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CHICAGO STUDIES
Episcopal theologians are impressed by the resemblance between the Greek word for supervisor and the later derivative "bishop." They are inclined to feel that when the elders are said to be "episkopoi" over the church (Acts 20, 28), bishops are being identified at Ephesus. They sense at once how fitting it is that when the type of man to be appointed elder is described (1 Tim. 3, 5), that man's character should be analyzed in terms Of the qualities needed by a "supervisor" (1 Tim. 3, 6). They see at once how this may imply that "episkopos" is an already known office with distinctive duties of its own. They can feel power of an argument from this to some New Testament familiarity with an emerging monarchical episcopate. Certain christian churches are more impressed with the fact that there seems to be a class of "evangelists" and feel they can quite satisfactorily carry out the Lord's mandate (Mt. 28. 19; 16, 15) with no more ecclesiastical apparatus than this. Lutherans respond to every mention of the "ministry of the word," and are impressed by the overwhelming frequency of New Testament references to it. To them there is nothing imolausible in seeing the whole sweep of apparently diverse ministries and missions as reducing essentially to this one. Hill-country sects point with confidence to tl!e four marks of the church in Mark 16, 17 f.: "And signs shall follow those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues, they will take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them." Roman Catholics recognize in "JH¡esbnteros" the etymological origin (though not the translation) of our priests; in e]Jiskopoi and diakonoi the antecedents of om own bishops and deacons; in the commands, laws and directives given, the authority-structures of catholicism. We tend to see in the laying on of hands our sacrament of Orders; in the prayers over the sick our sacramental anointing. And ;n the repeated promises of our Lord (that¡ Peter's faith would not fail-Lk. 22, 32; that the gates of hell would not overcome his church-Mt. 1"6, 18; that he would be with his disciples all days-Mt. 28, 20) we find assurance that the visible historical succession of persons and ministers from New Testament times to the present is a guarantee that genuine christianity lives in our church today.