Abstract
“While the New Testament has much to tell us about the ministry which is both descriptive for its time and normative for all times, it simply does not give the specific and incontrovertible answers to our restless questionings about ordination, succession, sacramental administration, the ministry of women, and the like. Even a most conservative, or literalistic, reading of the New Testament does not make possible a simple restorationism, as though the church needed only common reason, good faith, and the leading of the Holy Spirit to discover the perennially valid patterns of ministry and order.”
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