The Church of Ephesus and Cessationism

First of all don't read too much into this premise.  I'm not arguing every Cessationist congregation is an Ephesus or that you need to be Cessationist to be an Ephesus.  And even though I'm a Continutationist making this observation, this potential relationship could be true even if Cessationism is true.  Ephesus has the third best review of the Seven Churches so it's by no means an inherently derogatory association, and the two with better reports are NOT praised for their Doctrines.

One of the main things Ephesus is praised for is exposing and rejecting False Apostles, and while in the immediate context I think this refers to the same "ravenous wolves" Paul warned the Ephesians about at Miletus in Acts 20:29, in terms of applying this to then future and now contemporary Church issues I feel it can tie into how I in-spite of being a Continuationsit on the Spiritual Gifts in general do believe the Office of Apostle was only for the first generation of The Church, that being one required being an Eye Witness to The Resurrection and that Paul defined himself as the last to become an Apostle.

So I get uncomfortable when people like the host of The Prophecy Club calls himself an Apostle, but I think this can also apply to the Catholic/Orthodox concept of Apostolic succession, and to the Temple Lot Mormons calling their leaders a Quorum of Apostles.  And any other Pentecostal or Charismatic leaders calling themselves an Apostle.

And I have other areas of disagreement with many of my fellow Continuationists, I have been considering rejecting the usual identification of Thyatira with the Catholic Church and instead seeing it's False Prophetess as embodying many of the excesses of the more problematic Charismatic tendencies.  

My reading of Corinthians on this issue is Paul taking the same Contiuationist position I do and needing to deal with both Proto-Cessationists and overly reckless Charismatics causing problems in the Corinthian Church.

The main criticism of Ephesus is that they lost their First Love.  I feel like rejecting the Spiritual Gifts is quite possibly the only way to truly do that.  But even if Cessationism is true, I think many Cessationsits especially the Baptists should consider that their reactionary response to what some Contiuationists are doing wrong can potentially lead to that.

The fact that Paul's Epistle to Ephesus is one that gets into Spiritual Warfare a lot could also be evidence that Congregation was slowly becoming one that neglected the Spirit.

In which case I also think it's also highly likely for Sardis churches to be Cessationists since they are spiritually dead.  They would be churches with Ephesus's vices but not it's virtues.

I reject calling Mary Theotokos because it's UnBiblical

To me that's what should matter to Sola Scriptura Christians. It's technical accuracy or one's opinion on other issues related to the Nestorian Schism should be irrelevant.  If you want to call Mary a title it should be something Scripture directly says of her.

This issue is not my only area of affinity or at least sympathy with Theodore of Mopsuesta, Nestorius and the Ancient Church of The East.  The main thing that makes me hesitant to simply identify as a Nestorian is that they like Cyril and Augustine strongly stress the Platonic doctrine of Divine Impassibility and are thus hostile to the Theopaschite Formula.  To me that it was the "Fullness of the Godhead" and not merely a Man suffering on The Cross is what makes the Atonement truly work, regardless of what theory of Atonement you take.  But I'm not prepared to make a full post on that topic yet.

I've seen people use Luke 1:43 as Biblical support for Theotokos as a title for Mary, where Elizabeth says.

"And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

Problem is if you want to use this verse as your defense of a Greek title for Mary it should be the Greek words used in this verse.  Which are Meter and Kuriou not Theos or Tokos.  

So yes I'm kind of rejecting even the Tokos part as well.  We tend to translate this phrase as "Mother of God" (and Nestorius's alternative Christtokos as "Mother of Christ") but that's not truly accurate.  Tokos is a very technical term for the act of carrying a baby, you could equally apply it to a incubator.  Meter is the familial title of Mother which I think is far more fitting to describe Mary's relationship to Jesus.

But back to what people are usually disputing.  Using this verse to defend Theotokos is based on assuming every use of a form of Kurios in the New Testament must be merely the Jewish custom of using it to stand in for the Tetragramaton, the Holy Name of God, Yot-Heh-Vav-Heh which I prefer to pronounce Yahuah.  However I believe that assumption is never correct of any occurrence of "my Lord", I believe "my Lord" is always a translation of the Hebrew Adoni which in pre-masoretic texts is sometimes difficult to distinguish from Adonai.

Psalm 110 in the KJV begins with "The LORD said unto my Lord" which in the Hebrew is "YHWH said unto Adoni".  All three Synoptic Gospels quote this with the "my Lord" being in reference to Melchizedek as a type of Christ.

I want to mention the Peshita briefly.  Luke's Gospel is one of the many NT books where I consider there to be no basis for Peshita primacy, the book was definitely originally in Greek.  But looking at it as a witness to how Early Semitic Speaking Christians translated it can still be useful.  For Kurios verses the Peshita uses Mar-Yah whenever it's a stand in for YHWH but simply a form of Mar when it's merely a form of Adon.  This verse in the Peshita uses Mari (my Lord) not Mar-Yah (but the Peshita does use Mar-Yah in reference to Jesus elsewhere).

So the Greek title for Mary I would construct from this verse is one using a form of Kurious and a form of Meter.  But as a Weeb I think I'll go with AkaaSan-no-Sama, or I could use Mikoto instead of Sama but that is a bit more obscure a reference for westerners.

I agree with the Theology and Christology of the original Nicene Creed including Homousian.  However while The Bible supports Jesus being God in a Trinitarian sense, The New Testament is far more interested in stressing Him as Christ, The Lord and most importantly the Son of God.  That's Peter's essential dramatic Confession, and Martha's in John 11 and what the first verse of Mark says, and what 1 John 4:15 says anyone who confesses that God Dwells in them.  

So I do think it's bothersome how often modern Western Christianity obsesses over Jesus as God and forgets to stress that The Trinity is a Family that we are being Adopted into.  The relationship between God and Jesus is that of a Father and Son.  

And as a Weeb I like to refer to The Holy Spirit as Onee-Sama.  Proverbs 7:4 is the basis for calling Wisdom(Sophia) a word for Sister and I've argued elsewhere for her being The Holy Spirit.

The French Revolution is still one of the most misunderstood subjects of History

[Update: My conflation of the Girondins and the Society of the Friends of Truth was a Mistake and Brissiot was ultimately a Liberal.  But it is still true that the primary perpetrators of the Terror were not the Communists and the people who were became victims of it.]