6:10, Jesus may well have been teaching us to ask that the bread of the Messianic (kingdom come) banquet be given to us today. I.e., let the kingdom come and the feast begin today!

The most extensive treatment of the Lord’s Supper is found in 1 Corinthians 10 - 11. The deep divisions of the Corinthian believers resulted in their Lord’s Supper meetings doing more harm than good (11:17-18). They were partaking of the Supper in a "unworthy manner" (11:27). Evidently the rich, not wanting to eat with the lower social classes, came to the meeting so early and remained there so long that some became drunk. Making matters worse, by the time that the working class believers arrived, delayed by employment constraints, all the food was gone and they went home hungry (11:21-22). Some of the Corinthians failed to recognize that the Supper as a sacred, covenant meal (11:23-32). The abuses were so bad that it had ceased being the Lord’s Supper and had instead become their "own" supper (11:21, NASV). Thus Paul asked, "Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in?" If merely eating ones own supper were the objective, private dining at home would do. Their sinful selfishness absolutely betrayed the very essence of what the Lord’s Supper is all about.

From the nature of their abuse of the supper, it is evident that the Corinthian church regularly partook of the Lord’s Supper as a true meal. In contrast, no one today would ever come to a typical Lord’s Supper service expecting to have physical hunger satisfied, nor could they possibly get drunk from drinking a thimble sized cup of wine (or much less, grape juice). However, the inspired solution to the Corinthian abuse of the Supper was not that the church cease eating it as a full meal. Instead, Paul wrote, "when you come together to eat, wait for each other." Only those so famished or undisciplined or selfish that they could not wait for the others are instructed to "eat at home" (1Co 11:34). Paul wrote to the Corinthian church some twenty years after Jesus first turned His Last Supper into our Lord’s Supper. Just as the Last Supper was a true meal, so too the Corinthians understood the Lord’s Supper to be a true meal.

Further, the word behind "supper" (1Co 11:20) is deipnon, which means "dinner, the main meal toward evening, banquet." It never refers to anything less than a true meal, such as an appetizer, snack or hors d’oeuvres. How likely is it that the authors of the NT would use deipnon to refer to the Lord’s "Supper" if it were not supposed to be a true meal? The Lord’s Supper originally had numerous forward looking aspects to it. As a full meal, it prefigured the feast of the coming kingdom, the marriage supper of the Lamb.

The opinion of scholars is clearly weighted toward the conclusion that the Lord’s Supper was originally eaten as a full meal. Donald Guthrie, in The Lion Handbook of the Bible, states that "in the early days the Lord’s Supper took place in the course of a communal meal. All brought what food they could and it was shared together." Dr John Drane, in The New Lion Encyclopedia, commented that "Jesus instituted this common meal at Passover time, at the last supper shared with His disciples before His death . . . the Lord’s Supper looks back to the death of Jesus, and it looks forward to the time when He will come back again. Throughout the New Testament period the Lord’s Supper was an actual meal shared in the homes of Christians. It was only much later that the Lord’s Supper was moved to a special building and Christian prayers and praises that had developed from the synagogue services and other sources were added to create a grand ceremony." J. G. Simpson, in an entry about the Eucharist in The Dictionary of the Bible, observed that "the name Lord’s Supper, though legitimately derived from 1 Corinthians 11:20, is not there applied to the sacrament itself, but to the Love Feast or Agape, a meal commemorating the Last Supper, and not yet separated from the Eucharist when St. Paul wrote." Canon Leon Morris, in his Commentary on 1 Corinthians for the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries insists that 1Co 11 "reveals that at Corinth the Holy Communion was not simply a token meal as with us, but an actual meal. Moreover it seems clear that it was a meal to which each of the participants brought food." Howard Marshall, in Christian Beliefs noted that the Lord’s Supper "was observed by His disciples, at first as part of a communal meal, Sunday by Sunday."

 2014/12/14 5:04Profile





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