Third use of the law

Question: Does God’s moral law function as a positive guide for regenerate Christian obedience?

V. Salvation, grace, justification, and sanctification

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

- **Question:** Does God’s moral law function as a positive guide for regenerate Christian obedience?
- **Option LAW-006.A — Strong third use:** the moral law, epitomized in the Decalogue and interpreted through Christ, is a normative rule of gratitude.
- **Option LAW-006.B — Third use through Christ/apostles:** Old Testament law instructs, but the immediate covenant norm is the law of Christ as reapplied in the New Testament.
- **Option LAW-006.C — Primarily accusing/pedagogical law:** law chiefly exposes and restrains sin; sanctification flows from gospel/Spirit, though commands still instruct.
- **Option LAW-006.D — Torah-shaped wisdom:** law forms moral imagination and love rather than functioning mainly as a codified rule.
- **Option LAW-006.E — Antinomian/no normative law:** grace removes any binding moral command as command.
- **Key texts:** Psalm 1; 19; 119; Jeremiah 31:33; Matthew 5:17–48; 22:34–40; John 14:15; Romans 3:31; 6:14; 7:12,22; 8:3–4; 13:8–10; 1 Corinthians 9:20–21; Galatians 5:13–26; 6:2; 1 Timothy 1:8–11; James 1:22–25; 2:8–12; 1 John 2:3–6.
- **Interpretive fork:** Determine whether “not under law” means not under Mosaic covenant, not under condemnation, or not under law as a method of justification. Decide whether “law of Christ” renews, replaces, or fulfills Decalogue norms. Separate law as guide from law as power; Paul denies the latter without necessarily denying the former.
- **Upstream:** LAW-003/005/008; JUS-003.
- **Downstream:** sanctification, assurance, ethics.
- **Entailments/incompatibilities:** E conflicts with explicit New Testament commands and is outside most conservative frameworks. B/C do not entail moral relativism. A does not entail justification by law.
- **Common correlations, not entailments:** A with Reformed; B with progressive covenantal/New Covenant Theology and many Baptists; C with some Lutheran formulations; D across virtue/biblical theology.
- **Boolean-like descriptors to soften:** “third use,” “antinomian,” “under law,” “law of Christ.”


Israel, the church, and one people of God

Question: How do ethnic/national Israel and the multinational church relate in the saving plan?

V. Salvation, grace, justification, and sanctification

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

- **Question:** How do ethnic/national Israel and the multinational church relate in the saving plan?
- **Option LAW-007.A — One covenant people, church as expanded/remnant Israel:** believing Jews and Gentiles form one olive tree/people; unbelief excludes, faith grafts in.
- **Option LAW-007.B — One people with distinct future ethnic-Israel role:** the church shares Israel’s promises in Christ while ethnic Israel retains a future corporate conversion/vocation.
- **Option LAW-007.C — Distinct Israel and church within one plan:** the church does not become Israel; national promises await Israel while both are saved through Christ.
- **Option LAW-007.D — Typological fulfillment:** Israel’s land, temple, and nation typologically expand to Christ/new creation/church rather than requiring a separate national fulfillment.
- **Option LAW-007.E — Remnant/corporate mystery without system:** Romans 9–11 promises divine faithfulness and future mercy but leaves institutional mapping underdetermined.
- **Key texts:** Genesis 12:1–3; Jeremiah 31:31–37; Ezekiel 36–37; Matthew 21:33–46; Luke 22:28–30; Acts 1:6–8; 3:19–21; Romans 2:25–29; 4; 9–11; 1 Corinthians 10:1; Galatians 3:6–29; 6:16; Ephesians 2:11–22; Philippians 3:3; 1 Peter 2:4–10; Revelation 7; 21.
- **Interpretive fork:** In Romans 11, decide whether “all Israel” means ethnic Israel corporately in the future, the elect remnant across history, or the total Jew-Gentile people. Decide whether New Testament application of Israel titles to the church transfers identity, shares vocation, or typologically fulfills it. Keep soteriological unity separate from national/eschatological role.
- **Upstream:** ELEC-001/003/005, LAW-001/004, typology.
- **Downstream:** BAP-002, NCV-001, eschatology, mission to Jews.
- **Entailments/incompatibilities:** B combines one people with a distinct future; this disproves a simple replacement/nonreplacement binary. C must still affirm one way of salvation through Christ. D need not deny future Jewish conversion.
- **Common correlations, not entailments:** A/D with covenant theology and progressive covenantalism; B across historic premillennial and some Reformed readings; C with classic dispensationalism; E across traditions.
- **Boolean-like descriptors to soften:** “replacement theology,” “supersessionist,” “one people,” “Israel distinct.”


Law and gospel as kinds of divine speech

Question: Is the law/gospel distinction a controlling hermeneutic, and how are commands and promises related?

V. Salvation, grace, justification, and sanctification

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

- **Question:** Is the law/gospel distinction a controlling hermeneutic, and how are commands and promises related?
- **Option LAW-008.A — Formal law/gospel distinction:** law commands, exposes, and condemns; gospel promises and gives forgiveness in Christ. Either Testament can contain either speech.
- **Option LAW-008.B — Covenant-historical old/new contrast:** law/gospel substantially tracks old-covenant administration versus new-covenant fulfillment, while allowing promise in the old.
- **Option LAW-008.C — Indicative-imperative integration:** grace’s accomplished indicative grounds Spirit-enabled commands; command is not reducible to condemnation.
- **Option LAW-008.D — Torah/gospel continuity:** law is gracious covenant instruction; contrast is flesh versus Spirit/misuse versus fulfillment, not law versus grace.
- **Key texts:** Exodus 20:1–17; Deuteronomy 30:11–20; Jeremiah 31:31–34; Matthew 5:17–48; Luke 24:44–47; John 1:16–17; Romans 3:19–31; 7:7–13; 8:1–4; 10:4–13; 2 Corinthians 3:6–18; Galatians 3:10–25; Hebrews 8–10.
- **Interpretive fork:** Ask whether “law” names a speech-act, Torah/covenant, works principle, or moral norm in each passage. If the same command both accuses the sinner and guides the regenerate, A/C rise together. If old/new covenant is the main contrast in 2 Corinthians/Hebrews, raise B. If Torah is consistently framed as gracious gift, raise D but still account for curse.
- **Upstream:** LAW-003/005/006, JUS-004.
- **Downstream:** preaching, assurance, sanctification, repentance.
- **Entailments/incompatibilities:** A and C can coexist. A does not equate Old Testament with law and New Testament with gospel. D conflicts only with a claim that law has no gracious/instructional function.
- **Common correlations, not entailments:** A with Lutheran and Reformed traditions with important differences; B/C with covenantal and evangelical biblical theology; D with some New Perspective and Torah-positive readings.
- **Boolean-like descriptors to soften:** “law/gospel,” “indicative/imperative,” “legalism,” “nomism.”


Sabbath and Lord’s Day continuity

Question: Does the fourth commandment bind Christians, and how is it fulfilled?

V. Salvation, grace, justification, and sanctification

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

- **Question:** Does the fourth commandment bind Christians, and how is it fulfilled?
- **Option LAW-009.A — Christian Sabbath transferred to first day:** a one-in-seven moral creation ordinance continues; resurrection/apostolic practice locates it on the Lord’s Day.
- **Option LAW-009.B — Lord’s Day observance without full Sabbath transfer:** weekly gathered worship is apostolic and binding, but Mosaic rest regulations are not simply transferred.
- **Option LAW-009.C — Sabbath fulfilled in Christ/new creation:** no day is morally binding as Sabbath; believers gather by wisdom and apostolic pattern.
- **Option LAW-009.D — Seventh-day continuity:** the seventh-day Sabbath remains the commanded day for Christians.
- **Option LAW-009.E — Eschatological rest plus present rhythm:** Hebrews 4 gives an already/not-yet fulfillment while creation rhythm continues prudentially or morally.
- **Key texts:** Genesis 2:1–3; Exodus 16; 20:8–11; 31:12–17; Deuteronomy 5:12–15; Isaiah 56:1–8; 58:13–14; Matthew 12:1–14; Mark 2:27–28; Acts 20:7; Romans 14:5–6; 1 Corinthians 16:1–2; Colossians 2:16–17; Hebrews 4:1–11; Revelation 1:10.
- **Interpretive fork:** Determine whether Sabbath is creation ordinance, Mosaic covenant sign, moral Decalogue command, or all three. Decide whether Colossians’ “Sabbath” includes weekly Sabbath and whether Romans 14 treats day-observance as disputable. First-day meeting texts establish practice more clearly than transfer of the command.
- **Upstream:** LAW-003/005/006; creation ordinance hermeneutic.
- **Downstream:** worship and ethics.
- **Entailments/incompatibilities:** A and D disagree on day; C denies continuing moral day obligation. B/E allow a spectrum. Lord’s Day observance does not by itself entail Sabbatarian restrictions.
- **Common correlations, not entailments:** A with Puritan/Reformed confessions; B with many Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, and evangelical accounts; C with dispensational/New Covenant Theology and some evangelicals; D with Seventh-day Adventist and Seventh Day Baptist traditions.
- **Boolean-like descriptors to soften:** “Sabbatarian,” “Christian Sabbath,” “Lord’s Day,” “seventh-day.”


Membership and efficacy of the new covenant

Question: Does the new covenant contain only regenerate persevering members, or can persons genuinely belong in an external/objective sense and later fall away?

V. Salvation, grace, justification, and sanctification

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

- **Question:** Does the new covenant contain only regenerate persevering members, or can persons genuinely belong in an external/objective sense and later fall away?
- **Option NCV-001.A — Regenerate-only essential membership:** everyone in the new covenant has forgiveness, law written on the heart, and saving knowledge; visible churches contain false professors who are not covenant members in this sense.
- **Option NCV-001.B — Dual-aspect membership:** the new covenant has an inward saving substance and an outward visible administration including some who break covenant.
- **Option NCV-001.C — Objective sacramental membership with possible apostasy:** baptism truly brings persons into new-covenant life, which can later be repudiated/forfeited.
- **Option NCV-001.D — Corporate membership conditioned on persevering faith:** the covenant people is elect in Christ; individuals participate genuinely while remaining by faith.
- **Option NCV-001.E — Already/not-yet mixed realization:** Jeremiah’s unbreakable universal knowledge is inaugurated now but reaches exhaustive membership only in consummation.
- **Key texts:** Deuteronomy 30:1–6; Jeremiah 31:31–34; 32:37–41; Ezekiel 11:19–20; 36:22–32; Luke 22:20; John 6:45; Acts 2:38–39; Romans 11:17–22; 1 Corinthians 10:1–22; 11:25–32; 2 Corinthians 3; Hebrews 6:4–8; 8:6–13; 10:14–39; 12:18–29.
- **Interpretive fork:** Determine whether Jeremiah’s “they shall all know me” describes every member now, the eschatological ideal, or the covenant’s saving substance. Then classify Hebrews’ warned subjects. Decide whether a branch “in” the olive tree or participant in holy things is covenantally in Christ without being regenerate.
- **Upstream:** LAW-003/004/007, BAP-001/002, PER-001/002.
- **Downstream:** baptism recipients, church discipline, assurance, perseverance.
- **Entailments/incompatibilities:** A is in tension with C/D if “membership” is univocal. B resolves this by positing two aspects, but must avoid equivocation. Paedobaptism correlates with B/C but is not entailed; some Reformed Baptists affirm A.
- **Common correlations, not entailments:** A with Reformed Baptist, progressive covenantal, and New Covenant Theology; B with Presbyterian/Reformed covenant theology; C with Lutheran/Catholic/Orthodox; D with corporate-election Arminian readings; E across inaugurated-eschatology accounts.
- **Boolean-like descriptors to soften:** “new-covenant member,” “visible/invisible church,” “breakable covenant.”


Primary referent of *ekklesia*: local assembly, universal church, or both

Question: Does New Testament church language refer primarily to a concrete local assembly, to the one translocal body of Christ, or analogically to both?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Does New Testament church language refer primarily to a concrete local assembly, to the one translocal body of Christ, or analogically to both?

**Options:** `LOCAL-PRIORITY`; `UNIVERSAL-PRIORITY`; `BOTH-NONCOMPETITIVE`; `VISIBLE-INSTITUTIONAL-UNIVERSAL`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 1:22–23; 5:25–32; Hebrews 12:22–24 → one church transcending place: presently instantiated spiritual reality, eschatological assembly, or visible catholic institution?
- Matthew 18:17; Acts 5:11; 14:23; 20:17, 28; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 5:4–13; Revelation 2–3 → ordinarily a local body with identifiable leaders, gathering, and discipline.
- Acts 9:31 (textual number variation notwithstanding); 1 Corinthians 12:28; Galatians 1:13 → can a regional or universal body be called “church” institutionally?

**Decision logic:**

- If universal-body texts denote a presently organized visible society, update toward `VISIBLE-INSTITUTIONAL-UNIVERSAL`.
- If authority-bearing acts always terminate in a gathered local body, update toward `LOCAL-PRIORITY`.
- If union with Christ creates one universal organism while governance remains local, update toward `BOTH-NONCOMPETITIVE`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: meaning of kingdom, body, temple, bride, covenant people. Downstream: denominational authority, membership, catholicity, online church, interchurch councils.

**Relations:** `LOCAL-PRIORITY` does not entail congregationalism; episcopal dioceses contain local assemblies. `UNIVERSAL-PRIORITY` does not entail Rome, Orthodoxy, or episcopacy. Universal-church realism correlates with creedal catholicity.

**Incompatibilities:** “Only local churches exist” is incompatible with a presently existing universal church in the same ontological sense, but not with an eschatological universal assembly.

**Booleanized identity labels:** local-church Baptist, catholic, connectional, independent, non-denominational.


Visible and invisible church

Question: Is the one church adequately distinguished as visible profession/community and invisible company of the regenerate or elect?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Is the one church adequately distinguished as visible profession/community and invisible company of the regenerate or elect?

**Options:** `VISIBLE-INVISIBLE-DISTINCTION`; `VISIBLE-MIXED-ONE-CHURCH`; `VISIBLE-SACRAMENTAL-IDENTITY`; `REGENERATE-LOCAL-IDEAL`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43, 47–50 → mixture in the kingdom, the church, or the world?
- Matthew 7:21–23; Romans 9:6; 2 Timothy 2:19 → profession and saving reality can diverge.
- Acts 2:41–47; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 5:1–13 → churches address professing saints while containing hypocrites and offenders.
- Ephesians 5:25–27; Hebrews 12:23; Revelation 21:2 → perfected elect church now invisibly real, or only eschatologically pure?

**Decision logic:**

- If “church” can name the elect known perfectly only to God, update toward `VISIBLE-INVISIBLE-DISTINCTION`.
- If biblical usage reserves church for identifiable covenant assemblies despite mixed spiritual condition, update toward `VISIBLE-MIXED-ONE-CHURCH`.
- If valid sacramental incorporation objectively makes one a church member even without final salvation, update toward `VISIBLE-SACRAMENTAL-IDENTITY`.
- If local membership should require credible regeneration while allowing fallible admission, update toward `REGENERATE-LOCAL-IDEAL`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: election, covenant membership, apostasy warnings, sacramental efficacy. Downstream: infant baptism, membership interviews, discipline, assurance.

**Relations:** A visible/invisible distinction strongly supports but does not entail a regenerate-church membership ideal. Mixed covenant membership strongly updates toward paedobaptist or sacramental membership but permits credobaptism.

**Incompatibilities:** Perfectly pure visible membership before the judgment conflicts with the pervasive presence of false professors, but “regenerate membership” normally claims an admission standard, not infallibility.

**Booleanized identity labels:** true church, visible church, invisible church, believers’ church, sacramental church.


Israel and the church as covenant people

Question: How continuous are Israel and the New Testament church?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** How continuous are Israel and the New Testament church?

**Options:** `ONE-PEOPLE-STRONG-CONTINUITY`; `ONE-PEOPLE-ADMINISTRATIVE-DISTINCTION`; `ISRAEL-CHURCH-DISTINCTION`; `TWO-PEOPLES-OR-DESTINIES`; `RECAPITULATION-IN-CHRIST`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Genesis 12:1–3; 17:1–14; Romans 4:9–17; Galatians 3:6–29 → Abrahamic covenant expanded to Gentile believers, transformed in Christ, or still containing distinct national promises?
- Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 8:6–13; 10:15–18 → new covenant membership entirely regenerate, progressively realized, or externally mixed like prior administrations?
- Romans 9–11, especially 11:17–29 → one olive tree with future ethnic-Israel ingrafting, two distinguishable groups, or remnant language fulfilled within the church?
- Ephesians 2:11–22; 1 Peter 2:9–10 → Gentiles incorporated into Israel’s privileges, a new third people, or typological recapitulation?
- Acts 15:13–18; Amos 9:11–12 → church as restored Davidic people now, initial fulfillment awaiting Israel, or both?

**Decision logic:**

- If Abrahamic membership structure remains unless explicitly revoked, update `ONE-PEOPLE-STRONG-CONTINUITY` and indirectly paedobaptism.
- If Jeremiah 31 makes all new-covenant members savingly know God, update `RECAPITULATION-IN-CHRIST`, credobaptism, and regenerate membership.
- If Romans 11 requires a corporate future for ethnic Israel not exhausted by the church, update `ISRAEL-CHURCH-DISTINCTION`; this does not by itself establish dispensationalism.
- If land, nation, and throne promises retain non-typological national fulfillment, update `TWO-PEOPLES-OR-DESTINIES`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: covenant theology, typology, prophecy fulfillment, law continuity. Downstream: baptism subjects, church membership, eschatology, mission to Jewish people, political theology.

**Relations:** Strong continuity correlates with covenant theology and paedobaptism but does not entail either. Israel/church distinction correlates with premillennialism and dispensationalism but can coexist with covenantal or historic premillennial models.

**Incompatibilities:** “The church simply replaces Israel with no continuing significance for ethnic Israel” conflicts with models that require Romans 11:25–29 to predict corporate ethnic restoration; neither is identical to the often-polemical label “replacement theology.”

**Booleanized identity labels:** covenantal, dispensational, progressive covenantal, new-covenant theology, replacement theology, Israel-first.


Marks and minimum conditions of a true church

Question: Which features are constitutive of a church rather than signs of its health?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Which features are constitutive of a church rather than signs of its health?

**Options:** `WORD-SACRAMENTS-DISCIPLINE`; `WORD-ORDINANCES`; `GOSPEL-PEOPLE-LEADERS`; `APOSTOLIC-SUCCESSION-SACRAMENTS`; `GATHERED-COVENANT-COMMUNITY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 2:41–42; 14:21–23 → teaching, baptism, meal, fellowship, prayers, and elders: descriptive pattern or constitutive checklist?
- Matthew 18:15–20; 1 Corinthians 5:1–13 → discipline and keys essential to church identity or duties a true but disordered church may neglect?
- 1 Timothy 3; Titus 1:5 → elders/deacons necessary for mature order, but can a newly planted or temporarily leaderless body be a church?
- Galatians 1:6–9; 1 John 4:1–3; Revelation 2–3 → at what degree of doctrinal corruption does lampstand status cease?
- Matthew 28:18–20 → baptizing and teaching commissioned to the church as institution, to apostles, or to all disciples?

**Decision logic:**

- Treat features as separate variables: constitutive, normally necessary, health mark, or merely common.
- If valid ordinances require authorized ministry and succession, update `APOSTOLIC-SUCCESSION-SACRAMENTS`.
- If the keys belong to the assembled congregation, update `GATHERED-COVENANT-COMMUNITY` or `WORD-ORDINANCES`.
- Distinguish “defective church” from “no church”; thresholds should carry ranges, not a single binary.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: authority, succession, sacrament validity, gospel definition. Downstream: ecumenical recognition, rebaptism, communion admission, church planting.

**Relations:** Reformation “marks” correlate with Presbyterian/Reformed/Lutheran identity. “Gospel, people, leaders” correlates with evangelical church planting. Neither formula entails a particular polity without added premises.

**Incompatibilities:** If episcopal succession is strictly constitutive, a body without it cannot be a church in that specified sense; this directly conflicts with succession-independent definitions.

**Booleanized identity labels:** true church, false church, healthy church, apostolic church, evangelical church.


Catholicity, denominationalism, and visible unity

Question: What degree and form of visible unity does Scripture require among faithful churches?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** What degree and form of visible unity does Scripture require among faithful churches?

**Options:** `ONE-VISIBLE-COMMUNION`; `CONNECTIONAL-PLURALITY`; `DENOMINATIONAL-PLURALISM-AS-PERMISSIBLE`; `LOCAL-AUTONOMY-WITH-FELLOWSHIP`; `RESTORATIONIST-NONDENOMINATIONAL`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- John 17:20–23; Ephesians 4:1–6; 1 Corinthians 1:10–13 → organic spiritual unity, institutional unity, doctrinal unanimity, or visible cooperative witness?
- Acts 15:1–35 → binding translocal council, extraordinary apostolic event, or model of voluntary association?
- Romans 14:1–15:7 → tolerable diversity inside one communion; which doctrines count as disputable?
- 2 John 7–11; Galatians 1:6–9 → unity limited by Christological and gospel boundaries.

**Decision logic:**

- If John 17 unity must be visibly institutional, update `ONE-VISIBLE-COMMUNION`.
- If Acts 15 supplies a continuing conciliar form, update `CONNECTIONAL-PLURALITY`.
- If local churches retain final jurisdiction yet owe recognition/cooperation, update `LOCAL-AUTONOMY-WITH-FELLOWSHIP`.
- If denominations institutionalize condemned party spirit, update `RESTORATIONIST-NONDENOMINATIONAL`; then separately test whether “non-denominational” networks function as denominations.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: universal church, polity, doctrinal triage. Downstream: ecumenism, shared communion, ministerial recognition, denominational membership.

**Relations:** Institutional unity correlates with episcopacy; connectional plurality with presbyterianism; local autonomy with congregationalism. These are strong correlations, not entailments.

**Incompatibilities:** Exclusive claim to be the sole visible church conflicts with mutual recognition of multiple communions as equally true churches.

**Booleanized identity labels:** catholic, ecumenical, denominational, non-denominational, restorationist, separatist.


Apostolicity and succession

Question: Is apostolic continuity primarily continuity of teaching, continuity of ordained office, continuity of sacramental communion, or a combination?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Is apostolic continuity primarily continuity of teaching, continuity of ordained office, continuity of sacramental communion, or a combination?

**Options:** `DOCTRINAL-SUCCESSION`; `EPISCOPAL-SUCCESSION`; `PRESBYTERAL-SUCCESSION`; `SACRAMENTAL-COMMUNION-SUCCESSION`; `CHARISMATIC-MISSIONAL-CONTINUITY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 16:18–19; John 20:21–23 → authority given uniquely to Peter, to the apostolic college, or through them to the whole church?
- Acts 1:15–26 → replacement of Judas establishes a continuing office or only restores the Twelve as eschatological witnesses?
- Acts 14:23; 1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6; 2:2; Titus 1:5 → ordination chain and guarded deposit: succession of office, doctrine, or both?
- Ephesians 2:20; Revelation 21:14 → foundational apostles are unrepeatable.
- 1 Clement and later history are important historical evidence but not biblical premises; keep them as a separate evidence channel.

**Decision logic:**

- If “foundation” means the apostolic office cannot recur, reduce continuing-apostle models while leaving bishop/presbyter succession open.
- If authority and sacramental validity are transmitted by episcopal laying on of hands, update `EPISCOPAL-SUCCESSION`.
- If faithful transmission of the apostolic deposit is the sufficient continuity condition, update `DOCTRINAL-SUCCESSION`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: Peter/keys, office ontology, sacramental validity. Downstream: church recognition, ordination, Eucharistic communion, restorationism.

**Relations:** Episcopal succession correlates with Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran identities, but those communions disagree about what succession guarantees. Doctrinal succession correlates with Protestantism.

**Incompatibilities:** A necessary unbroken tactile succession is incompatible with the claim that a church may fully constitute ordained ministry de novo solely by Scripture and congregational call.

**Booleanized identity labels:** apostolic, successionist, restorationist, episcopal, catholic, Protestant.


Church and civil authority

Question: What institutional relation should obtain between the church and civil magistrate?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** What institutional relation should obtain between the church and civil magistrate?

**Options:** `ESTABLISHMENT`; `COOPERATIVE-DISTINCTION`; `TWO-KINGDOMS`; `FREE-CHURCH-SEPARATION`; `THEONOMIC-MAGISTRACY`; `ANABAPTIST-SEPARATION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Psalm 2:10–12; Isaiah 49:23; 60:10–16 → rulers as patrons/enforcers of true worship, typological kingdom imagery, or eschatological conversion?
- Matthew 22:15–22; John 18:36; 2 Corinthians 10:3–5 → jurisdictional distinction, political quietism, or only rejection of coercive kingdom advance?
- Romans 13:1–7; 1 Peter 2:13–17 → magistrate’s task limited to civil justice or normed by the whole moral law?
- 1 Timothy 2:1–4 → political peace for mission, not necessarily establishment.
- Revelation 13; 17–18 → perennial warning about sacralized empire.

**Decision logic:**

- If old-covenant civil laws continue as standards for modern states, update `THEONOMIC-MAGISTRACY`.
- If the new covenant gives church and state distinct sanctions and memberships, update `TWO-KINGDOMS` or `FREE-CHURCH-SEPARATION`.
- If converted rulers retain positive duties to protect and materially support true worship without controlling doctrine, update `COOPERATIVE-DISTINCTION` or `ESTABLISHMENT`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: law continuity, Israel/church, kingdom eschatology. Downstream: religious liberty, coercion, public theology, mission methods.

**Relations:** Postmillennialism correlates with establishment or theonomy in some traditions but entails neither. Baptist identity correlates with religious liberty, though history is mixed.

**Incompatibilities:** Coercive civil penalties for heresy are incompatible with principled equal civil liberty for all religious profession, as those claims are ordinarily defined.

**Booleanized identity labels:** Christian nationalist, theonomist, two-kingdoms, establishmentarian, separatist, free-church.


Petrine primacy, papal jurisdiction, and infallibility

Question: Did Christ give Peter an office that continues uniquely in the bishop of Rome, and if so, what authority does that office possess?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Did Christ give Peter an office that continues uniquely in the bishop of Rome, and if so, what authority does that office possess?

**Options:** `PAPAL-UNIVERSAL-ORDINARY-JURISDICTION-AND-DEFINED-INFALLIBILITY`; `PETRINE-ROMAN-PRIMACY-WITH-CONCILIAR-CONSTRAINTS`; `PRIMACY-OF-HONOR-WITHOUT-UNIVERSAL-JURISDICTION`; `EPISCOPAL-COLLEGIALITY-WITHOUT-UNIQUE-PETRINE-SUCCESSOR`; `PETER-AS-REPRESENTATIVE-APOSTLE-NO-PERMANENT-ROMAN-OFFICE`; `UNDETERMINED-HYBRID`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 16:13–20 → Peter personally as rock and key-bearer, Peter’s confession, Christ, or Peter as representative of the apostolic church; determine how this relates to Matthew 18:18.
- Luke 22:24–32 → a unique commission to strengthen the brothers, pastoral restoration, or temporary apostolic role.
- John 21:15–19 → universal shepherding office, Peter’s restoration and martyrdom, or a representative pastoral charge shared with other elders.
- Acts 1–12; 15:1–29 → Peter’s real prominence alongside James and conciliar discernment; ask whether Acts 15 depicts papal judgment, council presidency, or collegial apostolic authority.
- Galatians 1:18; 2:1–14 → recognized Petrine importance together with Paul’s public correction; determine whether correction is compatible with defined infallibility, which is limited to particular teaching acts.
- 1 Peter 5:1–4, 13 → Peter as fellow elder and the debated “Babylon”/Rome reference; neither by itself establishes later jurisdiction.

**Decision logic:**

- Separate six claims often collapsed into “the pope”: Peter’s personal prominence, a continuing Petrine office, Roman succession to that office, universal jurisdiction, supremacy over councils, and infallibility under defined conditions.
- If the singular promises to Peter establish a transmissible universal office and historical reception identifies Rome as its seat, update `PAPAL-UNIVERSAL-ORDINARY-JURISDICTION-AND-DEFINED-INFALLIBILITY`.
- If the promises establish primacy while Acts 15 and the episcopal college constrain unilateral rule, update a conciliar primacy model.
- If Matthew 18, Ephesians 2:20, and the unrepeatable apostolic foundation distribute or terminate the relevant authority, update collegial or no-permanent-office models.
- Patristic testimony, Roman succession lists, conciliar canons, and later definitions are essential evidence channels but must remain distinct from direct biblical inference.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: `AUTH-01/03`, `ECC-06`, interpretation of the keys, and authority of conciliar tradition. Downstream: visible-church identity, doctrinal definitions, episcopal appointments, sacramental communion, and ecumenism.

**Relations:** Universal papal jurisdiction/infallibility is core Roman Catholic teaching; primacy of honor without universal jurisdiction is characteristic of Eastern Orthodox accounts; Anglican and Protestant models vary from historical respect to categorical rejection.

**Incompatibilities:** Universal ordinary jurisdiction by divine institution conflicts with the claim that no continuing bishop possesses jurisdiction over every church. Defined *ex cathedra* infallibility should not be caricatured as personal impeccability or inability to err in every statement.

**Booleanized identity labels:** papal, ultramontane, conciliar, Petrine, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant.


Proper subjects of water baptism

Question: Should baptism be administered only to professing disciples, also to infant children of covenant households, or presumptively to broader household/catechumen groups?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Should baptism be administered only to professing disciples, also to infant children of covenant households, or presumptively to broader household/catechumen groups?

**Options:** `CREDOBAPTISM`; `PAEDOBAPTISM-COVENANTAL`; `PAEDOBAPTISM-SACRAMENTAL`; `HOUSEHOLD-PRESUMPTION`; `BELIEVER-PLUS-EXCEPTIONAL-INFANT`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 28:18–20 → “make disciples” then baptize professing learners, or disciple nations by baptizing and teaching them, including covenant households?
- Acts 2:38–39 → promise to children as covenant inclusion or to all whom God calls, with calling controlling reception?
- Acts 8:12, 36–38; 10:44–48; 16:14–15, 30–34; 18:8 → normative faith-before-baptism pattern; do household baptisms imply, permit, or exclude infants?
- Romans 4:9–12; Colossians 2:11–12 → baptism succeeds circumcision covenantally, or the parallel is spiritual circumcision and union with Christ rather than subject continuity?
- 1 Corinthians 7:14 → children’s “holy” status is covenantal inclusion, legitimacy/relational holiness, or household consecration short of baptism?
- Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 8 → new-covenant membership entirely regenerate or mixed in external administration?

**Decision logic:**

- If covenant membership of believers’ children continues absent revocation, strongly update `PAEDOBAPTISM-COVENANTAL`.
- If every baptism narrative and baptism’s stated meaning presuppose personal repentance/faith, update `CREDOBAPTISM`.
- If baptism itself ordinarily incorporates and regenerates infants, update `PAEDOBAPTISM-SACRAMENTAL`.
- Household texts are weak alone because the presence and status of infants are unstated; their weight depends heavily on covenant priors.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: ECC-03, new-covenant membership, original sin, sacramental efficacy. Downstream: membership, communion admission, rebaptism, ecclesial identity.

**Relations:** Paedobaptism strongly correlates with covenant theology and historic episcopal churches; credobaptism with regenerate membership and congregationalism. None of these are strict entailments.

**Incompatibilities:** “Personal credible profession is always a necessary precondition” conflicts with ordinary infant baptism. Both can agree that adult converts must profess faith.

**Booleanized identity labels:** Baptist, paedobaptist, Reformed, Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox, believer’s church.


Mode: immersion, pouring, or sprinkling

Question: Is full-body immersion required, normally preferred, or one valid mode among several?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Is full-body immersion required, normally preferred, or one valid mode among several?

**Options:** `IMMERSION-REQUIRED`; `IMMERSION-NORMATIVE-NOT-REQUIRED`; `POURING-OR-SPRINKLING-VALID`; `TRINE-IMMERSION`; `MODE-ADIAPHORON`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Mark 1:9–10; Acts 8:38–39 → “into/out of water” implies immersion or merely approach/departure?
- Romans 6:3–4; Colossians 2:12 → burial imagery enacted by immersion or union-with-Christ reality signified independently of mode?
- Acts 2:17–18, 33; 10:44–48; Titus 3:5–6; Hebrews 9:10, 13, 19–22 → Spirit poured out and cleansing sprinkled: relevant baptismal imagery or distinct metaphors?
- Ezekiel 36:25–27 → sprinkled water plus Spirit as new-covenant background.
- 1 Corinthians 10:1–2; 1 Peter 3:20–21 → typological “baptisms” do not straightforwardly settle mode.

**Decision logic:**

- If *baptizō* lexically requires submersion and burial is ritual form, update `IMMERSION-REQUIRED`.
- If baptism primarily signifies cleansing/Spirit outpouring and biblical washings use multiple applications, update `POURING-OR-SPRINKLING-VALID`.
- Distinguish lexical default from necessary ritual rule; a likely default does not entail invalidity of other modes.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: sacramental validity, typology, lexical method. Downstream: rebaptism, recognition of other communions.

**Relations:** Immersion correlates with Baptist/Restorationist/Orthodox practice; pouring/sprinkling with Reformed/Anglican/Catholic practice. Orthodox immersion normally accompanies infant baptism, showing mode and subject are independent.

**Incompatibilities:** `IMMERSION-REQUIRED` conflicts with claims that non-immersive baptism is valid, not with claims that immersion is pastorally preferable.

**Booleanized identity labels:** immersionist, Baptist baptism, sprinkling church, trine-immersion.


Baptismal efficacy and the relation of sign to grace

Question: What does baptism do, and under what conditions?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** What does baptism do, and under what conditions?

**Options:** `ORDINARY-INSTRUMENT-OF-REGENERATION`; `OBJECTIVE-COVENANT-INCORPORATION`; `MEANS-OF-GRACE-BY-FAITH`; `SIGN-AND-SEAL`; `PUBLIC-SYMBOL-AND-OBEDIENCE`; `SAVING-BAPTISM-AS-SPIRIT-REALITY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- John 3:5 → water baptism and Spirit, natural birth and Spirit, or Ezekiel 36’s unified cleansing?
- Acts 2:38; 22:16 → baptism instrumentally remits/washes sins, sacramentally expresses faith, or metonymically invokes Christ?
- Romans 6:3–4; Galatians 3:27; Colossians 2:12 → water rite effects union, signifies an already-real union, or speaks of Spirit baptism?
- 1 Corinthians 12:13; Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 3:21 → one Spirit incorporation; baptism saves through resurrection and appeal/pledge, explicitly not mere external washing.
- 1 Corinthians 1:14–17; Luke 23:39–43 → baptism ordinarily important without being an exceptionless condition of salvation.

**Decision logic:**

- If baptismal predications are direct instrumental claims about the rite, update `ORDINARY-INSTRUMENT-OF-REGENERATION`.
- If covenant status changes objectively but saving benefit requires persevering faith, update `OBJECTIVE-COVENANT-INCORPORATION`.
- If Scripture joins sign and grace sacramentally while distinguishing them, update `MEANS-OF-GRACE-BY-FAITH` or `SIGN-AND-SEAL`.
- If faith/Spirit baptism fully explains salvation texts and water baptism follows as testimony, update `PUBLIC-SYMBOL-AND-OBEDIENCE`.
- Avoid the false binary “baptism saves automatically” versus “baptism does nothing.”

**Dependencies:** Upstream: justification, regeneration, sacramental causality, visible/invisible church. Downstream: infant baptism, assurance, emergency baptism, rebaptism.

**Relations:** Baptismal regeneration correlates with Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and Restorationist settings, but their mechanisms differ sharply. Memorial-symbolic views correlate with Baptist evangelicalism.

**Incompatibilities:** Unqualified automatic regeneration of every baptized person conflicts with any view making saving efficacy depend on faith/election; ordinary instrumentality can include exceptions and later apostasy models.

**Booleanized identity labels:** baptismal regenerationist, sacramental, ordinance-only, Campbellist, Reformed sign-and-seal.


Baptism, profession, membership, and the keys

Question: Is baptism necessarily the church-administered entrance into visible membership, and may an unbaptized believer be a member?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Is baptism necessarily the church-administered entrance into visible membership, and may an unbaptized believer be a member?

**Options:** `BAPTISM-STRICT-PREREQUISITE`; `BAPTISM-NORMATIVE-WITH-EXCEPTIONS`; `BAPTISM-INCORPORATES-BY-ITS-NATURE`; `MEMBERSHIP-BY-PROFESSION-FIRST`; `NO-FORMAL-MEMBERSHIP-SEQUENCE`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 2:41–42, 47 → received word, baptized, added: fixed sequence or missionary-era pattern?
- Matthew 28:19–20 → baptism is public discipling boundary entrusted to church.
- 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:27 → Spirit incorporation, water incorporation, or sacramental union of both.
- 1 Corinthians 5:12–13 → identifiable inside/outside boundary, but does baptism define it?

**Decision logic:**

- If water baptism is the objective initiatory rite of the visible church, update `BAPTISM-STRICT-PREREQUISITE` or `BAPTISM-INCORPORATES-BY-ITS-NATURE`.
- If membership recognizes credible discipleship and baptism is a commanded but remediable irregularity, update `BAPTISM-NORMATIVE-WITH-EXCEPTIONS`.
- Different baptism definitions create hidden disagreement: a paedobaptized adult may count as baptized under one model and unbaptized under another.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: BAP-01 to BAP-03, membership ontology, authority to baptize. Downstream: open membership, communion, leadership eligibility.

**Relations:** Strict sequence correlates with Baptist closed membership and sacramental traditions for different reasons.

**Incompatibilities:** If valid baptism is strictly constitutive of membership, “recognized member while knowingly unbaptized” is incoherent by definition.

**Booleanized identity labels:** closed membership, open membership, baptismal membership, believers’ church.


Rebaptism and recognition of prior baptism

Question: When, if ever, should someone receive water baptism after a previous rite?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** When, if ever, should someone receive water baptism after a previous rite?

**Options:** `NEVER-REPEAT-VALID-BAPTISM`; `REPEAT-IF-SUBJECT-INVALID`; `REPEAT-IF-MODE-INVALID`; `REPEAT-IF-FORMULA-OR-MINISTER-INVALID`; `REPEAT-AFTER-GENUINE-CONVERSION`; `CONDITIONAL-BAPTISM`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Ephesians 4:5 → “one baptism” as once-only water rite, common Christian initiation, or Spirit baptism.
- Acts 19:1–7 → Christian rebaptism after defective baptism, or first Christian baptism after John’s preparatory baptism?
- Acts 8:9–24 → Simon’s defective response does not result in recorded rebaptism.
- Hebrews 6:1–6; 10:26–29 → initiation is not endlessly repeatable; exact referent disputed.
- Matthew 28:19 → Trinitarian formula as validity condition or theological summary.

**Decision logic:**

- First assess whether the earlier act met the model’s subject, mode, intent, formula, and authorized-minister conditions.
- If infant baptism is valid, later believer’s baptism is repetition; if infant baptism is not baptism, the same act is first baptism. Store these as different propositions, not contradictory descriptions of one fact.
- If sacramental character is indelible, update `NEVER-REPEAT-VALID-BAPTISM` plus `CONDITIONAL-BAPTISM` in doubtful cases.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: BAP-01 to BAP-03, sacramental validity, church recognition. Downstream: membership transfers, interdenominational conversion.

**Relations:** “No rebaptism” correlates broadly with paedobaptist traditions. Restorationist and some charismatic groups may rebaptize for formula or understanding.

**Incompatibilities:** A rite cannot simultaneously be a valid once-for-all baptism and require repetition as though invalid, though pastoral reaffirmation is a distinct category.

**Booleanized identity labels:** Anabaptist, rebaptizer, conditional baptism, one-baptism church.


Authorized administrator and formula

Question: Must baptism be administered by ordained clergy, by a church-authorized representative, or may any Christian baptize?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Must baptism be administered by ordained clergy, by a church-authorized representative, or may any Christian baptize?

**Options:** `BISHOP-OR-PRIEST-NORMALLY`; `ORDAINED-MINISTER-REQUIRED`; `CHURCH-AUTHORIZED-ADMINISTRATOR`; `ANY-DISCIPLE-MAY-BAPTIZE`; `EMERGENCY-LAY-BAPTISM`; `TRINITARIAN-FORMULA-REQUIRED`; `JESUS-NAME-FORMULA-REQUIRED`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 28:18–20 → commission to apostles as office-holders, to the church, or to all disciples.
- Acts 2:38; 8:12–17, 36–38; 9:18; 10:47–48; 1 Corinthians 1:14–17 → named administrators are apostles/evangelists or sometimes unspecified.
- Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5 → “in the name of Jesus” as spoken formula or theological allegiance.
- 1 Corinthians 14:40; pastoral epistles → order and authorization by inference rather than explicit baptismal rule.

**Decision logic:**

- If Matthew 28 attaches baptism to a continuing teaching office, update ministerial restrictions.
- If no text makes office a validity condition and the commission extends to all disciples, update `ANY-DISCIPLE-MAY-BAPTIZE`.
- Trinitarian-versus-Jesus-name debates turn on whether Acts reports a liturgical formula or distinguishes Christian from other baptisms.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: succession, office, sacramental validity, Trinity. Downstream: recognition of irregular or emergency baptisms.

**Relations:** Clergy-only administration correlates with sacramental traditions; church authorization with Baptist/Reformed traditions; lay baptism with low-church or emergency practice.

**Incompatibilities:** Oneness rejection of the triune identity is incompatible with Nicene Trinitarianism; merely saying “in Jesus’ name” is not by itself such a rejection.

**Booleanized identity labels:** valid baptism, lay baptism, apostolic/Jesus-name baptism, Trinitarian baptism.


Mode of Christ’s presence

Question: In what sense are Christ’s body and blood present in the Supper?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** In what sense are Christ’s body and blood present in the Supper?

**Options:** `SUBSTANTIAL-CHANGE`; `SACRAMENTAL-UNION`; `REAL-SPIRITUAL-PRESENCE`; `OBJECTIVE-MYSTERY-PRESENCE`; `DYNAMIC-RECEPTION-BY-FAITH`; `MEMORIAL-SYMBOLIC-PRESENCE`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:19–20 → “this is” identity, sacramental predication, covenant-symbolic language, or performative gift?
- John 6:25–71 → Eucharistic realism, faith in Christ’s incarnate sacrifice, or both with layered fulfillment?
- 1 Corinthians 10:16–21 → real participation/communion in body and blood; spiritual participation, sacramental realism, or covenant identification parallel to idol feasts?
- 1 Corinthians 11:23–32 → discerning “the body” means sacramental body, ecclesial body, or both; judgment implies objective holiness of the meal.
- Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7 → meal practice does not itself define metaphysics.

**Decision logic:**

- If institution words require change of elements’ substance, update `SUBSTANTIAL-CHANGE`.
- If body and bread coexist under sacramental union, update `SACRAMENTAL-UNION`.
- If participation is real but Christ’s human body remains in heaven and believers ascend by the Spirit, update `REAL-SPIRITUAL-PRESENCE`.
- If “remembrance” and covenant symbolism exhaust the act’s objective content, update `MEMORIAL-SYMBOLIC-PRESENCE`.
- Treat John 6’s Eucharistic relevance as a parent variable; do not count its verses repeatedly as independent evidence.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: Christology, ascension, sacramental causality, sign/reality language. Downstream: adoration, fencing, reservation, frequency, ministerial validity.

**Relations:** Substantial change correlates with Catholicism; sacramental union with Lutheranism; spiritual presence with Reformed traditions; memorialism with Zwinglian/Baptist/Restorationist traditions. “Real presence” alone underdetermines the model.

**Incompatibilities:** A change in underlying substance and no change beyond communal symbolism are incompatible. Spiritual presence is not equivalent to absence.

**Booleanized identity labels:** real presence, transubstantiationist, consubstantiationist (often rejected by Lutherans), Reformed, memorialist.


Eucharistic efficacy: means of grace, covenant renewal, or memorial

Question: What benefit does faithful reception confer?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** What benefit does faithful reception confer?

**Options:** `OBJECTIVE-MEANS-OF-GRACE`; `MEANS-BY-FAITH`; `COVENANT-RENEWAL-MEAL`; `ASSURANCE-AND-NOURISHMENT`; `MEMORIAL-AND-PROCLAMATION`; `PRIMARILY-HORIZONTAL-UNITY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- 1 Corinthians 10:16–17 → participation in Christ and one body: grace conferred, covenant communion enacted, or social unity signified?
- 1 Corinthians 11:26–32 → proclamation and self-examination; divine judgment indicates objective efficacy or covenant seriousness.
- Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24–25 → remembrance as mental recollection, liturgical memorial before God, or covenant-renewal action.
- John 6:53–58, if Eucharistic → sacramental nourishment; if not, faith in Christ’s death.

**Decision logic:**

- If unworthy reception can objectively bring judgment, this raises objective holiness but does not alone specify how worthy reception gives grace.
- If the Supper is a divine promise attached to signs, update `MEANS-BY-FAITH` or `OBJECTIVE-MEANS-OF-GRACE`.
- If its explicit verbs are remember and proclaim, update memorial/proclamation, but these may coexist with means-of-grace claims.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: SUP-01, faith and sacrament, covenant theology. Downstream: frequency, fencing, pastoral care.

**Relations:** Means-of-grace views correlate with frequent communion but do not entail it. Memorialism correlates with less frequent practice historically, not logically.

**Incompatibilities:** “The rite has no divinely appointed efficacy beyond participants’ thoughts” conflicts with objective means-of-grace models.

**Booleanized identity labels:** sacramental, covenant renewal, communion-as-memorial, means of grace.


Admission: open, close, closed, or baptized-only communion

Question: Who may receive the Supper?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Who may receive the Supper?

**Options:** `OPEN-ALL-PROFESSING-CHRISTIANS`; `BAPTIZED-BELIEVERS`; `SAME-DENOMINATION-OR-DOCTRINE`; `SAME-LOCAL-CHURCH`; `EPISCOPAL-COMMUNION-ONLY`; `PASTORALLY-FENCED-SELF-EXAMINATION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 2:41–42 → baptism before breaking bread as mandatory sequence or narrative order.
- 1 Corinthians 5:6–13 → exclude the disciplined immoral; local church or all recognized Christians?
- 1 Corinthians 10:16–22 → table fellowship expresses ecclesial and doctrinal communion, not merely private devotion.
- 1 Corinthians 11:27–32 → self-examination, ministerial fencing, or both?
- Romans 14:1–15:7 → receive disputing believers; does this govern table admission?

**Decision logic:**

- If the Supper visibly declares one church body and shared doctrine, update tighter communion.
- If baptism is universally the initiatory rite, update `BAPTIZED-BELIEVERS`; disagreement then shifts to which baptisms are valid.
- If self-examination is the principal biblical fence, update `PASTORALLY-FENCED-SELF-EXAMINATION` or open communion.
- Distinguish `close` (like-faith/order), `closed` (local members), and `open`; users often collapse them.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: baptism validity, church unity, discipline, presence. Downstream: ecumenism, membership transfers, paedocommunion.

**Relations:** Closed communion correlates with strict Baptist, Lutheran, and Catholic/Orthodox practices for different reasons.

**Incompatibilities:** Unrestricted invitation regardless of Christian profession conflicts with every model that treats the meal as covenantal Christian communion.

**Booleanized identity labels:** open communion, close communion, closed communion, fenced table, intercommunion.


Paedocommunion and age of first reception

Question: May baptized infants or young covenant children receive before an articulate profession or confirmation?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** May baptized infants or young covenant children receive before an articulate profession or confirmation?

**Options:** `PAEDOCOMMUNION`; `DISCERNMENT-REQUIRED`; `PROFESSION-REQUIRED`; `CONFIRMATION-OR-CATECHESIS-REQUIRED`; `HOUSEHOLD-DISCRETION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Exodus 12:3–4, 24–27 → Passover household participation as precedent, or participation conditioned by ability and old-covenant form?
- 1 Corinthians 10:1–4 → all Israel shared sacramental types, including children; typology supports communal inclusion or warns against presumption?
- 1 Corinthians 11:27–32 → “examine himself” and “discern the body” universally require cognitive capacity, address culpable adults only, or regulate households through heads?
- Matthew 19:13–15; Acts 2:39 → kingdom/covenant inclusion, but not direct meal commands.

**Decision logic:**

- If baptism fully initiates and the Supper sustains all members, update `PAEDOCOMMUNION`.
- If each recipient must personally examine and discern, update `DISCERNMENT-REQUIRED`.
- If profession, not mere cognitive ability, marks communicant membership, update `PROFESSION-REQUIRED`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: BAP-01, child covenant status, SUP-02, membership. Downstream: confirmation, family discipleship.

**Relations:** Paedocommunion correlates with Orthodoxy and some covenantal Reformed communities, but most Western paedobaptists delay admission.

**Incompatibilities:** Infant reception conflicts with a universal articulate-profession prerequisite, not with age-appropriate pastoral examination.

**Booleanized identity labels:** paedocommunionist, confirmed communicant, covenant child, open table.


Frequency and placement in worship

Question: How often should the church celebrate the Supper?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** How often should the church celebrate the Supper?

**Options:** `EVERY-LORDS-DAY`; `FREQUENT-NORM`; `MONTHLY-OR-PERIODIC`; `ANNUAL-PASSOVER-PATTERN`; `PASTORAL-DISCRETION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 2:42, 46 → daily/common meals, Eucharist, or overlapping practice?
- Acts 20:7 → weekly Sunday purpose of gathering or one notable farewell service?
- 1 Corinthians 11:18–26; 16:2 → “when you come together” and first-day rhythm suggest weekly practice or only regulate occasions.
- Luke 22:14–20; 1 Corinthians 5:7–8 → Passover continuity supports annual pattern or typology fulfilled in recurring Eucharist.

**Decision logic:**

- If Acts 20:7 states the ordinary purpose of Lord’s Day assembly, update `EVERY-LORDS-DAY`.
- If “as often” grants latitude, update `PASTORAL-DISCRETION`; it does not imply infrequency.
- Means-of-grace views raise expected frequency, but this is a prudential update rather than entailment.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: worship pattern, efficacy, early-church descriptive/normative method. Downstream: liturgical structure, pastoral practice.

**Relations:** Weekly communion correlates with liturgical/sacramental traditions and Restorationism; quarterly/monthly with many evangelical traditions.

**Incompatibilities:** An explicit divinely mandated weekly minimum conflicts with fully discretionary timing.

**Booleanized identity labels:** weekly Eucharist, frequent communion, quarterly communion, primitive church pattern.


Eucharistic sacrifice, memorial, and once-for-all atonement

Question: May the Supper be called a sacrifice, and in what sense?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** May the Supper be called a sacrifice, and in what sense?

**Options:** `PROPITIATORY-SACRIFICE-MADE-PRESENT`; `UNBLOODY-SACRAMENTAL-REPRESENTATION`; `MEMORIAL-OFFERING-OF-PRAISE`; `NO-SACRIFICIAL-SENSE-BEYOND-THANKSGIVING`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Malachi 1:11 → Eucharistic offering among nations, Gentile prayer/praise, or eschatological pure worship?
- Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24–26 → memorial makes one sacrifice liturgically present, proclaims it, or recalls it.
- Hebrews 7:27; 9:12, 24–28; 10:10–18 → Christ’s offering strictly unrepeatable; does sacramental representation repeat it or participate in the same event?
- Hebrews 13:10, 15–16; 1 Peter 2:5 → Christian altar and spiritual sacrifices.

**Decision logic:**

- Any model positing a new or repeated bloody propitiation is sharply disfavored by Hebrews.
- If sacramental memorial is participation in the one once-for-all offering rather than repetition, `UNBLOODY-SACRAMENTAL-REPRESENTATION` remains compatible with once-for-all language.
- If New Testament church sacrifices are praise, generosity, and self-offering, update `MEMORIAL-OFFERING-OF-PRAISE`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: priesthood of Christ, presence, sacramental representation. Downstream: priestly ministry, altar language, liturgy.

**Relations:** Sacrificial Eucharistic language correlates with Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican traditions; rejection with many Protestants. The historical word “sacrifice” is too polysemous for a binary.

**Incompatibilities:** Repetition of Calvary as a new atoning event conflicts with once-for-all atonement; sacramental participation does not definitionally do so.

**Booleanized identity labels:** Mass as sacrifice, Eucharistic sacrifice, altar, memorial meal.


Elements and presiding minister

Question: Which elements and administrator conditions are essential or normative?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Which elements and administrator conditions are essential or normative?

**Options:** `BREAD-AND-WINE-ESSENTIAL`; `GRAPE-JUICE-PERMISSIBLE`; `LEAVENED-OR-UNLEAVENED-OPEN`; `ORDAINED-PRESIDER-REQUIRED`; `ELDER-OR-CHURCH-DELEGATE`; `ANY-GATHERED-BELIEVERS`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 26:26–29; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:23–26 → bread and “fruit of the vine”; ordinary fermented wine, generic grape product, or symbol allowing substitutes?
- Exodus 12:15–20; 1 Corinthians 5:7–8 → unleavened Passover requirement continues sacramentally or is typological/moralized?
- Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7; 1 Corinthians 11 → no presider explicitly named; ecclesial order inferred from apostolic oversight and pastoral office.
- 1 Corinthians 11:20–22, 33–34 → common meal context versus distinct ritual meal.

**Decision logic:**

- If institution by Christ fixes matter strictly, update `BREAD-AND-WINE-ESSENTIAL`.
- If symbol function rather than chemical identity controls, update substitutes in necessity but not ordinary preference.
- Administrator rules depend more on ecclesiology and sacrament validity than on an explicit Supper text.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: office, succession, regulative principle, alcohol ethics. Downstream: validity, ecumenical recognition, home communion.

**Relations:** Ordained presider correlates with episcopal/presbyteral churches; grape juice with temperance-influenced evangelicalism; unleavened bread with Western liturgy, leavened with much of the East.

**Incompatibilities:** If wine is essential matter, intentional juice-only celebration is invalid; if validity lies in faithful obedience under available means, it may be irregular but valid.

**Booleanized identity labels:** wine church, grape-juice church, Eucharistic minister, home communion.


Basic polity

Question: Where does ordinary final earthly jurisdiction reside?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Where does ordinary final earthly jurisdiction reside?

**Options:** `EPISCOPAL`; `PRESBYTERIAN-CONNECTIONAL`; `CONGREGATIONAL-ELDER-LED`; `CONGREGATIONAL-DIRECT`; `APOSTOLIC-NETWORK`; `HYBRID`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 16:18–19; 18:17–20 → keys entrusted to Peter, apostolic officers, elders, or assembled congregation?
- Acts 14:23; 20:17, 28; Philippians 1:1; Titus 1:5–7 → local plural overseers; does translocal supervision emerge elsewhere?
- Acts 15:1–35; 16:4 → binding council of apostles and elders, unique apostolic settlement, or permanent connectional precedent?
- 1 Corinthians 5:4–5, 12–13; 2 Corinthians 2:6 → assembled congregation executes discipline, assents to leaders’ act, or follows apostolic judgment?
- 1 Timothy 5:17–22; Titus 1:5 → Timothy/Titus as temporary delegates, local pastors, or proto-bishops?
- Hebrews 13:7, 17; 1 Peter 5:1–5 → real leader authority under the chief Shepherd.

**Decision logic:**

- If Peter/apostolic authority descends through a singular regional overseer, update `EPISCOPAL`.
- If Acts 15 supplies continuing elder courts with binding authority over churches, update `PRESBYTERIAN-CONNECTIONAL`.
- If Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5 place final keys in the assembled body, update a congregational option.
- Elder leadership and congregational final authority can coexist; do not encode them as opposites.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: apostolic succession, elder/bishop relation, keys. Downstream: discipline, ordination, property, councils, pastoral accountability.

**Relations:** Episcopal, Presbyterian, and congregational polities are mutually exclusive only when defined by final jurisdiction. Many churches are hybrid in practice.

**Incompatibilities:** Final jurisdiction cannot simultaneously be exclusively vested in a diocesan bishop and exclusively in each local congregation in the same dispute.

**Booleanized identity labels:** episcopal, presbyterian, congregational, elder-led, pastor-led, independent, connectional.


Are elder, overseer/bishop, and pastor one office?

Question: Do New Testament terms name one office from different angles or distinct ranks?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Do New Testament terms name one office from different angles or distinct ranks?

**Options:** `ONE-OFFICE-THREE-DESCRIPTIONS`; `BISHOP-DISTINCT-FROM-PRESBYTER`; `PASTOR-DISTINCT-FROM-RULING-ELDER`; `DEVELOPING-PATTERN-NOT-FIXED`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 20:17, 28 → the same men are elders and overseers charged to shepherd; strong evidence for terminological overlap.
- Titus 1:5–7 → elder and overseer appear interchangeable.
- 1 Peter 5:1–4 → elders shepherd and exercise oversight.
- 1 Timothy 3:1–13; Philippians 1:1 → overseers and deacons named, with no separate presbyter list.
- 1 Timothy 5:17; Ephesians 4:11 → ruling/teaching distinctions may imply functional specializations or distinct offices.
- 2–3 John; Revelation 2–3 → “the elder” and “angel” have disputed institutional significance.

**Decision logic:**

- Direct interchange in Acts/Titus strongly updates `ONE-OFFICE-THREE-DESCRIPTIONS` for the apostolic period.
- A distinct later episcopate requires either development authorized by apostolic principle or reinterpretation of singular oversight texts; it is not established merely by the English word “bishop.”
- If some elders labor especially in word/teaching, update functional differentiation; additional premises are needed for two offices.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: lexical identity versus later office development. Downstream: polity, ordination, succession, senior-pastor model.

**Relations:** One-office terminology correlates with Baptist and some Presbyterian accounts, but Presbyterians may distinguish teaching and ruling elders within one order or as two classes.

**Incompatibilities:** Strict divine-right monarchical episcopacy conflicts with the claim that Scripture makes all bishops and presbyters the same rank permanently.

**Booleanized identity labels:** bishop, presbyter, elder, pastor, teaching elder, ruling elder.


Number and nature of continuing church offices

Question: Which offices continue after the apostolic age?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Which offices continue after the apostolic age?

**Options:** `TWO-OFFICES-ELDER-DEACON`; `THREE-OFFICES-MINISTER-ELDER-DEACON`; `THREEFOLD-BISHOP-PRIEST-DEACON`; `FIVEFOLD-MINISTRY`; `NO-FIXED-OFFICE-SCHEMA`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:1–13 → overseers and deacons as two-office pattern.
- Acts 6:1–6 → institution of deacons, prototype of diaconal service, or unique Seven with preaching roles?
- 1 Timothy 5:17; Romans 12:6–8 → teaching/ruling specializations.
- Ephesians 4:11–13; 1 Corinthians 12:28 → apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd-teachers: offices, gifts, foundational ministries, or continuing fivefold structure?
- 1 Peter 2:5, 9; Revelation 1:6 → priesthood of all believers; does this exclude a distinct ministerial priesthood or define its context?

**Decision logic:**

- If Ephesians 4 roles continue “until” mature unity, update continuing functions, but not necessarily five juridical offices.
- If pastor/elder/overseer are one and Philippians/1 Timothy name only that office plus deacons, update `TWO-OFFICES-ELDER-DEACON`.
- If word-and-sacrament ministry differs in order from governing elders, update `THREE-OFFICES-MINISTER-ELDER-DEACON`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: GOV-02, apostle/prophet continuation, priesthood. Downstream: ordination tracks, voting, women deacons, mission commissioning.

**Relations:** Threefold bishop-priest-deacon correlates with Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican polity; fivefold with apostolic/charismatic networks.

**Incompatibilities:** A closed two-office claim is incompatible with a divinely mandated continuing office of apostle distinct from elder.

**Booleanized identity labels:** two-office, three-office, fivefold ministry, clergy, priesthood of all believers.


Plurality of elders and the senior/solo pastor

Question: Is a plurality of qualified elders in every local church divinely required, ordinarily normative, or optional?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Is a plurality of qualified elders in every local church divinely required, ordinarily normative, or optional?

**Options:** `PLURALITY-REQUIRED`; `PLURALITY-NORMATIVE`; `SINGLE-PASTOR-PERMISSIBLE`; `SENIOR-PASTOR-AMONG-ELDERS`; `CONGREGATIONAL-LEADERSHIP-WITHOUT-ELDERS-TEMPORARILY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 14:23; 20:17; Philippians 1:1; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; 1 Peter 5:1 → consistent plurals: mandate, ordinary mature pattern, or incidental grammar?
- 1 Timothy 3:1–7; Titus 1:6–9 → singular generic “overseer” does not establish solo leadership.
- Revelation 2–3 “angel of the church” → senior pastor/bishop, heavenly angel, messenger, or corporate representative?
- Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18 → James’s prominence as senior leader without disproving plurality.

**Decision logic:**

- Repeated local plural patterns strongly update `PLURALITY-NORMATIVE`.
- To infer `PLURALITY-REQUIRED`, add a premise that apostolic appointment patterns bind every established church.
- Prominence or first-among-equals can coexist with plurality; unilateral final authority cannot.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: descriptive/normative hermeneutics, elder office. Downstream: accountability, church planting, leadership succession.

**Relations:** Plurality correlates with Presbyterian, elder-led Baptist, and restoration movements. Senior-pastor practice appears across polities.

**Incompatibilities:** Exclusive unilateral pastoral rule conflicts with coequal elder plurality, though administrative delegation does not.

**Booleanized identity labels:** elder-led, plurality, senior pastor, solo pastor, Moses model.


The congregation’s authority and voting

Question: Does the assembled congregation possess final authority in doctrine, membership, discipline, officer selection, or property?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Does the assembled congregation possess final authority in doctrine, membership, discipline, officer selection, or property?

**Options:** `CONGREGATION-HOLDS-KEYS`; `CONGREGATION-CONSENTS`; `ELDERS-HOLD-KEYS`; `BISHOP-OR-COURT-HOLDS-KEYS`; `DOMAIN-SPLIT`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 18:17–20 → “tell it to the church” gives congregation final adjudication or publicizes an elder decision?
- Acts 6:2–6 → congregation selects servants and apostles appoint; shared jurisdiction or unique event?
- Acts 14:23 → *cheirotoneō* means congregational election or apostolic appointment.
- 1 Corinthians 5:4–5, 12–13; 2 Corinthians 2:6 → assembly disciplines and “majority” acts.
- Galatians 1:6–9; 1 John 4:1 → whole church judges teaching.
- Hebrews 13:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:12–13 → leaders genuinely govern; congregationalism is not leaderlessness.

**Decision logic:**

- If church in Matthew 18 refers to the gathered membership and “majority” is operative in restoration, update `CONGREGATION-HOLDS-KEYS`.
- If selection/discipline texts reflect consent under apostolic or elder governance, update `CONGREGATION-CONSENTS`.
- Separate domains; a church may give elders teaching/operational authority but members final membership and officer authority.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: meaning of church, keys, elder authority. Downstream: bylaws, discipline, ordination, abuse safeguards.

**Relations:** Congregational authority correlates with member voting but need not entail votes on every decision.

**Incompatibilities:** Sole final authority of the congregation and sole final authority of an external bishop are jurisdictionally incompatible.

**Booleanized identity labels:** congregational, elder-ruled, elder-led, member-led, democratic church.


Translocal councils, denominations, and local autonomy

Question: Can a synod, presbytery, diocese, or network issue binding decisions for a local church?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Can a synod, presbytery, diocese, or network issue binding decisions for a local church?

**Options:** `BINDING-COUNCILS`; `CONNECTIONAL-COURTS`; `EPISCOPAL-JURISDICTION`; `ADVISORY-ASSOCIATIONS`; `STRICT-LOCAL-AUTONOMY`; `COVENANTAL-NETWORK-AUTHORITY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 15:1–35; 16:4 → translocal decree binding churches; grounded in unique apostles or continuing conciliar authority?
- Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5 → outside ministers appoint local elders during mission; temporary church-planting authority or lasting hierarchy?
- 2 Corinthians 8:16–24 → interchurch representatives and financial accountability without obvious jurisdiction.
- Revelation 2–3 → Christ addresses distinct churches, supporting local accountability but not necessarily autonomy.
- 1 Corinthians 14:33; Colossians 4:16 → common interchurch practice and shared letters.

**Decision logic:**

- If Acts 15’s authority rests on apostles’ revelatory office, its post-apostolic analogue may be persuasive but not infallible.
- If elders as one regional presbytery govern multiple congregations, update `CONNECTIONAL-COURTS`.
- If no body may exercise keys outside the local assembly, update `STRICT-LOCAL-AUTONOMY`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: apostolic succession, universal/local church, polity. Downstream: appeals, ordination, discipline portability, doctrinal standards.

**Relations:** Autonomy correlates with Baptist/congregational identity; it does not entail isolation or rejection of confessions.

**Incompatibilities:** A local church cannot be both finally autonomous and subject to compulsory external adjudication in the same domain.

**Booleanized identity labels:** autonomous, connectional, diocesan, presbyterial, network church, independent.


Ordination: recognition, conferral, or sacramental character

Question: What happens in ordination and who may perform it?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** What happens in ordination and who may perform it?

**Options:** `CONGREGATIONAL-RECOGNITION`; `ELDER-COLLEGE-COMMISSIONING`; `PRESBYTERIAL-CONFERRAL`; `EPISCOPAL-SACRAMENT`; `CHARISMATIC-CALL-RATIFIED`; `FUNCTIONAL-APPOINTMENT`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 6:3–6; 13:1–3; 14:23 → selection, prayer, fasting, laying on hands, appointment.
- 1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6 → gift given “through/by” prophecy and laying on hands: sacramental conferral, charismatic confirmation, or commissioning?
- 1 Timothy 5:22; Titus 1:5 → guarded appointment authority.
- Numbers 27:18–23 as background → representative transfer/commissioning, but covenantal continuity must be argued.

**Decision logic:**

- If laying on hands instrumentally confers office and grace through an episcopal chain, update `EPISCOPAL-SACRAMENT`.
- If a preexisting divine call/gifting is publicly tested and recognized, update `CONGREGATIONAL-RECOGNITION` or `CHARISMATIC-CALL-RATIFIED`.
- Separate validity, regularity, and prudence: an irregular ordination need not be no ordination.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: succession, office ontology, charismatic gifts, congregational authority. Downstream: ministerial transfers, sacrament validity, women’s ordination.

**Relations:** Sacramental ordination correlates with threefold ministry. Congregational recognition correlates with free-church polity.

**Incompatibilities:** Indelible sacramental character conflicts with purely revocable functional appointment as complete accounts of the same act.

**Booleanized identity labels:** ordained, licensed, commissioned, consecrated, apostolically ordained.


Deacons: office, service, and governing authority

Question: What is the deacon’s role?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** What is the deacon’s role?

**Options:** `MERCY-AND-ADMINISTRATION`; `LITURGICAL-ASSISTANT`; `GOVERNING-BOARD`; `WORD-AND-MISSION-MINISTRY`; `FLEXIBLE-SERVICE-OFFICE`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 6:1–6 → deacon prototype focused on distribution, or the Seven as unique commissioned evangelists?
- Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:8–13 → recognized office distinct from overseers.
- Romans 16:1–2 → Phoebe as officeholder/deacon or generic servant/patron.
- 1 Timothy 3:12 → household-management qualification implies church governance or general character.

**Decision logic:**

- If Acts 6 defines the office, update mercy/administration; if not technically diaconal, weight 1 Timothy 3 more heavily.
- Stephen and Philip’s preaching shows deacons may teach by gift, but does not entail preaching is constitutive of the office.
- A governing deacon board requires inference; no text plainly gives deacons authority over elders.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: office count, women deacons, congregational structure. Downstream: budgets, benevolence, liturgy, leadership pipeline.

**Relations:** Governing boards correlate with some Baptist practice; liturgical diaconate with episcopal churches.

**Incompatibilities:** Deacons as final governors over elders conflicts with elder-oversight models unless “deacon” is being used non-biblically as a corporate title.

**Booleanized identity labels:** deacon board, servant deacon, permanent deacon, diaconate.


Women as elders, overseers, or senior pastors

Question: May a qualified woman hold the authoritative teaching/governing office of elder/overseer?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** May a qualified woman hold the authoritative teaching/governing office of elder/overseer?

**Options:** `MALE-ELDERS-REQUIRED`; `EGALITARIAN-ALL-OFFICES`; `LOCAL-AUTHORITY-RESTRICTED-BUT-OTHER-MINISTRIES-OPEN`; `TRAJECTORY-OR-REDEMPTIVE-MOVEMENT`; `CONTEXTUAL-RESTRICTION-ONLY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- 1 Timothy 2:8–15 → transcultural restriction grounded in creation/fall, local response to false teaching, restriction on domineering/false teaching, or temporary Ephesian condition?
- 1 Timothy 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9 → “husband of one wife” male office requirement, idiom for marital fidelity, or presumptive case grammar?
- 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 → women pray/prophesy in assembly under headship; proves public speech but not necessarily elder office.
- 1 Corinthians 14:33b–35 → absolute silence, judging-prophecy restriction, disruptive questioning, or textual/discourse issue?
- Romans 16:1–7; Philippians 4:2–3 → Phoebe, Priscilla, Junia, and female coworkers: significant ministry; exact offices disputed.
- Genesis 1:26–28; 2:18–25; 3:16; Galatians 3:28 → creation equality/order, fall distortion, and new-creation implications.

**Decision logic:**

- If 1 Timothy 2’s rationale in Adam and Eve makes the rule universal and *authentein* concerns ordinary authority, strongly update `MALE-ELDERS-REQUIRED`.
- If the passage addresses a local false-teaching pattern and women may otherwise teach with authority, update `CONTEXTUAL-RESTRICTION-ONLY`.
- Examples of female ministry update ministry breadth, but only examples plausibly identifying women as overseers directly update office eligibility.
- Equal worth and salvation status do not by themselves entail identical offices; creation order does not by itself specify which offices are restricted.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: creation order, headship, office definition, hermeneutics of occasional commands. Downstream: ordination, preaching, denominational affiliation, mission roles.

**Relations:** Male eldership correlates with complementarianism; all-office eligibility with egalitarianism. Both labels bundle marriage/family claims that should be separately modeled.

**Incompatibilities:** Universal male-only elder qualification and women’s eligibility for that same office are incompatible. “Woman may preach under elder oversight” is not necessarily incompatible with male eldership.

**Booleanized identity labels:** complementarian, egalitarian, patriarchal, soft complementarian, women’s ordination, female pastor.


Women deacons and deaconesses

Question: May women hold the diaconal office?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** May women hold the diaconal office?

**Options:** `WOMEN-DEACONS`; `DEACONESSES-DISTINCT-ORDER`; `MALE-DEACONS-ONLY`; `GENERIC-FEMALE-SERVANTS-NOT-OFFICERS`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Romans 16:1–2 → Phoebe is “deacon of the church,” an official title or generic servant; patron/protector language increases her recognized role.
- 1 Timothy 3:11 → “women” means female deacons, deacons’ wives, or women assistants.
- 1 Timothy 3:12 → “husband of one wife” applies to all deacons or male cases only.
- Acts 6 → male Seven are descriptive selection, not explicit universal sex qualification.

**Decision logic:**

- If Romans 16 uses *diakonos* as it does for recognized ministers and 1 Timothy 3:11 is a parallel qualification section, update `WOMEN-DEACONS`.
- If verse 11 interrupts male-deacon qualifications to address wives, update `MALE-DEACONS-ONLY`.
- Eligibility depends partly on whether deacons exercise governing/authoritative teaching functions.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: GOV-08, nature of authority, lexical usage. Downstream: ordination and ministry pathways.

**Relations:** Women deacons coexist with male-only elders in many conservative churches; do not make the questions one variable.

**Incompatibilities:** “Every ordained office is male-only and deacon is ordained office” conflicts with women deacons; changing either premise resolves it.

**Booleanized identity labels:** deaconess, women deacons, complementarian, ordained women.


Women teaching or preaching to mixed adult assemblies

Question: Apart from holding elder office, what teaching speech may women exercise?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Apart from holding elder office, what teaching speech may women exercise?

**Options:** `NO-AUTHORITATIVE-MIXED-TEACHING`; `PREACHING-UNDER-ELDER-AUTHORITY`; `OCCASIONAL-TESTIMONY-OR-EXHORTATION`; `ALL-GIFTED-TEACHING`; `PROPHECY-BUT-NOT-DOCTRINAL-GOVERNANCE`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- 1 Timothy 2:11–12 → one combined act “teach-and-exercise authority,” two prohibited acts, or abuse-specific verb?
- 1 Corinthians 11:5; Acts 2:17–18; 21:9 → women pray and prophesy publicly; prophecy’s relation to sermon/teaching is contested.
- 1 Corinthians 14:26–35 → participatory speech under order; women’s silence has scoped or universal readings.
- Acts 18:24–26 → Priscilla and Aquila instruct Apollos privately or in a less formal setting.
- Colossians 3:16; Titus 2:3–5 → mutual and sex/age-specific teaching.

**Decision logic:**

- If preaching the gathered church is definitionally the elder’s authoritative teaching act, male eldership strongly updates `NO-AUTHORITATIVE-MIXED-TEACHING`.
- If authority belongs to the elders while a nonelder speaker ministers under delegation, update `PREACHING-UNDER-ELDER-AUTHORITY`.
- If New Testament prophecy is authoritative congregational speech, women prophets strongly update broad public speaking; it still may not settle elder office.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: GEN-01, prophecy nature, sermon/office relation. Downstream: platform policies, theological education, mission.

**Relations:** Male-only eldership often correlates with male-only preaching, but the entailment depends on a theory of preaching.

**Incompatibilities:** A blanket rule that women may never speak to a mixed gathering conflicts with 1 Corinthians 11 unless that passage concerns a different gathering or nonverbal action.

**Booleanized identity labels:** women preachers, male-pulpit, complementarian preaching, egalitarian ministry.


Headship, veiling, and head coverings

Question: Does 1 Corinthians 11 require a physical head covering, culturally equivalent symbolism, long hair, or no continuing practice?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Does 1 Corinthians 11 require a physical head covering, culturally equivalent symbolism, long hair, or no continuing practice?

**Options:** `PHYSICAL-COVERING-REQUIRED`; `CULTURAL-SYMBOL-REQUIRED`; `LONG-HAIR-IS-COVERING`; `FIRST-CENTURY-LOCAL-PRACTICE`; `HEADSHIP-PRINCIPLE-WITHOUT-SYMBOL`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 → “head” means authority/source/prominence; “covering” is garment, hairstyle, or both; angels and “nature” universalize or rhetorically support local decorum.
- Numbers 5:18 and Greco-Roman/Jewish customs may inform background but should be a distinct historical-evidence node.
- Genesis 1–2 → creation-grounded differentiation may support transcultural principle without fixing symbol.

**Decision logic:**

- If covering and hair are distinguished in the argument and creation/angels ground the command, update `PHYSICAL-COVERING-REQUIRED`.
- If shame/honor symbolism is culturally variable while headship remains, update `CULTURAL-SYMBOL-REQUIRED`.
- If verse 15 defines hair as the covering referenced throughout, update `LONG-HAIR-IS-COVERING`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: headship, cultural-command hermeneutics. Downstream: worship practice, gender presentation.

**Relations:** Covering practice correlates with Anabaptist, Brethren, Orthodox, and some Reformed groups but crosses broader complementarian/egalitarian lines.

**Incompatibilities:** Physical-covering-as-continuing-command conflicts with a claim that no external practice is required; it need not conflict with cultural-symbol accounts if the current culture retains that symbol.

**Booleanized identity labels:** head-covering church, veiling, plain church, complementarian.


Clergy/laity distinction and the priesthood of all believers

Question: Does ordained ministry form a distinct priestly order, a governing/teaching office within the common priesthood, or only a functional role?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Does ordained ministry form a distinct priestly order, a governing/teaching office within the common priesthood, or only a functional role?

**Options:** `SACRAMENTAL-PRIESTHOOD`; `ORDAINED-MINISTRY-WITHIN-COMMON-PRIESTHOOD`; `FUNCTIONAL-OFFICE-NO-ONTOLOGICAL-DISTINCTION`; `RADICAL-EVERY-MEMBER-MINISTRY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- 1 Peter 2:5, 9; Revelation 1:6; 5:10 → all believers are priests; exclusive sacrificial priesthood abolished or ministerial priesthood remains analogically?
- Hebrews 7–10 → Christ alone fulfills high-priestly mediation; does ordained priesthood participate ministerially without rival mediation?
- Ephesians 4:11–16; 1 Corinthians 12 → leaders equip the whole body for ministry.
- 1 Timothy 4:14; 5:17–22; 2 Timothy 1:6 → formal office and ordination distinguish ministers.

**Decision logic:**

- If Eucharistic presidency is sacrificial representation and ordination confers character, update `SACRAMENTAL-PRIESTHOOD`.
- If Christ’s unique priesthood and universal believer-priesthood exclude a separate sacrificing order but not pastors, update `ORDAINED-MINISTRY-WITHIN-COMMON-PRIESTHOOD`.
- Universal gifts do not entail absence of office; office texts prevent that shortcut.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: ordination, Eucharistic sacrifice, church office. Downstream: confession, sacrament administration, lay preaching.

**Relations:** “Priesthood of all believers” is shared Protestant language but ranges from ordered ministry to anti-clericalism.

**Incompatibilities:** Exclusive sacerdotal mediation necessary for access to God conflicts with direct access through Christ for all believers; ministerial representation need not.

**Booleanized identity labels:** clergy, laity, priest, pastor, every-member ministry, anti-clerical.


Marriage, celibacy, and eligibility for ordained ministry

Question: May or must clergy marry, and may churches require celibacy?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** May or must clergy marry, and may churches require celibacy?

**Options:** `CLERICAL-MARRIAGE-PERMITTED`; `MARRIAGE-NORMALLY-EXPECTED`; `EPISCOPAL-OR-PRIESTLY-CELIBACY-REQUIRED`; `CELIBACY-CHARISM-NOT-OFFICE-RULE`; `MARRIED-BISHOPS-RESTRICTED`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- 1 Timothy 3:2, 12; Titus 1:6 → “husband of one wife” requires marriage, permits it while demanding fidelity, or excludes remarriage/polygamy?
- 1 Corinthians 7:7–8, 25–35 → celibacy as gift and undistracted service, not a universal command.
- Matthew 19:10–12 → voluntary celibacy for kingdom.
- 1 Corinthians 9:5 → apostles, including Cephas, may travel with believing wives.
- 1 Timothy 4:1–5 → forbidding marriage as false teaching; does a voluntary vocational discipline count?

**Decision logic:**

- If pastoral qualifications presume but do not mandate marriage, update `CLERICAL-MARRIAGE-PERMITTED`.
- If a church rule concerns voluntary admission to an office rather than teaching marriage unclean, 1 Timothy 4 may not directly prohibit it.
- If celibacy must be a personal charism, lower a universal institutional mandate.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: ordination ontology, vocation, reading of qualifications. Downstream: clergy discipline, episcopal practice.

**Relations:** Mandatory priestly celibacy correlates specifically with Latin Catholic discipline, not all sacramental priesthood; Eastern traditions ordain married presbyters.

**Incompatibilities:** “Every elder must be married” conflicts with eligibility of celibate men such as Paul under common readings.

**Booleanized identity labels:** celibate clergy, married pastor, monastic, priestly celibacy.


Formal, identifiable church membership

Question: Does the New Testament require or strongly imply a defined membership roll/covenant beyond regular attendance?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Does the New Testament require or strongly imply a defined membership roll/covenant beyond regular attendance?

**Options:** `FORMAL-MEMBERSHIP-REQUIRED`; `IDENTIFIABLE-COVENANTAL-MEMBERSHIP`; `RELATIONAL-MEMBERSHIP-WITHOUT-ROLL`; `ATTENDANCE-PLUS-PASTORAL-CARE`; `SACRAMENTAL-PARISH-MEMBERSHIP`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 2:41, 47; 4:4; 6:1–7 → numbered/added community indicates a roll, rhetorical counting, or recognizable belonging.
- 1 Corinthians 5:12–13; 2 Corinthians 2:6 → “inside/outside” and majority require a defined electorate/boundary or only known regular fellowship.
- 1 Timothy 5:9–12 → widow list shows administrative lists, not necessarily universal membership lists.
- Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 5:2–3 → leaders must know for whom they give account; members must know whom to obey.
- Romans 16:1–16; letters of commendation → portable recognition between churches.

**Decision logic:**

- If discipline, majority action, and pastoral accountability require a determinate set, update `FORMAL-MEMBERSHIP-REQUIRED` or `IDENTIFIABLE-COVENANTAL-MEMBERSHIP`.
- A determinate set need not require a modern signed covenant or database; do not smuggle implementation into the biblical proposition.
- If baptism sacramentally incorporates into a territorial parish, update `SACRAMENTAL-PARISH-MEMBERSHIP`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: church boundary, baptism, polity. Downstream: voting, discipline, pastoral care, communion.

**Relations:** Formal covenants correlate with Baptist/congregational polity; parish membership with established/sacramental traditions.

**Incompatibilities:** A church cannot exercise exclusion from a defined “inside” while denying any socially identifiable belonging, though it may lack paperwork.

**Booleanized identity labels:** church member, covenant member, regular attender, parishioner, member in good standing.


Regenerate, covenantal, or sacramental membership

Question: What spiritual status should be required or presumed for visible membership?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** What spiritual status should be required or presumed for visible membership?

**Options:** `CREDIBLE-REGENERATION-REQUIRED`; `CREDIBLE-PROFESSION-REQUIRED`; `BAPTIZED-COVENANT-MEMBERSHIP`; `BAPTISMAL-INCORPORATION`; `MIXED-HOUSEHOLD-COVENANT`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 2:38–42; 8:12; 10:44–48 → profession/Spirit/baptism sequence for converts.
- Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 8 → all new-covenant members know God, or only covenant’s saving substance while visible administration remains mixed?
- 1 Corinthians 1:2; 5:1–13; 10:1–12 → “sanctified” church contains serious sin and possible unbelief.
- Romans 9:6; 11:17–22; John 15:1–6 → external covenant relation with fruitless branches or only apparent relation?
- 1 Corinthians 7:14 → holy children within a household.

**Decision logic:**

- Because humans cannot infallibly detect regeneration, even `CREDIBLE-REGENERATION-REQUIRED` operationalizes as credible profession and fruit.
- If children or baptized persons possess objective covenant standing without personal faith, update mixed/covenantal models.
- If new-covenant membership is coextensive with saving knowledge of God, update regenerate-membership models.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: ECC-02/03, BAP-01/03, apostasy. Downstream: discipline, child status, table admission.

**Relations:** Regenerate membership correlates with Baptist polity; mixed covenant membership with paedobaptism; baptismal incorporation with sacramental traditions.

**Incompatibilities:** “Every visible member is regenerate by definition” conflicts with “some visible members possess real covenant membership yet are unregenerate,” unless “member” changes sense.

**Booleanized identity labels:** believers’ church, covenant member, baptized member, nominal Christian, regenerate church.


Scope and process of corrective discipline

Question: Which sins or errors warrant formal discipline, and is Matthew 18 a universal sequence?

VI. Church, ministry, sacraments, Spirit, worship, and Sabbath

**Type:** `untyped_do_not_normalize` pending an explicit exclusivity/multi-select curation pass.

**Question:** Which sins or errors warrant formal discipline, and is Matthew 18 a universal sequence?

**Options:** `MATTHEW-18-UNIVERSAL-SEQUENCE`; `PRIVATE-OFFENSE-SEQUENCE`; `PUBLIC-SINS-PUBLIC-CORRECTION`; `DISCIPLINE-FOR-SCANDALOUS-UNREPENTANCE`; `DISCIPLINE-INCLUDES-SERIOUS-DOCTRINAL-ERROR`; `LEADER-DIRECTED-PROCESS`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 18:15–20 → all sins, sins “against you” (textual variant), private offenses, or paradigm with exceptions?
- 1 Corinthians 5 → notorious public sexual sin receives immediate assembly action.
- Galatians 2:11–14; 1 Timothy 5:19–20 → public rebuke of public/elder sin with evidentiary safeguards.
- Titus 3:9–11; Romans 16:17–18; 2 John 9–11 → divisive or Christologically false teaching warrants separation.
- 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14–15 → disorderly conduct and disobedience; shame as a brother, not enemy.

**Decision logic:**

- Distinguish private reconciliation, pastoral correction, removal from office, table suspension, and excommunication.
- If Matthew 18 addresses private offense, do not require a private first step for public danger or already-public scandal.
- Discipline threshold generally combines seriousness, clarity, and unrepentance rather than any single sin occurrence.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: keys, polity, doctrinal triage, procedural justice. Downstream: membership removal, restoration, abuse response.

**Relations:** Strong discipline correlates with confessional and regenerate-membership churches but can occur in any polity.

**Incompatibilities:** Automatic confidential handling of every allegation conflicts with public-authority reporting duties and biblical public rebuke cases; civil reporting is a separate jurisdictional question.

**Booleanized identity labels:** disciplined church, church discipline, Matthew 18 process, watch-care.