The Sweet Dropper

Is your church orthodox? Is it catholic? Is it charismatic? Around these parts, those words aren’t typically used to describe the church. In our ordinary usage, those terms mean something like this:

• Orthodox: dead, sterile and formal OR the kind of churches Greek people attend
• Catholic: affiliated with or sympathetic to the Church of Rome
• Charismatic: possessing magnetic charm OR tongues-speaking, pew-jumping worship that values spontaneity at the expense of decency and order

I agree with Dr. Donald Macleod that every authentic church must be orthodox, catholic and charismatic. Such words rightly understood would mean:

• Orthodox: professing and defending biblical truth (1 Timothy 4:6; Titus 1:9; 2:1; Jude 3)
• Catholic: belonging to the one church that Jesus has established and continues to build (Matthew 16:18; Acts 9:31; Ephesians 1:22; 5:23; 1 Timothy 3:15)
• Charismatic: depending upon the power, gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit for our survival and growth (John 3:5; 16:13; Romans 8:2, 9-11; 14:17; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 12:4ff; Galatians 5:5; Ephesians 2:18-22; 4:4; Revelation 22:17).