Curious. . .

Every now and then a Lutheran inclined against rules will raise up the issue of ordination and the weekly Eucharist while insisting that no matter good the practices, they cannot be required because they are not mandated in Scripture.  For ordination the standard caveat is that the practice is mere apostolic custom.  For the weekly Eucharist the out given is that often is not defined (even though Acts tells us that after daily and then weekly Eucharist was the norm).  I am not here arguing about the apostolicity of ordination or a weekly Eucharist.  This is obvious.  Only a fool would deny this.  What is curious to me is how easy it is for some to dismiss and discount apostolic custom.  And, by the way, lest the Roman Catholics are left out, their own break with customary practice is also remarkable (kneeling to receive the Sacrament, among other things).

What has happened to us that we find it easy and even comfortable to dismiss apostolic and catholic practice in favor of what we like today?  It is symptomatic of the extraordinary arrogance that applies the same attitude toward Scripture, as if God were merely suggesting things to us rather than speaking the Word that endures forever.  In both cases, the casual treatment of apostolic custom and the Scripture by both conservative and liberal, the self-referencing idea of what is true and salutary is the common affliction.  It is both tiresome and wearying to have to defend apostolic custom and the Word of God as worthy of our deference and trust.  Worse, it is unnecessary.

The Church will not suffer for the slavish adherence toward that which is both ancient and universal in practice and a submission and devotion to the Scriptures.  These will be the sources of renewal for us if we will allow them.  But that Church has suffered mightily by those who go to bed at night having turned up their noses at what those who went before them from earliest of days have practiced and the Word of God has said and still says.  We are not in danger of losing our way by carefully recognizing the footsteps of those who went before us and giving some measure of deference to their example.  We are not in danger of irrelevance for clinging to the Word of God that endures forever.  But the Church is weaker and smaller because of those whose innovations and inventions required us to dismiss the voices of the past or turn away from the Scriptures.  Indeed, this is the scourge of modernity which will be our undoing.

There are those on both sides who view with skepticism the apostolic custom or the Scriptures and their consistent and universal interpretation.  It is for this that some have insisted that the ordination of women is perfectly okay or nobody in the Bible had ever heard of a committed same sex relationship before.  That is the drumbeat of nearly every conservative but some who claim to be conservative seem to think it is perfectly fine to skip the rite of ordination as mere custom or even the liturgy itself as mere convention easily changed to suit the wants of the moment.  For my part, I find it very hard to depart from apostolic custom without a compelling reason and I find it impossible to disagree with Scripture because it is not the popular opinion at the moment.  We all ought to be so inclined.