A Response to “To Spread Scriptural Holiness: The Recovery of Catechesis in a Post-Modern World” by Timothy C. Tennent

“To Spread Scriptural Holiness: The Recovery of Catechesis in a Post-Modern World”
by Timothy C. Tennent
http://www.asburyseminary.edu/alumni-elink/fall-convocation-2012
Thanks to Ps Ivan who shared this article to me. Took a while to digest & internalized it and had to google some of the "jargon's" to understand this write out. Anyways here's my personal thoughts to the extend of what I can understand in that article. :)

Firstly thought it is quite a well written response to this post modern generation. It's so true that those from the 1982's onwards "we have experienced the loss of confidence in human reason." As everything is subjective now, especially the more informed we get in today's society, with just a google away we can get information at the tip of our fingers. And the more we "know" the more we realized everything is not as black & white as it use to be. And that's something which I'm grappling with too.

I also agree that we still need to go back to our roots again & to know how the different periods like the modern enlightenment period have shaped the church today & going back even further all the way back to the period of the early church in Acts, studying their practices, I think that's the true essence of what the church should be. And our generation need to be very careful not to lose the sound doctrine that has been past down to us over the generations of our early church fathers.

So we who are within this era of the 1982's onwards need to step up to preserve & hold fast to the passing on of sound doctrine to reliable people like said in 2 Tim 2:2. That's when the true essence of life to life discipleship would allow our future generations not to dilute the essential gospel. And yet we need to hold that "tension" of being relevant yet not responding in a "knee jerk" reaction to this post-modern age. Like what he said "Catechesis must include noetic and ontic aspects, and both would have also been assumed in the ancient world. You cannot forsake either one. Our tendency is to either abandon catechesis completely, or to focus only on the experiential side."

After going through 9mths of Disciple 1 which I see it as exposing myself within the Noetic principle (where we reason with our minds), but yet I like what he said about having the Ontic principle (experiential) too. In this recent months, I have been reading up & learning what it means to host the Holy Spirit in our life in an "experiential" way, sensing His presence & obeying His leading daily and exercising the spiritual gift's that He has given us. Yet still staying within the context of the sound doctrines & principles of His Word.