Montanism and Early Christian Heresies: A Theological Analysis
The first part of the paper considers heretical Montanism, including its emphasis on the Holy Spirit, its celebration of the Eucharist with cheese, and its manifestations of glossolalia, that are seen in contemporary Pentecostals. Montanism is described in terms of greater involvement of women in ministry: the heresy of Montanus is seldom mentioned without reference to "those demented women Prisca and Maximilia," as Saint Jerome calls them in his letter to Marcella refuting the Montanist heresy. The second impulse is toward a greater asceticism. And the third is a millenarian and dispensationalist belief that the Montanists lived in end times were governed by the Holy Spirit. The second portion of the paper describes other heresies and controversies in Christian doctrine, and defends the study of them.
Bible Esoteric and Dated. Fee and Stuart
Fee and Stuart in "How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth", show the applicability of the Bible and provide readers with the tools of applying the Bible to their contemporary lives. For them there is no "then and there" to the text, rather than "then and there" of the text can equitably be applied to the "here and now" of contemporaneous living. The authors in effect build two bridges; there is the bridge between Church and lay man and the bridge between Church and exegetical scholar. Whilst the exegetical scholar approaches the text from the past trying to see ‘what it meant", the author tell us that the text is far more than that: it is applicable not only for the "then" but also for the "now" and, therefore, people should approach it with the intent of ‘what does it mean" and "what will it mean". In other words, each of us, regardless of scholarly background, should connect the '''then and there' of the original text to the 'here and now' of our own life settings" (p. 10). The operative premise is that the texts of the living Word "mean what they meant" (p. 11).