Theology

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Browsing Theology by Subject "Church history--Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600."

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    Re-contextualisation of the Lukan Oikos : a social scientific approach
    (2002) Chetty, Irvin; Loubser, J.A.
    The thesis of this study is that the concept of the church as oikost as found in. Luke-Acts provides principles to inspire the church to meet some present challenges- The concepts of church and family in the Gospel of Luke and in the Acts of the Apostles were examined. It was found that the first church community was constituted on the pattern of the extended family in the Greco-Roman world of the first century. This allowed for the development of a rich culture of interpersonal relationships. It was within this environment that the love taught and exemplified by Jesus found its first concrete expression. In family churches, comprising of between 50-100 members, care was taken of individuals in a holistic sense. This was especially important in a society that existed long before the invention of social services, pensions, hospitals and care for the aged. This example set by the first church had far-reaching political consequences. In the fourth century it was this kind of church structure that was taken as a model for the whole of the Roman Empire. This study reflects a distinctive choice regarding methodology in the application of a unique combination of both the contextual and social-scientific methods. A danger of contextual methodology is to concentrate on the present context at the expense of the context of the text. A deliberate attempt is made to avoid this by an inclusive approach of both contexts. The second part of the combination in the methodology of this thesis is the application of the social-scientific approach to the Biblical text and to our present context. This method is used as an extension of the contextual method, in order to avoid possible distortions caused by the latter. This pursuit does not seek to operate at the exclusion of other accepted approaches to the Biblical text, namely those of the literary, linguistic and historical, but functions eclectically whilst highlighting the rewards of the social-scientific methodology. The term 'social-scientific' is used in this study to broadly embrace the sociological approaches to the study of the New Testament text and to our present context. In addition to uncovering the social context of the Biblical text, this study is equally eager to understand the 'now' of one's own Sitz im Leben. Therefore, current social-scientific insights together with those from family sociology are utilised to balance the methodological framework. In short, a social-scientific understanding of the concept of oikos will assist in analysing the context of the Biblical text. A social-scientific analysis of the present context will facilitate a re-contextualisation of the church as oikos in the new South Africa. Chapter one outlines the methodology. A social-scientific study of the concept of oikos in Luke-Acts is engaged in chapter two. Chapter three commences with a sociological perspective of the family. This includes a contextual analysis of families in South Africa. The next chapter (chapter four) explores ministry perspectives to ascertain how the local church can function as oikos. Chapter five proposes a model for the ministry of the church while chapter six contextualises the church as oikos. A final concluding chapter summarises and synthesises the research.
University of Zululand