Experiencing Community

Introduction

Every culture and nation has its own ideas, whether conscious or sub-conscious, on how community life should be structured and what expectations are placed on individuals within that community. Sometimes Christians think of certain aspects of culture as Biblical and teach them as being “Christian”. The primary goal of this research is to investigate and make a submission of a Biblical theology of community. Evangelicals believe that there needs to be a conservative, Evangelical Biblical theology of community published. It was Gabler who first called for an “inductive approach that would yield a historically accurate description of the religious thought- world of the Biblical authors” (Zizioulas 2005, pp. 134). This has been seen as a significant milestone in the development of Biblical theology. This research intends to hear the Bible speak for itself on the issue of community. Kaiser and Silva note that “surprisingly enough, Biblical theology has not been easy to define”. Rosner sees that “there are a number of valid answers to the question of what Biblical theology is” (Vogt 2010, pp. 77). Martens define Biblical theology as “that approach to Scripture which attempts to see Biblical material holistically and to describe this wholeness or synthesize in Biblical categories” (ibid).

In its scope, Biblical theology deals with the interpretation of the Bible as a whole, or at least one Testament, as distinct from the interpretation of parts of it. A Biblical theology of community differs from providing an overview of the Biblical teaching on community since a Biblical theology attempts to synthesize the materials first within their section of the canon, and then across the entire canon. An overview would provide a synopsis of community without synthesizing the theme. Having knowledge of a variety of Scriptural passages is not the same as knowing how a passage fits into the message of the Biblical book in which it is found, how it relates to the section of the Bible in which it is located or how it is a part of the overall message of the Bible. Biblical theology is the overview that brings out the unity.

Biblical Theology

While Christians of an Evangelical persuasion would insist that any “'theology' must be Biblical”, Biblical theology is seen as having the task of expounding the theology found in the Bible in its own historical setting, and its own terms, categories and thought forms. It seeks to understand the parts in relation to the whole and treats texts with a due sensitivity to different genres. In the original Hebrew, the Old Testament was divided into three parts: the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings (Marsh 2006, pp. 35).

The Book of Acts is included with the Gospels since it is of similar genre. Indeed, Luke and Acts form two parts by the one author. Revelation is treated separately since it is unique in terms of its genre, material and position in the canon. That is not to say that there is no other apocalyptic material in the canon, but that ...