Earticle

Recently, the culture of funeral worship is changing rapidly from burial to cremation and Christians also tend to prefer to use the type of cremation when they have a funeral service. So many churches are not easy to ignore the context when they preach to Christians at the cremation service. Culture has amazing power to change the environment so it is important that churches consider to reflect the period and handle the culture. In order to accomplish this, first of all, churches have to know various thoughts of the Christians and avoid to interpret the scripture literally. In other words, It is sure that the church has to have various resources such as ethical and culture understanding about the context debates. According to Billy Graham, he gives an answer the question which is that is cremation against to the Bible? he says, “Christians’ concern is to think the body disappear as they cremate the body”. At this point, it is important to have right perspective about it. A body is going to disappear whether it is cremated or buried. In addition, ancestors’ cemetery no longer exists. The cemeteries that ancestors buried already move to other places because the soil already decayed. Therefore, Christians have to accept that there is nothing wrong about revival with cremation worship. The resurrection of believers is related to the Resurrection of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15, but this does not mean that the resurrection is same with the resurrection of Lazarus. Lazarus needed the tomb as he resurrected, but the believers of the time did not recognize Jesus Christ as he resurrected. Paul says, “And what you sow is not the body that is to be,” The body of resurrection does not mean to have same body as before, but mean uncorrupted body so Paul compared living in temporary house with living in eternal house. the body of Christians is like a tent, but the body that is resurrected is eternal house. the appearance is similar with the house, but the reality is totally different. Therefore, the cremation is not related with the resurrection. Then, what is the role of the church in funeral worship? There are two important roles which is to provide biblical and evangelical funeral sermon for Christians.

20세기 후반 한국 교회는 단기간에 엄청난 양적 부흥을 이룩했으나 최근 성장이 멈추고 서서히 내리막길로 달리고 있다. 인구 감소와 물질적 풍요, 도덕적 아노미현상, 유사 기독교와 이단들의 발호 등 많은 원인이 있지만 가장 중요한 문제는 교회 자체에 있다. 한국 교회는 과거에 비해 기도와 전도의 열기가 식었으며 지도자들의 열정이 보편화, 대중화되었다. 이러한 대중화된 모습은 교회 성장을 이루기 위한 프로그램에서도 나타나고 있다. 교회는 다양한 전도 프로그램을 개발하였지만 그 방법과 원리는 아주 유사한 모습을 볼 수 있다. 교회 안에서 이루어지고 있는 초신자를 위한 초청잔치도 총동원 주일, 새생명 축제등 다양한 이름으로 초청잔치가 이루어지고 있지만 한계에 부딪쳐 있는 현실이다. 이러한 모임을 통해 교회에 사람들이 몰려오지만 진정 회개하고 복음으로 변화를 가져오지 못하고 있는 것이 현실이다. 예수님은 초청잔치를 행하지 않으셨다. 예수님은 제자들에게 사람들을 모아 오라고 보내지 않았으며 주변 마을과 성읍에 광고도 하지 않으셨다. 예수님은 전도자를 세우시는 일을 통해 복음을 전하셨다. 전도자들을 훈련시키시고 그들에게 권능을 주셔서 파송하고 계셨다. 그래서 본 논문은 한계에 부딪쳐 있는 한국 교회는 예수님에게로 돌아가야 함을 다시한번 인지시키고자 한다. 무엇보다 교회의 성장을 다시 이루기 위한 해결책은 마태복음 10장에 나타나고 있는 예수님의 전도자를 세우는 원리로 돌아가야 한다. 본 논문은 서론을 포함하여 총 6장으로 구성되었다. 각 장의 내용은 전적으로 성경중심적이며 실천지향적인 성격을 가진다. 1장은 서론으로 21세기 한국교회의 침체원인을 내부적 요인과 외부적 요인으로 살펴보며 마태복음 10장을 연구하게 된 배경을 서술한다. 2장에서는 전도를 정의하고 전도자와 설교의 관계를 고찰해본다. 3장은 마태복음 10장을 주제별로 단락을 나누어 해석하며 전도자를 파송하는 예수님의 설교를 집중적으로 살펴보고 전도자를 세우는 원리를 이끌어 낼 것이다. 4장은 성경 속의 전도자와 초기 한국교회의 전도자를 통해 예수님이 전도자를 세우는 설교원리를 조명하고 실증한다. 5장에서는 본문에 근거하여 전도자를 세우는 설교의 예를 들고 있다. 결과적으로 이 논문을 통하여 전도자가 세워져서 모든 교회가 주님께서 기뻐하시는 교회가 되기를 기대해본다.

In the second half of the 20th century, Korean churches achieved massive quantitative growth in a short period of time, but recently this spurt has stopped and churches are slowly going downhill. There are many causes for this decline such as population decline, material affluence, anomie, quasi-Christianity and heresy, but the most important issue is within the church itself. Korean churches are less passionate about praying and evangelism compared to the past, and the passion of the leaders has become universalized and popularized. Similar forms of preaching and programs made churches fall into a state of general similarity. This popularization can also be seen in growth programs. Churches have developed various evangelism programs, but the methods and principles are very similar to each other. Invitation programs for new believers are held under various names such as Full Attendance Sunday, New Life Day, but these events have reached their limits. People come to church through these gatherings, but they are not able to achieve true repentance or change through the gospel. Jesus did not run invitation programs. Jesus did not send His disciples to gather people, nor did he advertise in surrounding towns and cities. Jesus preached the gospel by assigning evangelists. He trained evangelists and sent them out, giving them power and authority. Therefore, this paper emphasizes that dead-end Korean churches should return to Jesus. Above all, to restore growth, churches must look back at Jesus’ principle of establishing evangelists shown in Matthew 10. This paper consists of 6 chapters, including the introduction. The contents of each chapter are entirely Bible-centered and practice-oriented. Chapter 1 introduces how Matthew 10 was chosen as the subject of the research by examining the internal and external causes of the stagnation of Korean churches in the 21st century. Chapter 2 defines evangelism and examines the relationship between evangelists and sermons by studying the significance of the evangelist in the Old and New Testaments. Chapter 3 explores Matthew 10 by topic and focuses on the preaching of Jesus when He sent out evangelists. This paper will draw out the principles of assigning evangelists from His Words. Chapter 4 illuminates and demonstrates the preaching principles of Jesus through evangelists in the Bible and of early Korean churches. In chapter 5, there is an example sermon based on this paper. This paper proposes model example sermons of each of the four grounds of the preaching principles of assigning evangelists described in this paper; 1) Confidence in the calling 2) Enduring suffering 3) Planting confidence in the mission 4) Seeking the reward I hope this paper eventually contributes to establishing evangelists and that all churches become churches of which the Lord is pleased with.