Johann Peter Lange (April 10, 1802, Sonneborn (now a part of Wuppertal) - July 9, 1884, age 82), was a German Calvinist theologian of peasant origin.
He was born at Sonneborn near Elberfeld, and studied theology at Bonn (from 1822) under K. I. Nitzsch and G. C. F. Lüheld several pastorates, and eventually (1854) settled at Bonn as professor of theology in succession to Isaac August Dorner, becoming also in 1860 counsellor to the consistory.
Lange has been called the poetical theologian par excellence: "It has been said of him that his thoughts succeed each other in such rapid and agitated waves that all calm reflection and all rational distinction become, in a manner, drowned" (F. Lichtenberger).
As a dogmatic writer he belonged to the school of Schleiermacher. His Christliche Dogmatik (5 vols, 1849-1852; new edition, 1870) "contains many fruitful and suggestive thoughts, which, however, are hidden under such a mass of bold figures and strange fancies and suffer so much from want of clearness of presentation, that they did not produce any lasting effect" (Otto Pfleiderer). ____________________________________
Choosing Deacons:
3Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” ~ Acts 6:3&4
ACTS 6:3–5 a. Wherefore, brethren.—The apostles desire to place the entire charge of the church, as far as its external affairs are concerned, in other hands, in order that they may themselves be unimpeded in discharging their appropriate and sacred duties; they propose that an office should be created, bearing a distinct and independent character, or one to which specific duties should be assigned: this plan was adopted, Acts 6:6. They transfer to others a part of the duties and the rights which had previously been confined to them personally, and establish another office in addition to the apostolate, which had hitherto been the sole ecclesiastical office; so that here they commence the work of supplying wants in the organic structure of the church of Christ, and securing its completeness. They entertained no apprehension that, by adopting this course, they would seem to distrust the Holy Ghost who guided the church of Christ, but proceeded, without hesitation, to complete its defective organization as a society, by creating a new office; comp.BAUMGARTEN: Apgsch. I. 115 f.
b. And the saying pleased, etc.—The apostles, however, do not actually accomplish their design without the concurrent action of the church. They might have acted on their own authority alone, and have been sustained by the consciousness that they contemplated, not their personal interests, but those of the church. They might have even alleged that the difficulty which had arisen, was a symptom of a morbid feeling existing in the church, and that, consequently, a tender regard for the latter advised that the members should not be consulted. They might have entertained the delusive thought, that their duty to the Lord himself and to their own office required them to act solely on their own authority, and in a perfectly independent manner, in reference to “those below them.” But they neither entertained such views, nor adopted such a course. They believed that the church had reached the period of maturity, presented a statement of the circumstances, and proposed a remedy, which at once received the sanction of the whole church, Acts 6:5. The members selected seven men, in accordance with the request of the apostles, and presented them to the latter as individuals in whom they placed confidence.
c. The apostles had previously specified certain important qualifications to which the members were to give heed in effecting a choice. The Seven must be (a) μαρτυρούμενοι, i.e., men of acknowledged integrity of character and purity of life—men of good repute. In addition to this qualification, which referred in general to their moral character, the Seven must be (b) πλήρεις πνεύματος καὶ σοφιάς, i.e., men who had received the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son, together with all the powers and gifts of wisdom and knowledge which the Spirit imparted. Why are such prominent personal gifts and qualifications demanded? Not simply because the administration of the property of the church was to be intrusted to these officers, but, undoubtedly, also for the following reason: their duties were not to be restricted to the supply of physical wants and the direction of purely temporal interests; they would be specially required to provide likewise for the spiritual wants of the poor, and, generally, to promote the spiritual interests of the church. The apostles desire to occupy a position which will enable them to fulfil their official duties with entire freedom, and to dedicate themselves wholly to prayer and the ministry of the word; but they certainly do not intend to free themselves entirely from the care of temporal affairs. The seven men, on their part, are, primarily, to take charge of the poor, as well as of the temporal affairs of the church in general; but it is certainly not intended that they should be excluded from all participation in the spiritual labors of the apostles.
d. The names of the seven men chosen by the church, are given in full. The most prominent of the number is Stephen, who is described as “a man full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost”, and to his history Luke devotes the second part of the present chapter, and the whole of the next. It is in the highest degree improbable that πίστις should here mean simply fidelity and conscientiousness (Kuinoel); the term rather denotes Stephen’s positive religious and Christian life of faith. It was doubtless this fully developed spiritual character that attracted general notice, and induced the church to nominate him as the first of the seven.—It is admitted by all that Philip is the same individual, who, after the death of Stephen, preached the Gospel in Samaria (Acts 8:5 ff.), and, at a certain point between Jerusalem and Gaza, baptized a man of Meroe, an officer at the court of Candace (Acts 8:26 ff.). He is again mentioned in Acts 21:8 f., as an “evangelist”, and expressly described as “one of the seven.” We are entirely unacquainted with the history of the other five persons. The legendary accounts which have been preserved (e. g., that this or that one had belonged to the company of the seventy disciples of Jesus, or had, at a later period, been invested with the office of a bishop in a certain place), are entitled to no consideration. The statement that Nicolas was a proselyte of Antioch, is remarkable. It is possible that the one or the other of the rest was a Pagan by birth, and had been incorporated with the people of Israel (after being circumcised and offering sacrifices), before he received the Christian faith; but Nicolas alone is distinctly stated to have been a proselyte. It is a mere conjecture, supported by no evidence, (although expressed as early as the age of Irenæus [adv. Hær. II., 27]), and suggested only by a combination of Rev. 2:15 with the present text, that he became the head of a sect at a later period, and was the founder of that of the Nicolaitans.—The circumstance that the seven names are all Greek, has led to various conclusions, e. g., that the seven men were not Jews who had been born in Palestine, but Hellenists. Those writers who assume that all the seven were Hellenists, differ in their ultimate conclusions. Some regard the fact as a proof of the impartiality or magnanimity of the Hebrews, who wished to remove every cause of complaint on the part of the Hellenists by selecting the seven from the whole number of the latter. (Rothe). Others suppose that these seven were chosen exclusively for the service of the Hellenistic portion of the church, and that διάκονοι [which title, however, does not once occur in the whole Book of the Acts (J. A. Alex.)—TR.] had been already appointed for the Hebrews, at an earlier period (Vitringa, Mosheim). Neither of these conjectures is supported by historical evidence, and, indeed, Greek names were, at that time, quite common among the Hebrews [e. g., one or more of the apostles. (de Wette).—TR.]. It is probable that some of the Seven were Hebrews, and the rest, Hellenists.
ACTS 6:6. Whom they set, etc.—The men that had been chosen by the church, were now presented to the apostles, who conferred the new office upon them, and solemnly installed them with prayer and the imposition of hands. They first offered prayer, in conjunction with the church, in behalf of the men, entreating that the grace and the gifts of God in Christ, might be imparted to the latter; for the call to serve the disciples and especially the poor, was in truth a call to serve God in the persons of the the latter [Mt. 25:40], and from Him alone, the endowments and fitness, the blessing and the increase could come. Then the apostles laid their hands on the men, by which act they consecrated and blessed them, and transferred an office with which they had themselves been hitherto invested.
ACTS 6:7. And the word of God increased.—The internal danger of the church, which had threatened to terminate in a rupture, was, no doubt, happily averted by the adoption of the measure already described. The remedy appears to have been adequate; it was successfully employed, in consequence both of the appeal which the apostles had made to the religious principles of the members of the church, and of the vigorous aid which they received from the Seven. These men, whose labors were attended with the divine blessing, were powerfully sustained by the consciousness that they were rightfully engaged and walking in the path of duty. It is true that Luke does not distinctly state these facts, but they are implied by another and still more striking result which he records. The more successfully the unity of the Spirit was kept in the bond of peace [Eph. 4:3], the more rapidly the word of God increased; that unity produced a powerful effect on the minds and hearts of others, and many individuals, as a consequence, received the truth in faith; the number of Christians in Jerusalem rapidly increased, and a great company even of the priests ὑπήκουον τῇ πίστει. This expression describes their conversion as an act of obedience to the gracious will of God in Christ; its introduction here is the more appropriate, as it was precisely in the case of priests that a firm resolution, or a positive determination of the will, was most of all needed, in surmounting the prejudices peculiar to their order, and in offering worship to the Crucified One, the sole Mediator and Priest. It was only a very deep conviction, expressed in the words; “It is the will of God!”, and a very sincere purpose to obey God, that could have produced such a result.
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