The way we see reality and ourselves follows from understanding God's Word. As Hungarian Reformed, we must be students of the Word, a church that lives from the Word, without it, whatever we do is meaningless - this is how to summarize the lecture of Bishop Zoltán Balog, the pastor president of the MRE Synod, titled Self-knowledge and God in the 21st century, which he gave on the second day of the Szárszó Conference of the Reformed . We saw this.
Synod Pastor Zoltán Balog began his speech with an old philosophical image: the rowers in a boat sit with their backs to the direction of the boat's movement, so they can move the boat forward. He sees the past of the community of oarsmen, the journey they have made so far, and at the same time the face of the boat helmsman, who looks at the horizon in front of him. "The secrets are the Lord's, our God's, and the revealed things are ours and our children's forever, so that we may fulfill all the words of this instruction," the bishop quoted from the fifth book of Moses, adding: "We sit with Jesus Christ in a boat, from his face , let's read from his Word where we are going."
Referring to the basic idea formulated at the cradle of the Reformation, Zoltán Balog said: our most important question as Reformed people living today is how we can keep the principle of sola Scriptura. He also cited the discussion document of the Reformed National Strategy of the Carpathian Basin:
"In recent decades, the spiritual community of Hungarian Christians of different denominations has strengthened a lot, and this is also reflected in their joint social and national responsibility. The Hungarian Reformation serves this spiritual community primarily with the basic values recognized in the Gospel. According to the sola Scriptura principle, Scripture is the source of knowledge about God and ourselves. While we are looking for Christian answers to the questions of the fate of human life, society and the nation, our starting point is exclusively the Holy Scriptures, that is, God's self-revelation gifted to us in Jesus Christ. The Hungarian Reformed believers bring their individual, community, social and national destiny questions directly and with unconditional trust to God."
If you don't have this common starting point, then the dramatic question is:
what and who will hold together what is held together by God's saving and creative grace: the nation by its creative grace, and the Hungarian Reformed Church by its liberating grace - asked Zoltán Balog.
For the Hungarian Reformed, the Word of God, the Bible, is not a formal starting point, a simple book, but a revelation of God, a reading of reality. "Despite all our values and shortcomings, the study of the Word makes us exceptional among the Hungarians and the nations living with us in the Carpathian Basin. In other words: we live in the Word, presenting and demonstrating this is our number one task. We are the people of the Word and we want to be the people of the Word, this is what makes us special," said the bishop.
The bishop also spoke about
we must not remain within our own ranks, but only think in our own congregational, institutional, and scientific communities. Taking up spiritual space is necessary, but this can only be achieved with joint strength and faith. "We need not only words spoken in our own little world, but a common, characterful Reformed testimony."
According to Zoltán Balog, something similar is happening in Balatonszárszó. We should not want to meet external expectations, we should not be guided by the desire for recognition and respect when we make decisions, but let us be free, emphasized the bishop. "If we discuss our church decisions primarily on the basis of faith, it is an exercise of the freedom of the church."
Source, full article and featured image: reformatus.hu
