What saith the Scripture Tradition must give way to the clear statements of the Scripture

  For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is God’s saving power for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith, as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” Rom. 1:16–17. The gospel is the “power of God,” Paul contends, in that it shatters the unrighteous precedence given to the strong over the weak, the free and well educated over slaves and the ill educated, the Greeks and Romans over the barbarians. If what the world considers dishonorable has power, it will grant a new form of honor to those who have not earned it, an honor consistent with divine righteousness.  All who place their faith in this gospel will be set right, that is, placed in the right relation to the most significant arena in which honor is dispensed, that is, divine judgment. Thus the triumph of divine righteousness through the gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected is achieved by transf...

       A word generally used to translate the generic Greek word ekklēsia, which variously means “gathering,” “assembly” or “congregation.” However, the NT tends to use the word to refer to all those who by faith in the person and work of Christ as the fullest revelation of God have entered into a new relationship with God and with one another (1 Cor 1:9–10),  who are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit on earth (1 Cor 3:16) and who have been given the task of proclaiming the present and future reign of God in the world, both by the verbal declaration of the word of God (Acts 20:25–27) and by the administration of the ordinances or sacraments (Mt 28:19; 1 Cor 10:16–17). The church is founded on the past work of Christ in his death, resurrection and ascension, points to the return of Christ in the future and seeks to live in love by the power of the Spirit in the present. (Stanley Grenz, David Guretzki, and Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological...