Restoring the Household

The Quest of the Grace Brethren Church

Todd Scoles

• Publisher: BMH Books
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN:
  9780884693222
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

Restoring the Household presents a summary of church history and the theological/political forces leading up to the Alexander Mack baptism in the Eder River of Germany in 1708, which is generally considered the starting-point of the Brethren movement.

Scoles also has significant discussion of the Brethren ordinances of trine immersion baptism and threefold communion, and concludes with an insightful look at some of the dynamics surrounding the founding of Grace Theological Seminary and the Grace Brethren movement in the late 1930s.

The book is based, in part, on research Scoles did for his D.Min. dissertation at Ashland Theological Seminary.

Endnotes

Notes for Introduction

1. John Lewis Gillin, The Dunkers: A Sociological Interpretation (New York: AMS Press, 1906), 60.

2. Donald F. Durnbaugh, ed., European Origins of the Brethren (Elgin, Ill.: The Brethren Press, 1958), 122.

3. Ibid., 160.

4. James Quinter, A Vindication of Trine Immersion as the Apostolic Form of Christian Baptism (Huntingdon, Pa.: The Brethren’s Publishing Co., 1886), 232.

5. Alexander Mack, The First Brethren Tract in William R. Eberly, ed., The Complete Writings of Alexander Mack (Winona Lake, Ind.: BMH Books, 1991), 10-11.

6. Henry R. Holsinger, History of the Tunkers and the Brethren Church (Oakland: Pacific Press Publishing Co., 1901), 35.

7. Mack, First Brethren Tract, 13.

8. Merle D. Strege, Baptism & Church: A Believers’ Church Vision (Grand Rapids: Sagamore Books, 1986), 29. Gemeinschaft and Gemeinde are German words used by the early Brethren to indicate a community bound together by a common center of belief. They preferred these words to the designation Kirche or church.

9. Carl F. Bowman, Brethren Society: The Cultural Transformation of a “Peculiar People” (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 76.

10. Dale R. Stoffer, Background and Development of Brethren Doctrines 1650-1987 (Philadelphia: The Brethren Encyclopedia,, 1989), 71.

11. Alexander Mack, Basic Questions in William R. Eberly, ed., The Complete Writings of Alexander Mack (Winona Lake, Ind., BMH Books, 1991), 23.

12. E. H. Broadbent, The Pilgrim Church (Grand Rapids: Gospel Folio Press, 1999), 404.

13. Ibid., 17.

14. Stoffer, Background and Development, 84.

15. Broadbent, The Pilgrim Church, 181.

16. The Brethren Encyclopedia (Philadelphia and Oak Brook, Ill.: The Brethren Encyclopedia, 1983), 1100.

17. Holsinger, History of the Tunkers, 26.

18. Mack, Basic Questions, in Eberly, ed., The Complete Writings of Alexander Mack, 25-26.

19. Durnbaugh, European Origins of the Brethren, 11.

Notes for Chapter 1

20. Richard E. Averbeck, “The Focus of Baptism in the New Testament,” Grace Theological Journal 2 (Issue 2: 1981), 288.

21. F. F. Bruce, The Book of Acts (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 70.

22. Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 329.

23. I. Howard Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982), 82.

24. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary, 330.

25. Homer A. Kent, Jr., Studies in the Gospel of Mark (Winona Lake, Ind.: BMH Books, 1981), 149.

26. Everett F. Harrison, Acts: The Expanding Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1975),...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Table of Contents
• Table of Figures
• Introduction
• Section I: Brethren Roots
• Section II: Brethren Foundations
• Section III: Brethren Development
• Section IV: The Grace Brethren
• Appendix A: The Message of the Brethren Ministry
• Appendix B: The Statement of Faith of the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches
• Endnotes
• Selected Bibliography