Thesis (D. Min.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-60).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1986. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

ABSTRACT CHRISTIAN LOVE AND THE IMITATION OF CHRIST IN THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS: A SECOND-CENTURY EXAMPLE OF CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP Charles Theodore Mielke IV, Ed.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2017 Chair: Dr. Timothy Paul Jones The Epistle to Diognetus is an early church writing that offers an excellent picture of the Christian life, as well as deficiencies of other religions. In the text, the author illustrates the nature of God’s love. As he comes to the climactic point in the text, he also offers a call for action on the recipient of the letter. This call is to imitate God; but not just a generalized concept of God, specifically God’s love. This invitation to imitate God, along with the detailed expression of his love offers a clear image of a true committed disciple in the middle second century. Along with expounding upon the nature of God’s love and how to imitate this characteristic, strong connections are drawn between the text of Diognetus and the writings of the New Testament. These connections provide support for continuity of thought between the unknown author of Diognetus, and the New Testament writers.

Christian joy is identified by linguistic and symbolic, experiential and psychological studies, and by a study of its opposite, sorrow. The final and most comprehensive approach is Biblical and theological. Here, through Judaism and Christianity, the genesis and fulfilment of Christian joy is examined, in life and the gifts of God, in hope, and in union with God. It is defined as "a gift of God's Holy Spirit as man becomes one with Christ in love." Five hypotheses are evaluated and confirmed: - 1. God is perfect joy, 2. God is the source and end of all Christian joy, 3. Jesus Christ is both the most joyful and the most sorrowful of men, 4. The Christian participates in the joy and sorrow of Jesus Christ, 5. Christian joy is eschatological in nature. The need is stressed for a fuller understanding and expression of Christian joy, which is seen as the complement of Christian love, and as a distinguishing characteristic of Christians, because of its primary intentional and ultimate satisfactory nature

CHAPTER ONE. In the Old Testament we meet with the problem of suffering and reward, and the attempts made to resolve it. It becomes the one great problem after the time of the Exile. Most commentators are agreed that it grew to hold that place in relation to the increase of importance of the individual in Hebrew thinking. While certain aspects of the problem are presented in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Psalm 73, the most important contributions are made by the Deuteronomist and the poet who wrote the Book of Job. The Deuteronomist theory presents the belief that there is a rigid correspondence between the sins of the individual and his suffering. The reply in Job makes it clear that this is not so. Job himself passes through the desperate situation of feeling deserted by God to a certain faith that whatever happens to him, God is faithful. CHAPTER TWO. Jesus' teaching on "discipleship". Basically Jesus's teaching centres around Mark 8 : 34, "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me". The cost of discipleship from this point of view means, then, that even as Jesus Himself bears the cross for the salvation of the world, so the disciple is called upon to bear that cross in association with his Lord. Jesus offers the reward of both a present foretaste and a future consummation of eternal life, as the disciple shares in His resurrection. St. Paul's teaching of "Life in Christ". The central teaching of Paul is found in Romans 6 : 11, "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The cost of discipleship is death, the death of self- will. It means being crucified with Christ. The reward of the righteous man is both a present and future participation in the risen life of Christ. CHAPTER THREE The need of man. Because man is a sinner, being estranged from God in whose image he was created, he stands in need of being reconciled to God. This he cannot do himself because, to his sin, he is not able to make the full sacrifice of his self-will. "Man requires to be put right with God because as a matter of fact he is not right." The Christ. Only in the person of the God-man is God able to effect man's resolution. Jesus, the Christ, who alone of all men did not participate in the sinfulness of man, is this God-man, realising in Himself the fact that salvation can only be wrought by one who is both God and man. The necessity of the Cross. The death of the Christ is seen to be necessary both from the side of man and from that of God. It was essential that the Christ should give His life for man; everything for His purpose of salvation turns on the will to die. He must give himself to reconcile man to God. The sacrifice of the Cross. Seen in the context of the Old Testament sacrificial system, what is important about the sacrifice of the Christ is that on the cross He offered up His life for man. The sacrifice of the Christ is both in the category of divine revelation and that of human response. It is the love of God in its utter self-offering making a way whereby the sinner might be reconciled to Him. The use of the Ransom Theory of the atonement is regarded as inadequate for expressing this cost. Basically it is a costly sacrifice because it is the self-offering of the Son of God upon the cross. CHAPTER FOUR The New Testament picture. A closer analysis is made of the New Testament teaching of discipleship, where it is seen that it is required of men that he should make, like the Christ, the costly sacrifice of himself. Soren Kierkegaard. This existential thinker felt the need of awakening men to a full recognition of the costliness of life. Despair. Man, due to his state of sinfulness is in despair, for "sin can be defined as despair at not willing to be oneself or not willing to be oneself before God." It is necessary to make the leap of faith to pass from this despair. The Three Stages. These are the aesthetical, ethical and religious stages. The individual must enter the last by making the leap of faith out of his despair; and this leap means the costly commitment of the self to the Christ. "Purify your hearts." In this book, Kierkegaard analyses man's double-mindedness. He comes to two conclusions. "If anybody would will the Good truly, then he must with knowledge of himself be ready to renounce all double-mindedness. If anybody would will the Good truly, then he must be ready to do all for the Good, and suffer for for the Good." His teaching on the cost of discipleship could be summed up thus : "The negating of one's finite self, or the negating of one's finitude means for him nothing less than the conscious sacrifice of all that is finite." Paul Tillich. Tillich deals with the ultimate problem of being and non-being, and in the "Courage to be" he develops the reactions of the individual when he is faced with the possibility of his non-being. The individual can either lose himself in his world by the courage to be as a part, or lose his world in himself by the courage to be as himself. These two forms of courage are transcended by the courage to accept acceptance, which is the ultimate courage to be, in which the individual accepts the fact that though he is sinful, yet God accepts him. This courage is the outcome of faith, which is found in an encounter with the New Being, in which the self is lost in the Christ, being found also in the Christ. The disciple surrenders himself that he may be made more truly himself. CHAPTER FIVE In this chapter an attempt is made to analyse the reward of righteousness. This reward is firstly seen to be the outcome of the life of discipleship and not its motive. Basically it is found in the new quality of life which is called eternal life. It is a reward both in the future and in the present. In the future it is the fullness of life in communion, peace and joy in the presence of God. In the present it is a foretaste of that life which is to come, a present possession in the midst of finitude of communion, peace and joy with God. Ultimately this means participation in the resurrection of the Christ. CHAPTER SIX We can conclude from this thesis, then, that Jesus the Christ is the prototype of the Christian. Discipleship is costly because it means participation in His utter self-offering of Himself; and the righteous man, who is the one who by faith commits himself to and in the Christ, is rewarded with the new quality of eternal life. The death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ are the criteria of the cost of discipleship and the reward of the righteous man.

[From Chapter 1]. The first point I wish to make, in fact it can be considered the primary one in this essay for what is to follow is a response to it, is that theology must be responding theology. This is a theology which takes the world seriously and responds to it in a Christian way. This is the approach we find in the New Testament: particularly in the Epistles, concrete problems and behaviour in the lives of his converts to which St. Paul responded prompted the didactic sections of his epistles. J. G. Davies supports this view in Planning for Mission "There are ... two primary realities'' he says "with which the congregation must be concerned: The Gospel of God and the world to which it is sent. 'Authentic theology' emerges out of the dialogue between the Gospel and the world." This is what Tillich calls the method of correlation. First we make an analysis of our situation and then try to relate the Christian message to the problems within it. While this compels us to rethink and reformulate many traditional Christian views, nothing "can change the substance of ... the ... answer, because this is the logos of being, manifest in Jesus as the Christ." This does not say that "we have all the answers" (in fact it will become clear that we do not), but it does express our conviction that the Christian Gospel has to do with life in all its aspects.

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Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 1997. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-156).

Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 1995. / Includes abstract and vita. "May 1995." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 208-215).

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