Meaning and effect of excommunication

Question: Is excommunication merely removal from a local roll, exclusion from the table, authoritative declaration of kingdom status, medicinal judgment, or surrender to divine judgment?

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

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

**Question:** Is excommunication merely removal from a local roll, exclusion from the table, authoritative declaration of kingdom status, medicinal judgment, or surrender to divine judgment?

**Options:** `MEMBERSHIP-REMOVAL`; `TABLE-EXCLUSION`; `DECLARATIVE-KEYS`; `MEDICINAL-SACRAMENTAL-CENSURE`; `COVENANT-CUTTING-OFF`; `LOCAL-NOT-FINAL-JUDGMENT`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 16:19; 18:17–20 → heaven ratifies faithful church judgment, church declares prior heavenly judgment, or apostolic authority only?
- 1 Corinthians 5:4–5, 11–13 → deliver to Satan for flesh’s destruction/salvation; removal into world, severe spiritual judgment, or both.
- 1 Timothy 1:19–20 → apostolic handing over to Satan for corrective learning.
- 2 Thessalonians 3:14–15 → exclusion while admonishing as brother; not every censure equals final excommunication.
- John 20:23 → ministerial forgiveness/retention of sins or apostolic gospel proclamation.

**Decision logic:**

- If keys authoritatively declare covenant/kingdom standing, update `DECLARATIVE-KEYS`; distinguish fallible authority from infallible salvation verdict.
- If table fellowship constitutes visible communion, table exclusion and membership removal strongly couple but may be staged.
- Restoration purpose updates `MEDICINAL-SACRAMENTAL-CENSURE` or at least a remedial rather than merely punitive theory.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: polity, church visibility, communion admission. Downstream: interchurch recognition, assurance, restoration.

**Relations:** Sacramental censure correlates with episcopal/presbyteral polity; membership removal language with congregationalism.

**Incompatibilities:** Treating excommunication as an infallible sentence of eternal damnation conflicts with fallible church judgments and restoration examples.

**Booleanized identity labels:** excommunicated, disfellowshipped, under discipline, barred from communion.


Restoration, transfer, and portability of discipline

Question: What evidence warrants restoration, and must other churches honor a former church’s discipline?

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

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

**Question:** What evidence warrants restoration, and must other churches honor a former church’s discipline?

**Options:** `RESTORE-ON-CREDIBLE-REPENTANCE`; `RESTORE-AFTER-DEFINED-FRUITS-AND-TIME`; `IMMEDIATE-FORGIVENESS-DELAYED-OFFICE`; `ORIGINATING-CHURCH-CONTROLS`; `RECEIVING-CHURCH-INDEPENDENTLY-JUDGES`; `PRESBYTERY-OR-BISHOP-ADJUDICATES`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- 2 Corinthians 2:5–11; 7:8–12 → restore and comfort a repentant offender; whether the individual is 1 Corinthians 5’s man is debated but principle remains.
- Luke 17:3–4; Matthew 18:21–35 → repeated forgiveness on repentance.
- 1 Timothy 3:2, 7; Titus 1:6–9 → restored fellowship does not automatically restore qualification or public reputation.
- Acts 9:26–28; Romans 16:1–2; 2 Corinthians 3:1 → commendation and careful reception.
- 3 John 9–10 → local authority can be abusive; external judgments require evaluation.

**Decision logic:**

- Separate forgiveness, fellowship, membership, table access, leadership eligibility, and legal/safety restrictions.
- Repentance may entail prompt relational restoration while office qualifications require a longer or permanent consequence.
- Portability depends on confidence in the original church’s jurisdiction, process, and evidence.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: excommunication, polity, repentance theology, abuse safeguards. Downstream: transfer letters, restoration plans, ministerial credentials.

**Relations:** Connectional polities structurally strengthen portability; autonomous churches still may honor discipline through comity.

**Incompatibilities:** “Forgiven therefore immediately qualified for leadership” conflicts with qualifications involving reputation and testedness.

**Booleanized identity labels:** restored, member in good standing, disqualified, transferable discipline, church hopping.


Children and adolescents in membership

Question: Are children of believers members by covenant/baptism, nonmember disciples, or eligible upon credible profession?

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

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

**Question:** Are children of believers members by covenant/baptism, nonmember disciples, or eligible upon credible profession?

**Options:** `COVENANT-CHILD-MEMBER`; `BAPTIZED-NONCOMMUNICANT-MEMBER`; `PROFESSING-YOUTH-MEMBER`; `ADULT-MEMBERSHIP-THRESHOLD`; `HOUSEHOLD-UNDER-PARENTAL-COVENANT`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 2:39; 1 Corinthians 7:14 → covenant holiness/inclusion or special relationship short of membership.
- Ephesians 6:1–3; Colossians 3:20 → children addressed within churches as disciples/covenant members or as present family dependents.
- Matthew 19:13–15 → kingdom belongs to such; status, analogy of dependence, or saving inclusion?
- Acts 2:41; 8:12 → baptism/addition following personal response for missionary converts.

**Decision logic:**

- Paedobaptism plus baptismal incorporation strongly updates child membership, but paedobaptists differ on communicant status.
- Credobaptism leaves age undefined; credible profession, not biological adulthood, may control.
- Membership responsibilities such as voting can be distinct from membership status.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: BAP-01, MEM-02, paedocommunion, covenant family. Downstream: discipline, voting, pastoral care, youth ministry.

**Relations:** Child membership correlates with paedobaptism; youth voting policies are institutional rather than direct biblical conclusions.

**Incompatibilities:** “Only personally professing believers are church members” conflicts with infant membership, but not with recognizing children as holy/under church care in another sense.

**Booleanized identity labels:** covenant child, noncommunicant member, junior member, baptized member.


Number and category of sacraments/ordinances

Question: Are baptism and the Supper the only dominical sacraments, or do other rites share sacramental status?

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

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

**Question:** Are baptism and the Supper the only dominical sacraments, or do other rites share sacramental status?

**Options:** `TWO-ORDINANCES`; `TWO-GOSPEL-SACRAMENTS-PLUS-OTHER-RITES`; `SEVEN-SACRAMENTS`; `MYSTERIES-NOT-FIXED-BY-NUMBER`; `NO-SACRAMENT-CATEGORY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 28:19; Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 → baptism and Supper directly instituted by Christ for repeated church use.
- Acts 8:14–17; 19:6; Hebrews 6:2 → laying on hands/confirmation as distinct rite or apostolic transition.
- John 20:22–23; James 5:14–16 → confession/absolution and anointing as sacramental channels or pastoral practices.
- Ephesians 5:22–33; Matthew 19:4–6 → marriage as mystery/sign but not necessarily church-administered sacrament.
- Acts 6:6; 1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6 → ordination conveys gift or commissions office.

**Decision logic:**

- Define sacrament before counting: direct institution by Christ, visible sign of invisible grace, promise attached, and church administration yield different counts.
- If only rites with explicit dominical command and material sign qualify, update two.
- If apostolic rites instrumentally confer grace in recurring church practice, update a broader sacramental set.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: sacramental definition and causality. Downstream: clergy authority, marriage, confession, healing.

**Relations:** “Two sacraments” correlates with magisterial Protestantism; “two ordinances” with free churches; “seven” with Catholicism. Orthodoxy often resists an exhaustive count.

**Incompatibilities:** Exactly-two-as-exhaustive and exactly-seven-as-exhaustive are incompatible; both may still recognize other sacred rites under different names.

**Booleanized identity labels:** sacramental, ordinance church, seven sacraments, dominical sacraments, mysteries.


Objective efficacy, faith, and worthy reception

Question: Is sacramental grace conferred by the performed rite, by God’s promise through the rite, only through recipient faith, or only as symbolic testimony?

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

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

**Question:** Is sacramental grace conferred by the performed rite, by God’s promise through the rite, only through recipient faith, or only as symbolic testimony?

**Options:** `EX-OPERE-OPERATO-PROPERLY-QUALIFIED`; `OBJECTIVE-PROMISE-WITH-RESISTIBLE-FRUIT`; `EFFICACY-THROUGH-FAITH`; `SIGN-SEAL-TO-ELECT`; `SYMBOLIC-OBEDIENCE`; `COMMUNAL-PERFORMATIVE-EFFICACY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Romans 6:3–4; Galatians 3:27; Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 3:21 → direct sacramental predication or shorthand for faith/Spirit reality.
- 1 Corinthians 10:1–12 → all receive sacramental types, not all receive saving benefit.
- 1 Corinthians 11:27–32 → objective judgment in unworthy reception.
- Romans 4:11 → circumcision as sign and seal of righteousness already received by faith in Abraham; applicability to all sacraments disputed.
- Hebrews 4:2 → promised word fails to benefit without faith, a possible general means-of-grace principle.

**Decision logic:**

- Separate valid occurrence, objective covenant effect, saving grace, fruitful reception, and perseverance.
- “Ex opere operato” in careful sacramental theology does not mean magical benefit regardless of impediment; model the technical claim, not the caricature.
- Unworthy reception supporting objective effect does not establish saving effect without faith.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: faith/justification, election, sign/reality. Downstream: baptismal regeneration, Eucharistic efficacy, assurance.

**Relations:** Objective efficacy correlates with sacramental traditions; sign-and-seal with Reformed; symbolic obedience with many Baptist free-church accounts. Restorationist/Stone–Campbell churches should be scored rite by rite: they commonly link baptism instrumentally to forgiveness or entry into Christ even when the Supper is chiefly memorial.

**Incompatibilities:** Purely subjective remembrance conflicts with any objective covenant change caused or enacted by the rite.

**Booleanized identity labels:** ex opere operato, means of grace, sign and seal, sacramentalist, memorialist.


Validity versus fruitfulness and the administrator’s status

Question: Does a rite’s validity depend on correct form, matter, intent, ministerial authorization, succession, recipient faith, or minister holiness?

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

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

**Question:** Does a rite’s validity depend on correct form, matter, intent, ministerial authorization, succession, recipient faith, or minister holiness?

**Options:** `FORM-MATTER-INTENT-REQUIRED`; `AUTHORIZED-MINISTER-REQUIRED`; `SUCCESSION-REQUIRED`; `CHURCH-AUTHORIZATION-SUFFICIENT`; `RECIPIENT-FAITH-FOR-FRUIT-NOT-VALIDITY`; `MINISTER-HOLINESS-NOT-DETERMINATIVE`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 28:19–20; 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 → fixed institution gives required form/content.
- 1 Corinthians 1:12–17; 3:5–9 → sacrament/gospel does not derive power from prestigious minister.
- Philippians 1:15–18 → Christ proclaimed through bad motives still has effect; analogy to rite validity is indirect.
- Numbers 20:7–13; John 11:49–52 → God may act through sinful officeholders; again analogical.
- 1 Corinthians 11:20 → disorder can make a gathering “not” truly the Lord’s Supper in functional or invalidating sense.

**Decision logic:**

- Do not collapse validity (the rite occurred), liceity/regularity (it was authorized), and fruitfulness (it benefited recipients).
- If efficacy rests on Christ’s promise, ministerial moral failure need not invalidate.
- Succession requirements depend on ECC-06/GOV-07; Scripture does not state them in a single validity formula.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: ordination, succession, sacramental causality. Downstream: rebaptism, intercommunion, abuse by clergy.

**Relations:** Minister-independent validity is shared across many traditions despite disputes about authorization.

**Incompatibilities:** “Any materially correct act by anyone is valid” conflicts with strict succession/authorization conditions; both can reject Donatist dependence on minister holiness.

**Booleanized identity labels:** valid sacrament, invalid orders, irregular baptism, Donatist, apostolic succession.


Foot washing as ordinance

Question: Is foot washing a continuing church ordinance, a mandatory ethical pattern expressed variably, or a first-century hospitality act?

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

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

**Question:** Is foot washing a continuing church ordinance, a mandatory ethical pattern expressed variably, or a first-century hospitality act?

**Options:** `CONTINUING-LITERAL-ORDINANCE`; `LITERAL-PRACTICE-COMMENDED`; `HUMBLE-SERVICE-PRINCIPLE`; `CULTURAL-HOSPITALITY-ACT`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- John 13:1–17, especially 13:14–15 → explicit “you also ought” and example: literal repeated rite or enacted paradigm of humble service?
- 1 Timothy 5:10 → washing saints’ feet as recognized good work, supporting literal hospitality but not necessarily gathered ordinance.
- Luke 7:44; Genesis 18:4 → cultural hospitality background.

**Decision logic:**

- If Christ’s explicit example-command has the same recurring ritual force as “do this” at the Supper, update `CONTINUING-LITERAL-ORDINANCE`.
- If the act’s culturally specific function is servanthood, update `HUMBLE-SERVICE-PRINCIPLE`.
- Direct command gives literal practice more weight than mere cultural reconstruction; frequency and ecclesial administration remain unstated.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: regulative principle, sacrament definition, cultural-command hermeneutics. Downstream: Maundy Thursday and denominational practice.

**Relations:** Ordinance status correlates with Mennonite, Brethren, Adventist, and some Pentecostal traditions.

**Incompatibilities:** Continuing literal obligation conflicts with the claim that literal foot washing has no continuing normative force.

**Booleanized identity labels:** foot-washing church, three ordinances, humble-service rite.


Anointing, confession, absolution, and healing rites

Question: Are anointing the sick and confession/absolution sacramental, ordinance-like, or pastoral practices?

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

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

**Question:** Are anointing the sick and confession/absolution sacramental, ordinance-like, or pastoral practices?

**Options:** `ANOINTING-SACRAMENT`; `ANOINTING-CONTINUING-PASTORAL-RITE`; `ANOINTING-SYMBOLIC-OR-MEDICINAL`; `PRIVATE-CONFESSION-SACRAMENT`; `MUTUAL-CONFESSION-AND-DECLARED-ABSOLUTION`; `DIRECT-CONFESSION-TO-GOD-NORM`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- James 5:14–16 → elders anoint and pray; oil sacramental sign, medicine, honor/care, or Spirit symbol?
- Mark 6:13 → apostolic healing with oil as precedent or mission sign.
- John 20:22–23; Matthew 16:19; 18:18 → ministerial power to forgive/retain, church’s declarative keys, or gospel proclamation.
- James 5:16; 1 John 1:9 → mutual confession and confession to God.
- Acts 19:18 → public confession in conversion/revival.

**Decision logic:**

- James plainly supports continuing elder prayer for the sick; the open questions are the oil’s mechanism and sacramental category.
- If ordained ministers judicially absolve through the keys, update `PRIVATE-CONFESSION-SACRAMENT`.
- If forgiveness rests directly on Christ and ministers announce it through the gospel, update `MUTUAL-CONFESSION-AND-DECLARED-ABSOLUTION`.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: office, keys, sacramental efficacy, healing gifts. Downstream: pastoral care, last rites, assurance.

**Relations:** Sacramental anointing/confession correlates with Catholic/Orthodox practice; Reformation traditions may retain absolution without classing penance among gospel sacraments.

**Incompatibilities:** Necessary priestly confession for forgiveness conflicts with the claim that private confession to a minister is never ordinarily required, though both may value pastoral confession.

**Booleanized identity labels:** confession, absolution, last rites, healing service, anointing.


Continuation or cessation of revelatory and sign gifts

Question: Do prophecy, tongues, miraculous healing gifts, and related signs continue ordinarily until Christ’s return?

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

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

**Question:** Do prophecy, tongues, miraculous healing gifts, and related signs continue ordinarily until Christ’s return?

**Options:** `HARD-CESSATIONISM`; `CLASSICAL-CESSATIONISM`; `OPEN-BUT-CAUTIOUS`; `CONTINUATIONISM`; `PENTECOSTAL-EXPECTATION`; `THIRD-WAVE-CHARISMATIC`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 2:16–21, 38–39 → Joel’s “last days” outpouring extends through the church age or refers especially to apostolic inauguration?
- 1 Corinthians 12–14 → instructions for continuing church life or regulation of temporary foundational gifts?
- 1 Corinthians 13:8–12 → “the perfect” is canon completion, church maturity, death/beatific vision, or Christ’s return?
- Ephesians 2:20; 3:5; Hebrews 2:3–4; 2 Corinthians 12:12 → apostles/prophets and signs are foundational/attesting; does this end every analogous gift or only foundational authority?
- Romans 12:3–8; 1 Peter 4:10–11 → gift lists embedded in ordinary church exhortation.
- Revelation 11:3–6; 19:10 → prophecy appears eschatologically; genre and identity are disputed.

**Decision logic:**

- If prophecy is inherently infallible canonical revelation and prophets are foundation-limited, update cessation of that gift.
- If New Testament congregational prophecy can be true yet noncanonical and evaluated, foundational closure does not entail cessation.
- Lack of later canonical revelation supports closed canon but does not alone establish cessation of every miracle.
- Separate gift availability, expected frequency, office continuation, and claimed modern instances.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: PNE-02/PNE-05, canon closure, redemptive-historical method. Downstream: worship, guidance, mission, healing.

**Relations:** Cessationism correlates with confessional Reformed and some dispensational traditions; continuationism with Pentecostal/charismatic movements. Neither determines inerrancy.

**Incompatibilities:** A claim that no post-apostolic prophecy or sign gift is divinely given conflicts with a claim that the same gifts ordinarily continue. “God may perform miracles” is compatible with cessation of miracle-workers.

**Booleanized identity labels:** cessationist, continuationist, charismatic, Pentecostal, open but cautious, Reformed charismatic.


Nature and authority of New Testament prophecy

Question: Is all genuine prophecy infallible revelation, or can a genuine gift involve fallible human reporting that must be sifted?

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

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

**Question:** Is all genuine prophecy infallible revelation, or can a genuine gift involve fallible human reporting that must be sifted?

**Options:** `INFALLIBLE-REVELATION`; `TRUE-REVELATION-FALLIBLE-REPORT`; `SPIRIT-PROMPTED-NONREVELATORY-IMPRESSION`; `INSPIRED-EXHORTATION`; `CANONICAL-APOSTOLIC-PROPHECY-ONLY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Deuteronomy 13:1–5; 18:15–22; Jeremiah 23 → false prediction or speaking for other gods marks false prophet; does this norm every new-covenant use of “prophecy”?
- Acts 11:27–30; 21:4, 10–14 → Agabus and disciples: precise infallible predictions, approximate/fallible reports, or accurately conditional warnings?
- 1 Corinthians 13:9; 14:29–33 → prophecy is partial and others weigh it; weigh applicability/identity or sift mixed content?
- 1 Thessalonians 5:19–22 → do not despise prophecies, test everything.
- Ephesians 2:20; 3:5 → apostolic-prophetic foundation may refer to a special class.

**Decision logic:**

- If “Thus says the Lord” revelation by definition cannot contain error, update `INFALLIBLE-REVELATION`; modern fallible impressions should receive another label.
- If congregational prophecy is commanded to be weighed because delivery can mix human error, update `TRUE-REVELATION-FALLIBLE-REPORT`.
- Distinguish revelation source, cognitive impression, verbal report, interpretation, and application; probability can differ at each layer.
- Inerrant Scripture should remain the final public norm in every conservative option.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: revelation theory, canon closure, biblical prophet continuity. Downstream: PNE-01, guidance, discipline for false prophecy.

**Relations:** Fallible-prophecy models correlate with continuationist evangelicalism; infallible-prophecy models can yield either cessationism or tightly tested continuationism.

**Incompatibilities:** A modern utterance cannot be both intrinsically God’s own errorless speech and genuinely erroneous in its asserted content. A true revelation can be misinterpreted under layered models.

**Booleanized identity labels:** prophet, prophetic word, impression, revelation, “God told me,” fallible prophecy.


Tongues: human languages, heavenly speech, prayer language, and evidence

Question: What is the gift of tongues and what role does it play?

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 gift of tongues and what role does it play?

**Options:** `HUMAN-LANGUAGES-ONLY`; `HUMAN-AND-HEAVENLY-LANGUAGES`; `PRIVATE-PRAYER-LANGUAGE`; `PUBLIC-GIFT-REQUIRING-INTERPRETATION`; `INITIAL-EVIDENCE-OF-SPIRIT-BAPTISM`; `SIGN-OF-JUDGMENT-AND-MISSION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 2:4–11 → identifiable human languages; normative definition or one manifestation?
- Acts 10:44–48; 19:1–7 → tongues accompany Spirit reception in some episodes, but Acts 8 is ambiguous and many conversions omit them.
- 1 Corinthians 12:10, 28–30 → not all speak in tongues, apparently against universal gift; Pentecostal answers may distinguish public gift from initial evidence.
- 1 Corinthians 13:1 → “tongues of angels” literal heavenly language or hyperbole.
- 1 Corinthians 14:2, 4, 13–19, 27–28 → God-directed unintelligible speech, private self-edification, and public interpretation; is silent prayer permitted in assembly?
- Isaiah 28:11–12; 1 Corinthians 14:20–25 → covenant-judgment sign to unbelievers, evangelistic sign, or paradoxical rhetoric.

**Decision logic:**

- Acts 2 strongly establishes human languages as at least one type.
- “Not all speak in tongues” lowers universal-evidence claims unless two distinct tongue phenomena are independently supported.
- If “no one understands” means no hearer happens to know the human language, it does not prove heavenly speech; if paired with spirit praying mysteries, it updates a prayer-language model.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: PNE-01, Spirit-baptism model, genre of Acts. Downstream: worship order, Pentecostal identity, assurance.

**Relations:** Initial evidence correlates with classical Pentecostalism; continuation without initial evidence with charismatic/Third Wave; human-languages-only with cessationism but does not entail it.

**Incompatibilities:** “Every Spirit-baptized believer necessarily speaks in tongues” conflicts with a single-category reading of 1 Corinthians 12:30 as expecting “no.”

**Booleanized identity labels:** tongues-speaker, prayer language, initial evidence, Pentecostal, charismatic.


Baptism in/with the Holy Spirit

Question: Does Spirit baptism occur at conversion for every believer, as a subsequent empowering experience, or in more than one sense?

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

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

**Question:** Does Spirit baptism occur at conversion for every believer, as a subsequent empowering experience, or in more than one sense?

**Options:** `CONVERSION-INITIATION`; `SUBSEQUENT-SECOND-BLESSING`; `CONVERSION-PLUS-REPEATABLE-EMPOWERINGS`; `SACRAMENTAL-CONFIRMATION`; `PENTECOSTAL-INITIAL-EVIDENCE`; `CORPORATE-HISTORICAL-PENTECOST`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 3:11; Acts 1:5; 2:1–4 → Pentecost as once-for-all corporate event, repeatable individual pattern, or both.
- Acts 2:38–39 → repentance/baptism/gift of Spirit as integrated initiation.
- Acts 8:12–17; 19:1–7 → delayed Spirit reception as normative subsequence, apostolic authentication at salvation-historical boundary crossings, or defective prior initiation.
- Acts 10:44–48 → Spirit before water baptism.
- Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:2–5 → every Christian has/was baptized by one Spirit.
- Ephesians 5:18; Acts 4:31 → repeatable filling distinct from initiation.

**Decision logic:**

- If 1 Corinthians 12:13 refers to the same Spirit baptism and includes every body member, update `CONVERSION-INITIATION`.
- If Acts’ delays are prescriptive patterns rather than redemptive-historical transitions, update `SUBSEQUENT-SECOND-BLESSING`.
- Conversion-initiation can coexist with later empowerings; avoid treating “one baptism, many fillings” as cessationist.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: Acts hermeneutics, tongues, water/Spirit relation. Downstream: assurance, initiation rites, ministry empowerment.

**Relations:** Second blessing plus tongues correlates with classical Pentecostalism; conversion-initiation with Reformed/Baptist evangelicalism; confirmation with sacramental traditions.

**Incompatibilities:** “Every believer has received Spirit baptism at conversion” conflicts with “some true believers have not yet received Spirit baptism” if both use the term identically.

**Booleanized identity labels:** baptized in the Spirit, Spirit-filled, second blessing, Pentecostal, confirmed.


Apostles and prophets after the first century

Question: Do the offices/titles apostle and prophet continue, and with what authority?

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

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

**Question:** Do the offices/titles apostle and prophet continue, and with what authority?

**Options:** `TWELVE-AND-PAUL-UNREPEATABLE`; `FOUNDATIONAL-APOSTLES-ENDED-MISSIONARIES-CONTINUE`; `CONTINUING-LOWERCASE-APOSTLES`; `CONTINUING-GOVERNING-APOSTLES`; `CONTINUING-PROPHETS-NONSCRIPTURAL`; `ALL-PROPHETIC-OFFICE-ENDED`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 1:21–26; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:7–9 → eyewitness and direct commission qualifications for capital-A apostles.
- Romans 16:7; 2 Corinthians 8:23; Philippians 2:25 → *apostolos* can mean emissary/missionary beyond the Twelve; Junia’s construction disputed.
- Ephesians 2:20; 3:5 → foundational apostles and prophets.
- Ephesians 4:11–13 → gifts “until” unity/maturity; continuing functions or foundational persons whose work continues through teaching?
- 2 Corinthians 12:12; Revelation 2:2 → apostolic signs and tests.

**Decision logic:**

- Lexical breadth allows missionary “apostles” without granting foundational authority.
- If foundation is laid once, reduce `CONTINUING-GOVERNING-APOSTLES`; a later emissary category remains open.
- If modern apostles claim jurisdiction equal to Paul or doctrinal revelation binding all churches, the closed-canon and foundation variables become decisive.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: succession, canon, prophecy nature. Downstream: fivefold ministry, networks, discipline, new revelation.

**Relations:** Continuing governing apostles correlate with New Apostolic Reformation-style networks; the broad label “apostolic church” does not prove that model.

**Incompatibilities:** Unique unrepeatable foundational apostolate conflicts with contemporary equal-authority apostles, not with missionaries called apostles in a generic sense.

**Booleanized identity labels:** apostolic, fivefold, missionary apostle, NAR, prophet, continuationist.


Healing gifts, prayer, medicine, and atonement

Question: Should miraculous healing be expected, guaranteed, specially gifted, or sought while ordinarily using medicine?

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

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

**Question:** Should miraculous healing be expected, guaranteed, specially gifted, or sought while ordinarily using medicine?

**Options:** `HEALING-GIFT-CONTINUES`; `GOD-HEALS-SOVEREIGNLY-NO-STABLE-GIFT`; `HEALING-IN-ATONEMENT-GUARANTEED-NOW`; `HEALING-IN-ATONEMENT-ESCHATOLOGICALLY`; `ORDINARY-PROVIDENCE-AND-MEDICINE`; `CESSATION-OF-SIGN-HEALERS`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Isaiah 53:4–5; Matthew 8:16–17; 1 Peter 2:24 → physical healing presently guaranteed by atonement, Jesus’ ministry fulfillment, or final restoration with present foretastes?
- 1 Corinthians 12:9, 28, 30 → “gifts of healings” distributed variably.
- James 5:14–18 → elders’ prayer of faith will save/raise the sick; categorical promise, providential generalization, spiritual salvation, or special faith?
- 2 Corinthians 12:7–10; Galatians 4:13; Philippians 2:25–30; 1 Timothy 5:23; 2 Timothy 4:20 → faithful ministers experience unhealed illness and use ordinary means.
- Mark 16:9–20 → signs passage has major textual-critical status; do not make it the sole load-bearing premise.

**Decision logic:**

- If full physical healing is guaranteed now for sufficient faith, unexplained faithful nonhealing creates a serious likelihood penalty and pastoral risk.
- If atonement guarantees resurrection and sometimes anticipates it through gifts, update `HEALING-IN-ATONEMENT-ESCHATOLOGICALLY`.
- Medicine and prayer are not competitors unless a separate premise makes use of means unbelief.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: PNE-01, inaugurated eschatology, suffering theology. Downstream: pastoral care, healing services, prosperity teaching.

**Relations:** Expected healing correlates with charismatic identity; cessationists usually still affirm providential miracles in answer to prayer.

**Incompatibilities:** Universal guaranteed healing now conflicts with the claim that God may purposefully leave faithful believers ill in this age.

**Booleanized identity labels:** divine healing, faith healer, healing in the atonement, prosperity gospel, prayer-and-medicine.


Demons, deliverance, and territorial spiritual warfare

Question: How should churches understand demonic influence in believers and the practice of deliverance?

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

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

**Question:** How should churches understand demonic influence in believers and the practice of deliverance?

**Options:** `BELIEVERS-CANNOT-BE-DEMONIZED`; `BELIEVERS-MAY-BE-OPPRESSED-NOT-POSSESSED`; `BELIEVERS-MAY-NEED-DELIVERANCE`; `EXORCISM-AS-SPECIALIST-MINISTRY`; `ORDINARY-RESISTANCE-THROUGH-TRUTH-PRAYER`; `TERRITORIAL-SPIRITS-STRATEGIC-WARFARE`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Mark 1:21–28; 5:1–20; Luke 10:17–20; Acts 8:5–8; 16:16–18; 19:11–20 → deliverance in Jesus/apostolic mission; continuing model or kingdom-attesting concentration?
- 1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 John 4:4; 5:18 → Spirit’s indwelling and divine protection exclude possession, not necessarily influence.
- Ephesians 6:10–20; James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8–9 → ordinary resistance by truth, righteousness, faith, prayer, sobriety.
- 2 Corinthians 10:3–6 → spiritual warfare against arguments/thoughts, or broader demonic strongholds?
- Daniel 10:12–21; Deuteronomy 32:8–9 (textual tradition); Psalm 82 → territorial powers, salvation-historical imagery, or heavenly council without prescribed mapping practice.

**Decision logic:**

- Define “possession,” “demonization,” oppression, temptation, and indwelling; translation-driven binaries create false disagreement.
- Narrative examples prove real deliverance but do not automatically establish elaborate diagnostic methods.
- Territorial beings may exist without authorizing Christians to name, map, or directly address them.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: continuationism, inaugurated kingdom, anthropology. Downstream: counseling, mission strategy, prayer practices.

**Relations:** Deliverance ministry correlates with Pentecostal/charismatic settings; ordinary-resistance accounts with cessationist and confessional traditions.

**Incompatibilities:** Complete demon ownership/control of a Spirit-indwelt believer conflicts with strong indwelling-protection claims; lesser influence remains compatible.

**Booleanized identity labels:** deliverance ministry, spiritual warfare, demonized Christian, territorial spirits.


Guidance, inner impressions, and “hearing God”

Question: How does the Spirit ordinarily guide believers after the apostolic era?

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

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

**Question:** How does the Spirit ordinarily guide believers after the apostolic era?

**Options:** `SCRIPTURE-WISDOM-PROVIDENCE`; `ILLUMINATION-NOT-NEW-REVELATION`; `INNER-PROMPTINGS-FALLIBLE`; `DIRECT-PERSONAL-WORDS`; `PROPHETIC-GUIDANCE`; `CASTING-LOTS-OR-SIGNS-IN-EXCEPTIONAL-CASES`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Psalm 119:105; Romans 12:1–2; James 1:5 → Scripture-renewed wisdom and prayer.
- John 10:27; 16:13 → every believer recognizes individualized guidance, sheep recognize Christ in salvation, or apostles uniquely guided into truth?
- Acts 8:29; 10:19; 13:2; 16:6–10 → direct Spirit guidance in mission; normative, exceptional, or apostolic?
- Romans 8:14 → moral/adoptive leading versus decision-specific impressions.
- Colossians 3:15 → “peace” as communal reconciliation, not necessarily private decision signal.
- Proverbs 3:5–6; 16:9, 33 → providential direction including lots, without promise of subjective certainty.

**Decision logic:**

- Separate normative obligation (“God commands”) from fallible guidance (“I sense it may be wise”).
- If modern impressions are fallible, language should encode confidence and remain corrigible by Scripture/community.
- Direct Acts speech supports possibility more strongly than predictable universality.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: prophecy nature, canon, illumination. Downstream: vocation, marriage, mission decisions, pastoral authority.

**Relations:** “Hearing God” correlates with charismatic spirituality but may refer merely to Scripture in other communities.

**Incompatibilities:** A private impression cannot bind another’s conscience as inerrant divine command while also being acknowledged as fallible.

**Booleanized identity labels:** hears God, led by the Spirit, prophetic guidance, biblicist, contemplative.


Procession of the Spirit and the *filioque*

Question: Does the Spirit eternally proceed from the Father alone, from the Father through the Son, or from the Father and the Son?

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

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

**Question:** Does the Spirit eternally proceed from the Father alone, from the Father through the Son, or from the Father and the Son?

**Options:** `FROM-FATHER-ALONE`; `FROM-FATHER-THROUGH-SON`; `FROM-FATHER-AND-SON`; `BIBLICALLY-UNDERDETERMINED`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- John 15:26 → Spirit “proceeds from the Father” while the Son sends him; eternal origin versus economic mission?
- John 14:16–17, 26; 16:7, 13–15 → Father and Son send; Spirit receives what is the Son’s.
- Romans 8:9; Galatians 4:6; Philippians 1:19; 1 Peter 1:11 → “Spirit of Christ/Son” implies eternal relation, economic belonging, or both?
- Revelation 22:1 → river from throne of God and Lamb as suggestive eschatological image, not a technical procession proof.

**Decision logic:**

- Do not infer eternal procession directly from every temporal sending text without a premise linking missions and processions.
- John 15:26 directly names the Father as source; whether this excludes the Son is the decisive fork.
- `FROM-FATHER-THROUGH-SON` can function as bridge formula, but traditions differ over whether it equals or rejects *filioque*.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: Trinity, eternal relations, mission-procession analogy. Downstream: Nicene identity, East/West ecclesial communion.

**Relations:** Father-alone correlates with Eastern Orthodoxy; Father-and-Son with Western Catholic/Protestant traditions.

**Incompatibilities:** Exclusive Father-alone origin conflicts with Son-as-co-principle in the same technical sense; both affirm the Spirit is sent through/by the Son economically.

**Booleanized identity labels:** filioque, Eastern, Western, Nicene, procession.


Regulative, normative, and convergent principles

Question: May the church include any edifying practice not forbidden, or only elements positively instituted by Scripture?

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

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

**Question:** May the church include any edifying practice not forbidden, or only elements positively instituted by Scripture?

**Options:** `STRICT-REGULATIVE`; `REGULATIVE-ELEMENTS-CIRCUMSTANCES`; `NORMATIVE-PRINCIPLE`; `CONVERGENT-EARLY-CHURCH-NORM`; `PASTORAL-PRUDENCE`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Deuteronomy 12:29–32; Leviticus 10:1–3 → unauthorized worship condemned; old-covenant ceremonial specificity or enduring principle?
- Exodus 20:4–6; Matthew 15:7–9; Colossians 2:20–23 → human-invented worship can be vain/will-worship.
- 1 Corinthians 11–14 → apostolic regulation of elements and concern for edification/order.
- Acts 2:42; Colossians 3:16; 1 Timothy 4:13 → recurring elements of teaching, prayer, song, sacraments, reading.
- Romans 14; 1 Corinthians 6:12; 10:23, 31 → liberty bounded by edification and God’s glory.

**Decision logic:**

- If old-covenant unauthorized-worship judgments express a trans-covenantal rule, update regulative models.
- Every regulativist must distinguish “element” from “circumstance”; many apparent disputes concern categorization.
- If New Testament silence grants liberty under general moral constraints, update normative/prudential models.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: law continuity, church authority, sufficiency of Scripture. Downstream: music, drama, images, calendar, dance, liturgy.

**Relations:** Regulative principle correlates with Reformed/Presbyterian and some Baptist traditions; normative with Lutheran/Anglican/evangelical settings.

**Incompatibilities:** “Only positively commanded elements are permissible” conflicts with “any nonforbidden edifying element is permissible” when a disputed act is truly an element.

**Booleanized identity labels:** regulative, normative, RPW, biblical worship, traditional worship.


Fixed liturgy, free worship, and prescribed prayer

Question: Should corporate worship follow a stable inherited liturgy, a biblically structured but adaptable order, or spontaneous leading?

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

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

**Question:** Should corporate worship follow a stable inherited liturgy, a biblically structured but adaptable order, or spontaneous leading?

**Options:** `FIXED-HISTORIC-LITURGY`; `BIBLICAL-ORDO-WITH-FLEXIBILITY`; `FREE-WORSHIP`; `CHARISMATIC-SPONTANEITY`; `BOOK-OF-COMMON-PRAYER-OR-EQUIVALENT`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4 → Lord’s Prayer as exact repeated form or model.
- Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 14:26–40 → stable apostolic elements alongside participatory contributions.
- 1 Corinthians 11:23–26; 15:3–5; Philippians 2:6–11; 1 Timothy 3:16 → transmitted formulas/hymns/creedal material, though exact genre disputed.
- Revelation 4–5 → heavenly liturgical pattern for earthly worship or apocalyptic vision not direct rubrics.
- Ephesians 5:18–20; Colossians 3:16 → Spirit-filled mutual song can occur in fixed or free forms.

**Decision logic:**

- Scripted prayer is positively modeled; spontaneity cannot be made the definition of sincerity.
- “All things decently and in order” supports intelligibility and peace, not one exact order.
- Historical liturgy adds evidence from catholic reception, but that should be a separate tradition-weight variable.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: tradition authority, regulative principle, charismatic gifts. Downstream: calendar, vestments, weekly communion, prayer language.

**Relations:** Fixed liturgy correlates with sacramental/episcopal traditions; free worship with evangelical churches; charismatic worship can itself develop stable scripts.

**Incompatibilities:** “Only extemporaneous prayer is spiritually authentic” conflicts with Christ-given and canonical prayers; fixed liturgy and genuine spiritual agency are not incompatible.

**Booleanized identity labels:** liturgical, low church, high church, free church, Spirit-led.


Song repertoire: psalms only, canonical songs, or uninspired hymns

Question: What may the gathered church sing?

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

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

**Question:** What may the gathered church sing?

**Options:** `EXCLUSIVE-PSALMODY`; `INSPIRED-CANONICAL-SONGS`; `PSALMS-HYMNS-SPIRITUAL-SONGS-BROAD`; `DOCTRINALLY-SOUND-SONGS`; `TRADITIONAL-HYMNS`; `CONTEMPORARY-WORSHIP`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16 → three terms are headings within the Psalter, overlapping genres including new Christian songs, or broad song categories.
- Psalm 96:1; 98:1; 149:1; Revelation 5:9; 14:3 → “new song” means newly composed song, renewed praise, or canonical eschatological song.
- Matthew 26:30; Acts 16:25; 1 Corinthians 14:15, 26; James 5:13 → singing is commanded, content sometimes unspecified.
- 1 Corinthians 14:26 → a congregant “has a hymn/psalm,” potentially new contribution.

**Decision logic:**

- If Ephesians/Colossians’ three terms jointly denote the canonical Psalter, update `EXCLUSIVE-PSALMODY`.
- If “teaching and admonishing” permits freshly composed Christ-centered truth, update broader hymnody.
- Style-age labels do not map cleanly to theological options; assess text, function, and musical form separately.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: regulative principle, canon sufficiency, translation. Downstream: instruments, worship identity, industry ethics.

**Relations:** Exclusive psalmody correlates with some Presbyterian/Reformed groups. Traditional versus contemporary is aesthetic/historical, not a direct doctrinal binary.

**Incompatibilities:** Exclusive canonical-text singing conflicts with authorization of uninspired lyrics in corporate praise.

**Booleanized identity labels:** exclusive psalmist, hymnal church, contemporary worship, blended worship.


Musical instruments, choirs, bands, and dance

Question: Which musical forms are authorized in new-covenant worship?

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

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

**Question:** Which musical forms are authorized in new-covenant worship?

**Options:** `A-CAPPELLA-REQUIRED`; `INSTRUMENTS-PERMITTED`; `INSTRUMENTS-POSITIVELY-FITTING`; `CHOIR-OR-SPECIAL-MUSIC-PERMITTED`; `CONGREGATIONAL-SONG-PRIORITY`; `DANCE-PERMITTED`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Psalms 33; 47; 81; 95; 98; 149–150 → instruments/dance as timeless praise, temple-ceremonial forms, or eschatological imagery.
- 2 Chronicles 29:25–30 → instruments appointed in temple service, supporting either divine authorization or ceremonial limitation.
- Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16 → new-covenant command mentions singing/making melody, not explicit instruments; silence prohibits or permits?
- Revelation 5:8; 14:2; 15:2 → heavenly harps as symbolic or exemplary.
- 1 Corinthians 14:7–8 uses instruments illustratively, not as worship command.

**Decision logic:**

- Regulative-principle plus temple-ceremonial discontinuity strongly updates `A-CAPPELLA-REQUIRED`.
- Psalm continuity and heavenly imagery update permission or fittingness.
- Permission for instruments does not settle performance-centered special music; congregational mutual address is a separate variable.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: WOR-01, old-covenant worship continuity. Downstream: service design and denominational identity.

**Relations:** A cappella correlates with Churches of Christ, some Reformed Presbyterians, and certain Anabaptists for distinct arguments.

**Incompatibilities:** Instrument use is incompatible with a-cappella-as-divine-requirement, not with congregational-song priority.

**Booleanized identity labels:** a cappella, instrumental worship, worship band, choir church, liturgical dance.


Images, icons, crosses, and depictions of Christ

Question: Are visual images in worship permissible, venerated, pedagogically useful, or forbidden—especially images of Christ?

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

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

**Question:** Are visual images in worship permissible, venerated, pedagogically useful, or forbidden—especially images of Christ?

**Options:** `NO-RELIGIOUS-IMAGES-IN-WORSHIP`; `NO-DEPICTIONS-OF-CHRIST`; `IMAGES-PERMITTED-NOT-VENERATED`; `ICON-VENERATION`; `CROSSES-ONLY-OR-NONFIGURAL-ART`; `PEDAGOGICAL-ART`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Exodus 20:4–6; Deuteronomy 4:15–19 → ban on making any divine image for worship, any religious image, or idolatrous bowing/service only?
- Exodus 25:18–22; Numbers 21:8–9; 1 Kings 6:23–35 → commanded sacred images show images per se are not forbidden; later destruction of bronze serpent in 2 Kings 18:4 warns against veneration.
- John 1:14, 18; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3 → incarnation makes Christ depictable, or invisible divine person remains beyond image?
- Acts 17:29; Romans 1:22–25 → divine nature not represented by art.
- Hebrews 9:23–24 → sanctuary images/copies and heavenly reality.

**Decision logic:**

- Distinguish making, liturgical use, honor/veneration, and worship/adoration.
- Incarnation is the key pro-icon update; second-commandment and two-natures concerns are key anti-depiction updates.
- Commanded cherubim defeat a universal ban on all visual religious art but do not establish icons of God.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: Christology, commandment numbering/interpretation, tradition. Downstream: architecture, children’s materials, devotional practice.

**Relations:** Icon veneration correlates with Orthodoxy/Catholicism; no-Christ-images with some Reformed traditions; image permission with most evangelicals.

**Incompatibilities:** Veneration of icons as a mandated means of honoring prototypes conflicts with claims that all such liturgical gestures violate the second commandment.

**Booleanized identity labels:** iconoclast, iconodule, imageless worship, crucifix, plain cross.


Charismatic contributions and order in the assembly

Question: How should prophecy, tongues, spontaneous prayer, and congregational contributions function in worship?

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

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

**Question:** How should prophecy, tongues, spontaneous prayer, and congregational contributions function in worship?

**Options:** `GIFTS-CEASED-NO-PRACTICE`; `OPEN-MICROPHONE-PARTICIPATION`; `ELDER-SCREENED-CONTRIBUTIONS`; `ORDERED-CHARISMATIC-LITURGY`; `TONGUES-ONLY-WITH-INTERPRETATION`; `PRIVATE-NOT-CORPORATE-PRAYER-LANGUAGE`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- 1 Corinthians 14:26–33, 39–40 → each brings a contribution, two or three speak, others weigh, tongues require interpretation; direct enduring rubric or temporary apostolic-era regulation?
- 1 Thessalonians 5:19–22 → do not quench/despise; test and retain good.
- Ephesians 5:18–21 → Spirit-filled mutual address.
- 1 Corinthians 12:7; 14:12 → gifts for common good/edification.
- 1 Timothy 3:4–5; Hebrews 13:17 → leader oversight inferred.

**Decision logic:**

- Continuationism plus direct normativity of 1 Corinthians 14 updates ordered participation, not disorder.
- If an uninterpreted tongue edifies only the speaker, the corporate-common-good premise lowers public use.
- Elder screening may implement “weighing,” but pre-approval versus after-the-fact evaluation remains underdetermined.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: PNE-01 to PNE-03, polity, WOR-02. Downstream: service format, safety, participation.

**Relations:** Charismatic identity correlates with spontaneous practice, but many charismatic churches are highly platform-controlled.

**Incompatibilities:** Unrestricted simultaneous speech conflicts with Paul’s intelligibility and order requirements under all continuationist readings.

**Booleanized identity labels:** open worship, charismatic worship, seeker-sensitive, Spirit-led, orderly worship.


Holy days and the church calendar

Question: May or should churches observe Christmas, Easter/Pascha, Lent, saints’ days, and an annual liturgical calendar?

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

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

**Question:** May or should churches observe Christmas, Easter/Pascha, Lent, saints’ days, and an annual liturgical calendar?

**Options:** `LORDS-DAY-ONLY`; `REDEMPTIVE-HISTORY-FESTIVALS-PERMITTED`; `HISTORIC-CALENDAR-COMMENDED`; `CALENDAR-BINDING-BY-CHURCH-AUTHORITY`; `INDIVIDUAL-LIBERTY-NOT-CORPORATE-INSTITUTION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Romans 14:5–6 → individual liberty over days, church authorization, or Jewish-calendar disputes only?
- Galatians 4:9–11; Colossians 2:16–17 → bondage to calendrical observance versus freedom to observe voluntarily.
- John 10:22–23 → Jesus at non-Mosaic Feast of Dedication: participation or mere location?
- Esther 9:20–32 → post-Mosaic feast instituted by covenant community; old-covenant precedent only?
- 1 Corinthians 5:7–8; 16:8; Acts 20:6, 16 → Christianized feast language, chronological markers, or actual observance?

**Decision logic:**

- If regulative principle prohibits church-created sacred days, update `LORDS-DAY-ONLY`.
- If Romans 14 grants voluntary observance unto the Lord, update permission but not mandatory calendar.
- A church’s authority to order common worship may support calendar use without claiming divine obligation.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: WOR-01, church authority, Sabbath. Downstream: worship planning, fasting, denominational identity.

**Relations:** Historic calendar correlates with liturgical churches; Christmas/Easter observance is widespread among nonliturgical evangelicals.

**Incompatibilities:** A divinely forbidden sacred-day innovation conflicts with mandatory calendar observance; voluntary private commemoration may be treated separately.

**Booleanized identity labels:** liturgical calendar, church year, no-Christmas, holy days, feast days.


Gathered presence, online church, and multisite models

Question: What degree of embodied co-presence is necessary for a church assembly and its ordinances?

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

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

**Question:** What degree of embodied co-presence is necessary for a church assembly and its ordinances?

**Options:** `EMBODIED-LOCAL-GATHERING-REQUIRED`; `DIGITAL-PARTICIPATION-SUPPLEMENTAL`; `REMOTE-GATHERING-CAN-CONSTITUTE-CHURCH`; `MULTISITE-ONE-CHURCH`; `MULTISITE-MULTIPLE-CHURCHES`; `HOME-DISTRIBUTED-NETWORK`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 18:20; Acts 2:42–47; 20:7; 1 Corinthians 5:4; 11:17–34; 14:23 → bodily “coming together” as constitutive or technologically adaptable presence?
- Hebrews 10:24–25 → assembling entails physical gathering, any synchronous fellowship, or covenant participation.
- 1 Corinthians 10:17; 11:20–22, 33 → one bread/body and waiting/eating together suggest shared place and meal.
- 2 John 12; 3 John 13–14; Romans 1:11–12 → letters serve at distance, but face-to-face presence is preferred for fullness.

**Decision logic:**

- Digital teaching/fellowship can be genuine while not constituting the assembly; model supplement and replacement separately.
- If one eldership, membership, discipline, and Supper define one church across sites, update `MULTISITE-ONE-CHURCH`; if regular assemblies hold the keys, update multiple churches.
- Emergency accommodation does not establish ordinary ecclesiology.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: ECC-01, polity, membership, sacramental presence. Downstream: livestream communion, remote voting, church planting.

**Relations:** Multisite correlates with large evangelical churches but can use episcopal or congregational logic.

**Incompatibilities:** “Physical co-presence is constitutive” conflicts with a permanently virtual church claiming full assembly status; it does not conflict with pastoral streaming.

**Booleanized identity labels:** online church, multisite church, house church, hybrid worship, gathered church.


Continuity of the fourth commandment

Question: Does the Sabbath command continue morally, continue transformed in the Lord’s Day, remain as creation rhythm without legal obligation, or find fulfillment in Christ?

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

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

**Question:** Does the Sabbath command continue morally, continue transformed in the Lord’s Day, remain as creation rhythm without legal obligation, or find fulfillment in Christ?

**Options:** `CHRISTIAN-SABBATH-CONTINUES`; `CREATION-ORDINANCE-CONTINUES`; `SABBATH-FULFILLED-NOT-BINDING`; `MORAL-PRINCIPLE-NOT-DAY-LAW`; `SEVENTH-DAY-CONTINUES`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Genesis 2:2–3; Exodus 16:22–30; 20:8–11 → creation ordinance before Sinai or retrospective foundation for Israel’s covenant sign?
- Exodus 31:12–17; Deuteronomy 5:12–15 → creation/moral command and specifically Mosaic covenant sign/redemption memorial.
- Isaiah 56:2–7; 58:13–14 → eschatological Gentile Sabbath observance or old-covenant prophetic blessing.
- Mark 2:27–28 → Sabbath for humanity and Son’s lordship imply continuity, or Jesus’ authority to fulfill/transform it.
- Romans 14:5–6; Galatians 4:10–11; Colossians 2:16–17 → day observance is liberty/shadow; whether “Sabbath” includes weekly command is decisive.
- Hebrews 4:1–11 → continuing “Sabbath-rest” as weekly observance, salvation rest, eschatological rest, or layered.

**Decision logic:**

- Creation grounding strongly updates some trans-Mosaic continuity.
- Identification as Mosaic covenant sign plus shadow language updates fulfillment/nonbinding.
- A moral rest-and-worship principle can remain while ceremonial day details lapse.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: law categories, covenant continuity, typology. Downstream: SAB-02/03, worship obligation, economics.

**Relations:** Christian Sabbath correlates with Reformed confessions; fulfillment/nonbinding with Lutheran, new-covenant, and many evangelical readings; seventh-day with Adventist/Sabbatarian groups.

**Incompatibilities:** “No day is morally binding” conflicts with “the fourth commandment binds one day in seven,” though both can encourage Sunday worship.

**Booleanized identity labels:** Sabbatarian, non-Sabbatarian, Christian Sabbath, creation ordinance, seventh-day.


Which day: seventh day, first day, or no divinely fixed day

Question: If a weekly sacred day continues, is it Saturday, Sunday, either by church order, or no fixed day?

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

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

**Question:** If a weekly sacred day continues, is it Saturday, Sunday, either by church order, or no fixed day?

**Options:** `SEVENTH-DAY-SATURDAY`; `FIRST-DAY-LORDS-DAY`; `APOSTOLIC-CHURCH-TRANSFER`; `ANY-ONE-DAY-IN-SEVEN`; `NO-DIVINELY-FIXED-DAY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 28:1–10; John 20:1, 19, 26 → resurrection and appearances on first day establish pattern or are narrative facts.
- Acts 20:7 → first-day bread-breaking as ordinary worship or one exceptional meeting.
- 1 Corinthians 16:1–2 → first-day financial setting aside indicates corporate gathering or private saving.
- Revelation 1:10 → “Lord’s Day” is Sunday, eschatological Day of the Lord, or imperial terminology.
- Exodus 20:8–11 → seventh day remains explicit; no New Testament verse says “the Sabbath changed.”
- Colossians 2:16; Romans 14:5 → no fixed sacred day under new covenant.

**Decision logic:**

- If fourth-commandment day specification continues unchanged, update Saturday.
- If resurrection plus apostolic gathering authoritatively reorients the weekly cycle, update Sunday/transfer.
- Sunday worship does not entail Sabbath transfer; model historical-resurrection gathering and moral Sabbatarianism separately.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: SAB-01, apostolic-practice normativity, church authority. Downstream: worship schedule, commerce, identity.

**Relations:** Sunday worship is near-universal across non-Sabbatarian and Christian-Sabbath traditions; Seventh-day Baptists and Adventists separate baptism/polity from day.

**Incompatibilities:** A divinely required seventh-day Saturday and a divinely transferred first-day obligation cannot both specify the exclusive day.

**Booleanized identity labels:** Sunday church, Seventh-day, Lord’s Day, Sabbath transfer, Adventist.


Permitted work, commerce, recreation, and mercy

Question: If Sabbath/Lord’s Day obligation remains, what activities are restricted?

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

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

**Question:** If Sabbath/Lord’s Day obligation remains, what activities are restricted?

**Options:** `STRICT-REST-AND-WORSHIP`; `WORKS-OF-NECESSITY-AND-MERCY`; `RECREATION-PERMITTED`; `COMMERCE-RESTRICTED`; `PERSONAL-CONSCIENCE`; `CORPORATE-WORSHIP-ONLY-OBLIGATION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Exodus 20:8–11; 34:21; Nehemiah 13:15–22 → ordinary labor and commerce cease; civil/covenantal Israel rule or moral pattern?
- Isaiah 58:13–14 → turning from “pleasure/own ways” forbids recreation, self-serving commerce, or irreverent pursuit.
- Matthew 12:1–14; Mark 2:23–28; Luke 13:10–17; John 5:1–18 → necessity, mercy, worship, and human good govern Sabbath.
- Matthew 12:5 → priestly temple work is blameless.
- Romans 14:5–6 → conscience liberty if day observance not morally fixed.

**Decision logic:**

- Strictness is downstream of SAB-01; do not infer it merely from Sunday attendance.
- Jesus rejects burdensome interpretation while affirming doing good; whether he relaxes or authoritatively interprets continuing law is the fork.
- “Recreation” is not one biblical category; assess restorative, commercial, competitive, and worship-displacing forms separately.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: SAB-01/02, civil-law continuity. Downstream: employment, sports, shopping, public policy.

**Relations:** Strict practice correlates with Puritan/Reformed Sabbatarianism; personal-conscience views with non-Sabbatarian evangelicalism.

**Incompatibilities:** A full-day divinely mandated cessation from ordinary commerce conflicts with treating commerce as morally indifferent that day.

**Booleanized identity labels:** strict Sabbatarian, blue-law, Lord’s Day observance, Sunday recreation.


Obligation and purpose of weekly corporate assembly

Question: Is weekly Lord’s Day assembly morally mandatory, covenantally ordinary with exceptions, or chiefly prudential?

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

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

**Question:** Is weekly Lord’s Day assembly morally mandatory, covenantally ordinary with exceptions, or chiefly prudential?

**Options:** `WEEKLY-ASSEMBLY-OBLIGATORY`; `ORDINARY-DUTY-WITH-PROVIDENTIAL-EXCEPTIONS`; `FREQUENT-ASSEMBLY-NOT-FIXED-DAY`; `SACRAMENTAL-SUNDAY-OBLIGATION`; `VOLUNTARY-FELLOWSHIP`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Hebrews 10:24–25 → do not forsake assembly, especially as Day approaches; weekly fixed meeting or sustained community participation?
- Acts 2:42–47; 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2 → frequent/first-day patterns.
- 1 Corinthians 11:18, 20, 33; 14:23 → expected whole-church gatherings.
- Revelation 1:10; John 20:19, 26 → Lord’s Day and resurrection rhythm.
- Romans 14:5 → freedom over days may coexist with common church order.

**Decision logic:**

- New Testament clearly expects recurring embodied assembly; exact weekly frequency derives from first-day pattern and historic reception.
- Distinguish moral obligation, church precept, and evidence of spiritual health.
- Illness, caregiving, danger, and works of necessity are exceptions, not rival doctrines.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: SAB-01/02, church authority, WOR-08. Downstream: discipline, attendance expectations, online accommodation.

**Relations:** Strong weekly obligation crosses Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, Baptist, and Pentecostal identities, though rationales differ.

**Incompatibilities:** Treating gathered worship as wholly optional to Christian discipleship conflicts with sustained New Testament assembly commands/patterns.

**Booleanized identity labels:** Sunday obligation, faithful attender, forsaking assembly, church online.


Bearer of the Great Commission

Question: Is the Great Commission given institutionally to the church and its officers, distributively to every disciple, particularly to cross-cultural missionaries, or in layered senses?

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

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

**Question:** Is the Great Commission given institutionally to the church and its officers, distributively to every disciple, particularly to cross-cultural missionaries, or in layered senses?

**Options:** `CHURCH-AS-INSTITUTION`; `EVERY-BELIEVER-DIRECTLY`; `APOSTLES-AND-SUCCESSORS`; `SPECIALLY-CALLED-MISSIONARIES`; `LAYERED-WHOLE-CHURCH-PARTICIPATION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 28:16–20 → addressed to the Eleven yet extending “to the end of the age”; authority passes to church officers, all disciples made by them, or both.
- Luke 24:44–49; Acts 1:8 → apostolic witness from Jerusalem to ends of earth; unique eyewitness mission or paradigm for church.
- John 20:21–23 → apostles sent as Jesus was sent; office-specific or whole-church identity?
- Acts 8:1–4; 11:19–21 → scattered ordinary believers announce the word.
- Romans 10:14–15; Acts 13:1–4 → heralds are sent/commissioned, suggesting differentiated missionary vocation.
- 1 Peter 2:9–12; 3:15 → all believers proclaim excellencies and give a defense.

**Decision logic:**

- Ordinary believer witness does not entail every believer possesses the same cross-cultural commission or office.
- Institutional responsibility can be fulfilled through members; individual duty and corporate authority are compatible layers.
- Baptizing, teaching, and disciplining churches suggest an ecclesial endpoint beyond isolated conversions.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: polity, office, baptism authority. Downstream: para-church legitimacy, missionary calling, funding, accountability.

**Relations:** Every-believer language correlates with evangelical activism; church-institution emphasis with confessional/sacramental ecclesiology; both often coexist.

**Incompatibilities:** “Only apostles personally were commissioned and the mandate ended with them” conflicts with the stated end-of-age horizon unless continuity is mediated another way.

**Booleanized identity labels:** missionary, missional, Great Commission Christian, sent one, evangelist.


Object and aim: individuals, peoples, nations, or social order

Question: Does “disciple all nations” chiefly mean make disciples from every people, disciple nations corporately, establish churches among peoples, or transform social orders?

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

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

**Question:** Does “disciple all nations” chiefly mean make disciples from every people, disciple nations corporately, establish churches among peoples, or transform social orders?

**Options:** `INDIVIDUALS-FROM-ALL-NATIONS`; `PEOPLE-GROUP-CHURCH-PLANTING`; `NATIONS-AS-CORPORATE-DISCIPLES`; `SOCIAL-ORDER-TRANSFORMATION`; `MULTILEVEL-DISCIPLESHIP`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 28:19 → grammatical object is “all nations”; nations as people groups whose members become disciples or corporate collectives that can be discipled.
- Genesis 12:3; Psalm 22:27–28; 72; Isaiah 2:2–4; 19:23–25; 49:6 → nations blessed and worshiping; conversion of peoples, rulers/societies, or eschatological consummation.
- Matthew 24:14; Revelation 5:9; 7:9 → witness and redeemed persons from every tribe/language/people/nation.
- Acts 14:21–23 → making disciples and establishing elders in local churches.
- Revelation 21:24–26; 22:2 → nations and kings in new creation; continuity of redeemed cultures or apocalyptic fullness.

**Decision logic:**

- If *ethnē* is distributive (“people from every nation”), update `INDIVIDUALS-FROM-ALL-NATIONS`.
- If prophetic national conversion texts are progressively fulfilled before the return, update corporate/social aims and likely postmillennial expectations.
- Even individual-focused readings usually imply church planting because disciples are baptized, taught, gathered, and led.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: eschatology, kingdom, covenant, prophecy fulfillment. Downstream: strategy, public theology, metrics, postmillennial identity.

**Relations:** Corporate discipling correlates with postmillennialism/theonomy but entails neither. People-group strategy correlates with modern evangelical missiology.

**Incompatibilities:** A mission exhausted by private individual salvation conflicts with models that treat transformed communal obedience as part of discipling, though all conservative options prioritize personal faith.

**Booleanized identity labels:** Great Commission, disciple the nations, unreached peoples, Christianization, missional.


Church, mission agency, and para-church authority

Question: May mission agencies independently send and govern missionaries, or should missions remain directly under local churches/denominations?

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

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

**Question:** May mission agencies independently send and govern missionaries, or should missions remain directly under local churches/denominations?

**Options:** `LOCAL-CHURCH-EXCLUSIVE-SENDING`; `DENOMINATIONAL-BOARD`; `PARACHURCH-AGENCY-LEGITIMATE`; `APOSTOLIC-TEAM-WITH-CHURCH-ACCOUNTABILITY`; `BIVOCATIONAL-SELF-SENT-WITH-RECOGNITION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 13:1–4; 14:26–28 → Antioch church/Spirit sends and receives report; church control, prayerful commendation, or partnership?
- Acts 15:36–41; 16:1–5 → mobile apostolic teams choose coworkers and act across churches.
- Philippians 4:10–18; 3 John 5–8 → churches financially partner with itinerant workers.
- 2 Corinthians 8:16–24 → interchurch appointed delegates form ad hoc cooperative agency.
- Romans 15:23–29 → Paul solicits support from a church for independently directed mission.

**Decision logic:**

- If baptism, discipline, doctrine, and ordination are exclusively church powers, agencies should not become quasi-churches even if logistics are delegated.
- Apostolic-team narratives support specialized translocal structures, but unique apostolic authority limits direct equivalence.
- Model sending authority, employment, funding, theological accountability, and field strategy separately.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: MIS-01, ECC-01, GOV-06. Downstream: missionary discipline, sacraments on field, donor control.

**Relations:** Agency legitimacy correlates with evangelical voluntarism; denominational boards with connectional churches; direct local sending with independent Baptist models.

**Incompatibilities:** An agency exercising church keys while denying it is a church conflicts with definitions making those keys constitutive, unless it acts by delegated church authority.

**Booleanized identity labels:** para-church, church-based missions, mission board, apostolic team, independent missionary.


Gospel proclamation and social action

Question: Is social mercy/justice part of the church’s mission, an implication of disciple-making, or chiefly the vocation of individual Christians?

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

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

**Question:** Is social mercy/justice part of the church’s mission, an implication of disciple-making, or chiefly the vocation of individual Christians?

**Options:** `PROCLAMATION-PRIORITY-CHURCH`; `WORD-AND-DEED-INTEGRAL-MISSION`; `CHURCH-MERCY-TO-ALL-WITH-PRIORITY-HOUSEHOLD`; `INSTITUTIONAL-SPIRITUAL-MISSION-INDIVIDUAL-SOCIAL-VOCATION`; `KINGDOM-TRANSFORMATION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 4:23; 9:35; Luke 4:16–21 → Jesus proclaims and heals; unique messianic signs or mission pattern.
- Matthew 25:31–46 → mercy to “least of these” means persecuted disciples/messengers, all needy people, or both.
- Luke 10:25–37; Galatians 6:10; James 1:27; 2:14–17 → broad neighbor love and practical care.
- Acts 6:1–7; 11:27–30; 2 Corinthians 8–9 → institutional church relief, often focused on believers.
- Acts 14:17; 17:22–31; Romans 1–3 → common grace/creation and explicit repentance proclamation.
- Matthew 28:18–20 → teach obedience to all Christ commanded, potentially including justice and mercy.

**Decision logic:**

- Distinguish mission’s unique center (gospel/disciples), necessary fruit (love/justice), institutional competencies, and all-Christian vocation.
- Evidence of church-administered relief establishes some corporate mercy ministry, though not every modern policy program.
- If kingdom transformation is the commission’s direct object, social action receives constitutive rather than derivative status.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: kingdom, church/state distinction, Great Commission scope. Downstream: budgets, NGOs, political engagement, mission metrics.

**Relations:** Integral mission correlates with Lausanne-style evangelicalism and some mainline language, but theological content differs. Two-kingdoms correlates with institutional narrowing, not personal quietism.

**Incompatibilities:** “The institutional church must never organize material relief” conflicts with Acts/Pauline relief examples. “Social improvement without gospel witness exhausts mission” conflicts with explicit proclamation commands.

**Booleanized identity labels:** social gospel, integral mission, holistic mission, word-and-deed, gospel-centered.


Contextualization and syncretism

Question: How far may missionaries adapt language, forms, customs, and social belonging without compromising the gospel?

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

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

**Question:** How far may missionaries adapt language, forms, customs, and social belonging without compromising the gospel?

**Options:** `MINIMAL-CONTEXTUALIZATION`; `CRITICAL-CONTEXTUALIZATION`; `FUNCTIONAL-EQUIVALENCE`; `HIGH-CONTEXTUALIZATION`; `INSIDER-MOVEMENT`; `EXTRACTION-AND-VISIBLE-SEPARATION`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 15:1–29; Galatians 2:1–14; 1 Corinthians 7:17–24 → Gentiles need not adopt Jewish culture; social continuity where possible, bounded by gospel truth.
- Acts 17:16–34; 1 Corinthians 9:19–23 → Paul uses local categories and adapts for mission without joining idolatry.
- 1 Corinthians 8–10 → cultural participation assessed through idolatrous meaning, conscience, witness, and thanksgiving.
- 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:9–10 → decisive separation from idolatry.
- 2 Kings 5:17–19 and 1 Corinthians 7:20–24 → difficult cases of continued social location; not direct endorsement of insider identity.
- Revelation 2:14, 20 → accommodation can become syncretism.

**Decision logic:**

- Separate neutral form, socially contested symbol, explicitly false confession, and idolatrous ritual participation.
- Gospel translation requires contextualization; the dispute concerns boundaries, not whether context matters.
- High-context models gain probability when continued identity does not communicate false worship; lose probability when communal meaning necessarily affirms another lord or denies Christ.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: law/food/idolatry, ecclesial identity, religious profession. Downstream: insider movements, Bible translation, worship forms.

**Relations:** Insider movements correlate with frontier mission agencies; extraction models with separatist churches. Neither maps perfectly to conservative/liberal.

**Incompatibilities:** Explicitly affirming propositions that deny Christ’s deity, death, or lordship is incompatible with faithful contextualization, even if privately redefined.

**Booleanized identity labels:** contextual, indigenous, insider movement, syncretistic, extractionist.


Church planting, conversion, and “belonging before believing”

Question: Is the normal missionary aim a gathered church of professing converts, gradual incorporation of seekers, renewal of existing churches, or broader networks?

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

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

**Question:** Is the normal missionary aim a gathered church of professing converts, gradual incorporation of seekers, renewal of existing churches, or broader networks?

**Options:** `CONVERT-BAPTIZE-GATHER`; `BELONG-BEFORE-BELIEVE`; `HOUSEHOLD-NETWORK-CONVERSION`; `RENEW-EXISTING-CHURCHES`; `DISCIPLE-MAKING-MOVEMENTS`; `SACRAMENTAL-INCORPORATION-THEN-CATECHESIS`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 2:37–47; 8:12; 14:21–23 → repentance/faith, baptism, addition, teaching, elders: compressed narrative or prescribed sequence.
- Matthew 28:19–20 → baptism and teaching as discipling process; order grammatically underdetermined.
- Luke 14:25–33 → count cost before claiming discipleship.
- John 1:39–46; 4:39–42; 1 Corinthians 14:23–25 → seekers encounter community before full confession.
- Acts 10; 16:14–34; 18:8 → household/social-network spread.
- 1 Corinthians 3:5–10; Titus 1:5 → planting, watering, ordered maturation.

**Decision logic:**

- Distinguish social welcome, catechumenate, visible membership, baptism, and assurance; “belong” is otherwise ambiguous.
- Narrative sequence strongly updates `CONVERT-BAPTIZE-GATHER` for adult converts.
- Household-network methods gain support as social conduits, not proof that a head’s faith saves or baptizes all automatically.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: baptism subjects/efficacy, membership, conversion. Downstream: seeker services, movement metrics, ecclesial depth.

**Relations:** Disciple-making movements correlate with rapid multiplication strategies; sacramental incorporation with paedobaptist mission; seeker belonging with attractional churches.

**Incompatibilities:** Full membership without any Christian profession conflicts with regenerate/professing membership models, though nonmember belonging can be broad.

**Booleanized identity labels:** church planter, seeker-sensitive, disciple-making movement, attractional, missional community.


Priority: unreached peoples, local need, or strategic opportunity

Question: Should missions prioritize peoples with no viable church, all places equally, receptive fields, cities, or the poor/marginalized?

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

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

**Question:** Should missions prioritize peoples with no viable church, all places equally, receptive fields, cities, or the poor/marginalized?

**Options:** `UNREACHED-PEOPLES-PRIORITY`; `NO-ACCESS-FIRST`; `LOCAL-AND-GLOBAL-BALANCE`; `STRATEGIC-CITIES`; `RECEPTIVE-FIELDS`; `POOR-AND-MARGINALIZED-PRIORITY`; `CHURCH-STRENGTHENING`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Romans 15:19–24; 2 Corinthians 10:13–16 → Paul’s ambition not to build on another foundation supports pioneering priority or his unique apostolic calling.
- Matthew 24:14; 28:19; Revelation 7:9 → every nation/people represented.
- Acts 1:8 → simultaneous local-regional-global witness, not necessarily a chronological ladder.
- Acts 13–19 → strategic urban centers with regional diffusion.
- Luke 4:18; 6:20; 14:13–24; James 2:1–7 → good news and welcome to poor/marginalized; spiritual/economic senses debated.
- Acts 14:21–23; 15:36, 41; 18:23 → Paul revisits and strengthens existing churches.

**Decision logic:**

- Paul supplies a strong pioneering-mission example but the body has diverse callings; do not universalize one apostolic strategy to every church.
- “Unreached” is an operational construct; separate no access, no believers, no indigenous church, and low percentage.
- Priorities should be modeled as portfolio weights under finite resources, not exclusive truth claims.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: Great Commission object, eschatology, spiritual gifts. Downstream: funding, deployment, training, metrics.

**Relations:** Unreached-peoples priority correlates with evangelical mission agencies; parish/local balance with established churches; city strategy with church-planting networks.

**Incompatibilities:** “All mission resources must go only where no church exists” conflicts with apostolic strengthening of existing churches.

**Booleanized identity labels:** frontier missions, unreached, home missions, urban church planting, global missions.


Missionary vocation, tentmaking, and financial support

Question: Is a special missionary call required, and should missionaries be salaried, self-supporting, or flexibly supported?

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

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

**Question:** Is a special missionary call required, and should missionaries be salaried, self-supporting, or flexibly supported?

**Options:** `SUBJECTIVE-CALL-PLUS-CHURCH-CONFIRMATION`; `OBJECTIVE-GIFT-OPPORTUNITY-COMMISSION`; `DIRECT-DIVINE-CALL`; `FULL-TIME-SUPPORTED`; `TENTMAKING`; `MIXED-SUPPORT`; `NO-DISTINCT-MISSIONARY-CALL`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Acts 13:1–4; 16:6–10 → Spirit/direct vision calls and church commissions; universal model or apostolic guidance?
- Romans 1:1; Galatians 1:15–16 → Paul’s exceptional apostolic call.
- Romans 10:14–15 → preachers must be sent; by God, church, or both.
- 1 Corinthians 9:3–18; 2 Corinthians 11:7–9; Philippians 4:10–18 → right to support alongside voluntary nonuse.
- Acts 18:1–4; 20:33–35; 1 Thessalonians 2:9 → tentmaking for witness and nonburden.
- 3 John 5–8 → churches should support workers so they take nothing from outsiders.

**Decision logic:**

- A mysterious subjective call is not the only biblical route; gifting, character, opportunity, desire, and church sending can jointly ground vocation.
- Supported ministry is a right, not an exceptionless command; tentmaking is an apostolic option, not a superior spirituality.
- Financial model should update with field access, scandal risk, local economics, and church maturity.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: Spirit guidance, church sending, office. Downstream: candidate assessment, fundraising, bivocational ministry.

**Relations:** “Missionary call” language correlates with revivalist evangelicalism; tentmaking with business-as-mission and access-limited contexts.

**Incompatibilities:** “Receiving support is unspiritual” conflicts with Paul’s explicit defense of the right; “all missionaries must be salaried” conflicts with his voluntary tentmaking.

**Booleanized identity labels:** called missionary, tentmaker, faith mission, supported worker, business as mission.


Women in cross-cultural mission

Question: Which missionary functions may women perform, especially where church planting involves evangelism, theological teaching, or temporary leadership?

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

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

**Question:** Which missionary functions may women perform, especially where church planting involves evangelism, theological teaching, or temporary leadership?

**Options:** `ALL-MISSION-ROLES`; `ALL-NONELDER-ROLES`; `WOMEN-AND-CHILDREN-MINISTRY`; `EVANGELISM-AND-TEAM-LEADERSHIP-NOT-LOCAL-ELDERSHIP`; `MALE-HEADSHIP-ON-MIXED-TEAMS`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Romans 16:1–7, 12; Philippians 4:2–3 → women as deacon/patron, coworkers, laborers, and possibly Junia among/well known to apostles.
- Acts 16:14–15, 40; 18:24–26; 21:9 → Lydia hosts a church, Priscilla instructs Apollos with Aquila, daughters prophesy.
- John 4:28–42; Matthew 28:1–10 → women bear decisive witness, though not necessarily ordained office.
- 1 Timothy 2:11–15; 1 Corinthians 14:33–35 → restrictions apply cross-culturally, only to settled church office, or contextually?
- Titus 1:5 → church plants should reach qualified elders.

**Decision logic:**

- GEN-01 and GEN-03 are upstream; do not create a stricter rule overseas merely by applying the label “missionary.”
- If temporary missionary authority is apostolic/elder-like, male-office restrictions update limits; if it is evangelistic/team authority, the inference weakens.
- Historical necessity does not itself settle biblical permission, but examples of female coworkers carry positive weight.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: GEN-01 to GEN-03, missionary office, apostle/evangelist distinctions. Downstream: team structure, ordination, field practice.

**Relations:** Conservative complementarians span from broad female mission leadership to women-only ministry; “complementarian missionary” is not a single option.

**Incompatibilities:** Women serving as local elders is incompatible with a universal male-elder rule; women evangelizing or leading logistics is not inherently so.

**Booleanized identity labels:** woman missionary, missionary pastor, complementarian missions, egalitarian missions.


Conversion, coercion, and religious liberty

Question: May civil, familial, economic, or institutional pressure be used to bring people into Christian profession?

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

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

**Question:** May civil, familial, economic, or institutional pressure be used to bring people into Christian profession?

**Options:** `VOLUNTARY-FAITH-AND-RELIGIOUS-LIBERTY`; `CIVIL-SUPPORT-NO-COERCED-CONVERSION`; `ESTABLISHMENT-WITH-PENALTIES-FOR-PUBLIC-ERROR`; `HOUSEHOLD-OR-CORPORATE-INCORPORATION`; `MISSION-BY-PERSUASION-AND-SERVICE`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- Matthew 10:14; Mark 10:21–22; John 6:60–71 → hearers may refuse and depart; judgment belongs to God.
- Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43 → do not uproot tares; field is explicitly world, so church-state application is analogical.
- John 18:36; 2 Corinthians 4:1–5; 10:3–5 → kingdom advances by truth, not worldly compulsion or manipulation.
- Acts 8:9–24; 13:6–12; 16:16–40; 19:8–10 → preaching contests spiritual/political powers yet seeks persuasion.
- 1 Peter 3:15–16; 2 Timothy 2:24–26 → gentleness in apologetics/correction.
- Luke 14:23 “compel them to come in” → urgent invitation, providential grace, or literal coercion? Parable genre sharply limits coercive inference.

**Decision logic:**

- Genuine faith cannot be mechanically produced by force; the remaining question is whether magistrates may restrain public false worship or support truth.
- Distinguish evangelistic persuasion, church discipline of professing members, parental formation of children, and civil coercion of outsiders.
- Means that exploit material vulnerability can undermine the credibility of profession even when aid itself is commanded.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: ECC-07, anthropology/conversion, household covenant. Downstream: baptismal consent, mission ethics, establishment.

**Relations:** Religious liberty correlates with Baptist/free-church identity; establishment with some Reformed/Anglican/Catholic histories. Modern adherents vary.

**Incompatibilities:** Forced verbal assent as a valid conversion conflicts with accounts requiring personal faith; civil establishment need not entail forced baptism.

**Booleanized identity labels:** religious liberty, proselytism, coercive mission, establishment, free church.


Mission to Jewish people and dual-covenant proposals

Question: Does the church have a distinct obligation to evangelize Jewish people, and is explicit faith in Christ necessary for them?

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

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

**Question:** Does the church have a distinct obligation to evangelize Jewish people, and is explicit faith in Christ necessary for them?

**Options:** `ONE-GOSPEL-JEW-FIRST`; `ONE-GOSPEL-NO-STRATEGIC-PRIORITY`; `DISTINCT-JEWISH-MISSION`; `DUAL-COVENANT`; `FUTURE-SOVEREIGN-CONVERSION-WITH-PRESENT-WITNESS`; `MESSIANIC-JEWISH-CONTINUITY`.

**Key texts and interpretive forks:**

- John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Romans 3:22–30; 10:1–17 → one saving gospel for Jew and Gentile.
- Matthew 10:5–6; 15:24; Acts 1:8; 13:46; Romans 1:16 → salvation-historical “Jew first,” continuing strategic priority, or completed apostolic order?
- Romans 9–11 → present remnant, Gentile mission provoking jealousy, and possible future “all Israel”; supports ongoing concern without specifying agency strategy.
- 1 Corinthians 9:20; Acts 21:17–26 → contextual Jewish practice without making law a saving covenant.
- Galatians 2:11–21; 5:2–6 → one table and justification, resisting separate saving paths.

**Decision logic:**

- If explicit union with Christ is necessary for all, lower `DUAL-COVENANT`.
- A future sovereign restoration does not remove present evangelistic duty unless a separate text suspends it.
- Messianic Jewish cultural continuity must be separated from theological claims of two churches or two means of justification.

**Dependencies:** Upstream: ECC-03, soteriology, eschatology. Downstream: agency priorities, contextualization, interfaith relations.

**Relations:** Distinct Jewish mission correlates with dispensational and some Reformed evangelical groups; dual-covenant views are uncommon in conservative inerrantist theology.

**Incompatibilities:** Two saving covenants, one without Christ, conflicts with universal one-gospel claims in Acts/Romans under standard conservative readings.

**Booleanized identity labels:** Jewish missions, Messianic Jewish, dual covenant, Israel-first, replacement theology.


Covenant/dispensational architecture

Question: Which position is best supported for “Covenant/dispensational architecture”?

VII. Eschatology and Israel/church questions

**Question:** Which position is best supported for “Covenant/dispensational architecture”?

**Type:** categorical archetypes, best treated as a latent framework profile rather than a single proved proposition.

**Options**

- `ESC-FRM-01.CT`: One covenant of grace administered across biblical covenants; the church is the one transhistorical people of God in Christ.
- `ESC-FRM-01.PC`: Progressive covenantalism/new-covenant theology: the biblical covenants culminate typologically in Christ and the new-covenant people, without requiring the classic covenant-of-grace construction.
- `ESC-FRM-01.PD`: Progressive dispensationalism: one salvation and one new humanity, with already/not-yet fulfillment and a continuing corporate future for Israel.
- `ESC-FRM-01.CD`: Classic/revised dispensationalism: distinguish Israel and the church as covenantal-historical administrations, with national promises to Israel still requiring distinctive fulfillment.

**Key texts:** Genesis 12:1–3; 15; 17; Exodus 19:4–6; 2 Samuel 7; Jeremiah 31:31–37; Luke 22:20; Acts 2; Romans 4; 9–11; Galatians 3–4; Ephesians 2–3; Hebrews 8–10; 1 Peter 2:4–10.

**Interpretive forks:** whether the Abrahamic land, seed, and nation promises are expanded, transposed, or preserved in their original national form; whether the new covenant is made directly with the church, with Israel and shared by the church, or with the Christ-defined people of God; whether typology may exhaust a promise or only enlarge it.

**Dependencies:** Upstream of `ESC-ISR-01`, `ESC-ISR-03`, `ESC-DAV-01`, `ESC-TEM-01`, and often `ESC-MIL-01`. It also influences, but does not determine, baptism and ecclesiology outside this catalog.

**Relations:** `CT` strongly correlates with amillennialism or postmillennialism; `CD` with dispensational premillennialism and a pretribulational rapture; `PD` often combines inaugurated kingdom theology with future national-Israel expectations. None of those are hard entailments. Modern dispensationalism ordinarily affirms salvation through Christ alone; “two ways of salvation” is not a fair default description.

**Identity descriptors:** confessional Reformed/Presbyterian and many Reformed Baptists (`CT`, with internal differences); some conservative Baptist/free-church theologians (`PC`); Bible-church, independent Baptist, and dispensational seminary traditions (`CD`/`PD`).


Question: Which position is best supported for “How Old Testament promises reach their eschatological fulfillment”?

VII. Eschatology and Israel/church questions

**Question:** Which position is best supported for “How Old Testament promises reach their eschatological fulfillment”?

**Type:** ordered spectrum or passage-by-passage mixture.

**Options**

- `ESC-HERM-01.DIRECT`: grammatical-historical referents, especially Israel, land, temple, and nations, remain controlling in the final fulfillment.
- `ESC-HERM-01.TYPO`: Christological/apostolic typology can transform the form of fulfillment: land can expand to world/new creation, temple to Christ/church, and Israel to the Messiah-defined covenant people.
- `ESC-HERM-01.BOTH`: typological inauguration and a later concrete national/territorial fulfillment are both intended.
- `ESC-HERM-01.CASE`: no global rule; infer the fulfillment mode independently for each promise.

**Key texts:** Genesis 12; 15; 17; Isaiah 2; 11; 19; 60–66; Ezekiel 36–48; Amos 9:11–15; Matthew 2:15; John 2:19–22; Acts 2; 7; 15:13–18; Romans 4:13; Galatians 3:16, 26–29; Hebrews 3–4; 11:8–16; 1 Peter 2; Revelation 21–22.

**Interpretive forks:** authorial intent versus canonical sensus plenior; whether later revelation merely clarifies or can reconfigure an earlier promise; whether “literal” properly describes referent, genre, fulfillment, or all three.

**Dependencies:** A high-leverage parent for nearly every Israel, temple, and millennium variable. It should not be counted as independent evidence again after its passage-level consequences have been used.

**Relations:** `DIRECT` correlates with dispensationalism; `TYPO` with covenant theology/progressive covenantalism; `BOTH` with progressive dispensationalism. These remain soft correlations.

**Identity descriptors:** “literalist,” “grammatical-historical,” “Christocentric,” “redemptive-historical,” and “typological” often function as identity words but are too underspecified to use as binary labels.


Date of Revelation

Question: Which position is best supported for “Date of Revelation”?

VII. Eschatology and Israel/church questions

**Question:** Which position is best supported for “Date of Revelation”?

**Type:** categorical historical hypothesis.

**Options**

- `ESC-REV-01.EARLY`: composed before Jerusalem’s destruction, commonly placed in the late 60s.
- `ESC-REV-01.LATE`: composed in the late first century, commonly in the reign of Domitian.
- `ESC-REV-01.OTHER`: another first-century date or a composite/redaction hypothesis.

**Key textual data:** Revelation 1:1, 3, 9; 2–3; 6:9–11; 11:1–13; 13:18; 17:9–11; 22:6, 10. Dating also depends substantially on external patristic evidence, so it cannot honestly be derived from biblical texts alone.

**Interpretive forks:** whether the temple in Revelation 11 is standing, remembered, or symbolic; the referent of 666; the seven kings; the condition of the seven churches; how to read Irenaeus and other external witnesses.

**Dependencies:** Influences `ESC-REV-02`, `ESC-OLIV-01`, `ESC-BAB-01`, and `ESC-MARK-01`.

**Relations:** `EARLY` raises the probability of a substantial first-century/preterist horizon but does not entail it. `LATE` sharply lowers readings requiring the whole book to predict AD 70, but remains compatible with idealist, eclectic, and futurist readings.

**Identity descriptors:** early dating is common among partial preterists and some postmillennial Reformed writers; late dating is common across Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, Lutheran, and evangelical scholarship.


Question: Which position is best supported for “Dominant fulfillment horizon of Revelation”?

VII. Eschatology and Israel/church questions

**Question:** Which position is best supported for “Dominant fulfillment horizon of Revelation”?

**Type:** mixture variable; the four lenses need not be mutually exclusive. Prefer assigning each passage a horizon or assigning explanatory weights.

**Options**

- `ESC-REV-02.PRET`: substantial fulfillment in the first-century conflict involving Jerusalem and/or Rome.
- `ESC-REV-02.HIST`: successive fulfillment through major periods of church history.
- `ESC-REV-02.FUT`: substantial fulfillment in a concentrated crisis immediately before Christ’s return.
- `ESC-REV-02.IDEAL`: symbolic portrayals of recurring church-age conflict, worship, witness, judgment, and victory.
- `ESC-REV-02.ECL`: consciously layered/eclectic: first-century referent, recurring pattern, and final climax.

**Key texts:** Revelation 1:1, 3, 19; 4–5; 6:9–17; 7; 11; 12–14; 17–20; 22:6–10.

**Interpretive forks:** the force of “soon” and “near”; whether symbols have one historical referent or patterned recurrences; whether the visions narrate sequence or recapitulate; whether “earth/land” is global or Judean in a given context.

**Dependencies:** Conditioned by `ESC-REV-01`, `ESC-HERM-01`, and `ESC-REV-03`; upstream of the beast, Babylon, mark, witnesses, tribulation, millennium, and war variables.

**Relations:** partial preterism often pairs with amillennialism or postmillennialism; futurism with premillennialism, especially dispensational; idealism with amillennialism; historicism with older Protestant polemics and Seventh-day Adventism. Eclectic readings cut across traditions.

**Identity descriptors:** “preterist” must be qualified as partial or full. Partial preterists retain a future visible return, resurrection, and judgment. Full preterism crosses the historic-creedal boundary noted above.


Structure of Revelation’s visions

Question: Which position is best supported for “Structure of Revelation’s visions”?

VII. Eschatology and Israel/church questions

**Question:** Which position is best supported for “Structure of Revelation’s visions”?

**Type:** categorical dominant model, with a hybrid option.

**Options**

- `ESC-REV-03.PROG`: mainly chronological progression; later series and Revelation 20 follow earlier events in time.
- `ESC-REV-03.RECAP`: substantial recapitulation; seals, trumpets, bowls, and final-battle scenes retell the age/finale from different angles.
- `ESC-REV-03.TELE`: telescoping progression: the seventh seal contains trumpets and the seventh trumpet contains bowls.
- `ESC-REV-03.HYB`: local sequence inside cycles plus global recapitulation or interlocking.

**Key texts:** Revelation 6:12–17; 8:1–2; 10:7; 11:15–19; 12:1–6; 14:14–20; 15:1; 16:17–21; 19:11–21; 20:1–10.

**Interpretive forks:** repeated end-of-world imagery; whether “then/after this” marks visionary order or historical order; interludes; the relationship of the battles in chapters 16, 19, and 20.

**Dependencies:** Upstream of `ESC-MIL-01`, `ESC-RES-01`, `ESC-JDG-01`, and `ESC-WAR-01`.

**Relations:** `PROG` strongly supports premillennial readings of Revelation 19–20; `RECAP` supports amillennial/postmillennial readings. This is a conditional dependence, not a strict entailment, because local recapitulation can coexist with a future millennium.

**Identity descriptors:** sequential/futurist readings are common in dispensational premillennialism; recapitulation is common in Augustinian, Reformed amillennial, and idealist traditions.