In this lesson, Pastor Dave Capoccia briefly discusses the issue of canonicity, how the Christian church came to recognize which books belonged in the Bible and which books did not. Pastor Dave then introduces several apostolic fathers, those church leaders who came right after the apostles and some of whom were even taught directly by the apostles. In meeting these men and learning about their legacies, we Christians can better understand origins, receive encouragement, and take warning.
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cool let me open with the word of Prayer seems like I’m a little loud but we’ll just press on all right let’s pray God we thank you that you are the Lord of history and you will build your church you will not allow the gates of Hades to Prevail against it and your gospel will go out and you will bring all your sheep in Lord I pray that we’d be encouraged that we’d be instructed as we look at how certain things came about in the past and also those faithful leaders you raised up to Shepherd your people for a certain period of time period blessed this lesson in Jesus name amen okay well like I previewed for you last week we are turning today from learning from learning about the great movements and events of the early church to more specifically learning about people in the early church specifically the early churches notable leaders teachers writers are often called The Church fathers so we’re gonna learn about these people these are our spiritual forefathers who have left us a legacy and a lot of that Legacy is good but not all of it nevertheless we’ve inherited it and as we look at some of these leaders these fathers over the next few weeks we are going to understand Origins more remember we talked about that in the first class why study church history we want to understand Origins we want to receive encouragement and we also want to take warning and that is what we are going to find some of the things that we’ve inherited from our early forefathers are actually not so helpful but let’s learn at this earliest group that we’re going to look at is in the first century and they are known as the apostolic fathers now that doesn’t mean that these are the apostles rather these are the ones who are the Next Generation after the apostles they some of them lived at the same time as certain Apostles at least the Apostle John so they could have even been discipled by the apostles but they overlap with the apostles and they form the next generation of leaders and teachers in the church so we’re going to learn about the apostolic fathers this would be the people in the late first early second centuries but before we get there I do want to wrap up one topic one loose end and that is the Canon of the Bible how is it that we received the Bible that we have today in terms of its specific collection of books why these 66 books and not anymore and not any less how do we know these are the right ones well if you’re paying close attention to last week’s lesson on the seven ecumenical Church councils which of those councils was responsible for setting which books belong in the Bible it might think it was the Nicene Council but I didn’t actually say that last week because it wasn’t the Council of nicaea in fact it wasn’t any of the councils none of the ecumenical Church councils were called to determine which books were part of the Bible in fact that we might think of like uh not talking about that kind of Canon this is Canon with one n and it refers to a recognized set standard or collection and there are many different types of canons in the word world with one n sometimes people talk about a certain writer’s literary canon or certain artist Canon of works but as Christians we are most concerned about the biblical Canon what constitutes the set of the Bible and how do we know that the books that have come to make up our Bible are really God’s intended set how do we know that there’s no book in there that shouldn’t be in there or how do we know that there’s no book missing that should be in there now there’s a lot I could say in terms of how we got the Bible and how God’s intended Canon was recognized but for the sake of time I wanted to give you the quick version the issue of the Bible’s canonicity is well send some well well summed up by Dr Nathan busnitz who is my professor at the Master’s Seminary and he’s still there he says this in his historical theology class the reason we believe in the Canon the authority of the 66 books of the Bible is because Jesus himself confirmed and authorized the Canon he authorized the scriptures I’ll say that again you see a version of it on this slide we believe in the authority of the canonical biblical text because the highest Authority himself Jesus confirmed and authorized the scriptures why do we believe in these 66 books because Jesus confirmed and authorized it there is no Authority above Jesus because he’s God so what he says about the Bible is completely authoritative and trustworthy and he affirms he shows us what is the Old and New Testaments how so well let me tell you the affirmation of the Old Testament part of the Canon is pretty straightforward Jesus affirmed it in his own lifetime the Jews recognized 39 books of the Old Testament as being scripture they did not include any inter-testamental or apocryphal works as being canonical as being God’s word and Jesus affirmed this same set when he lived on the Earth throughout his ministry Jesus would quote from the Old Testament and he affirmed the facts given in the Old Testament books The 39 that we have he quotes extensively from the law the Psalms the prophets it even refers to details contained in the historical books as facts Queen of the South coming to visit Solomon or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah Jesus affirms these things and he would never confront the religious leaders about using the wrong text as scripture rather he confronted them about misinterpreting the scripture disobeying the scripture or using their tradition to supersede the scripture but he never rebuke them for using the wrong scriptures furthermore Jesus confirms the authority and the inerrancy of these Old Testament scriptures and Matthew 5 17-18 for instance Jesus affirms that all Prophecy in the Old Testament is true and must be fulfilled not a jaw or tittle is going to pass away from the law until all is fulfilled the prophecies are true and the requirements of the law must be fulfilled which of course he would do in himself or all those who believe in him Jesus also says in John 10 verses 34 to 36 that the scripture he uses that term and by implication he’s referring to the set of scriptures that the Jews had recognized in that day the 39 books he says scripture cannot be broken which is to say that what is written in these books these specific books is perfectly accurate and consistent in itself which of course is only appropriate if it really is God’s word which it is it’s authoritative it’s accurate it’s trustworthy so because Jesus confirms the Old Testament as canonical so do we because we believe in Jesus and he’s our Lord all right we got the Old Testament but what about the New Testament Jesus ascended to Heaven before he could confirm the 27 books in the New Testament right so how do we know that what we call the New Testament is correctly canonical as well well the second part of the statement I mentioned before Jesus authorized the New Testament and therefore confirms it also as being God’s word and canonical and what way did Jesus authorize the New Testament well in this way when he told the apostles that they would be the ones enabled and responsible to communicate the new revelation of Jesus Christ to the world after all if you were here last week and heard the exposition of John 1 1 to 18 we saw that Jesus is the final and the Supreme revelation of God he brings Grace and Truth in its fullness he explains the father he unveils the gospel mystery whatever Jesus says obviously is as he is God it is obviously authoritative what the apostles give to us is really just the word of Jesus if Jesus words authoritative then when the apostles pass it on to us it also is authoritative it also is God’s word it also is scripture but someone might ask wait did the apostles say and write things that Jesus himself didn’t specifically say well yes but this is because Jesus uniquely commissioned the apostles not just to pass on what they themselves heard but to also further explain his revelation and this is given to us explicitly in the Bible remember that Jesus tells his disciples in John 14 verses 25 to 26 John 14 verses 25 to 26 that the Holy Spirit would teach them all things and supernaturally bring it to their remembrance all the things that Jesus had taught them and Jesus even goes further in John 16 verses 12 to 14 John 16 12-14 he declares that he has more things to tell the apostles but they’re not ready for it so the Holy Spirit instead would come and guide them into all truth Jesus Says by disclosing to them what belongs to Jesus he’s going to take the Revelation that belongs to Jesus and he’s going to disclose it to the apostles so they can teach it to Jesus followers they can pass it on so what does this all mean it means that the Incarnate Word of God declares the final revelation of God but that he commissions he authorizes the apostles to further declare write down and cause to be written his final revelation which is what we have now in the New Testament thus it’s not just the Old Testament that is canonical it’s also what’s written by God’s specially specially commission Representatives the apostles in the New Testament and this became this was the mindset of early Christians in the church when it came to recognizing what’s the thing that we need to hold on to what’s authoritative what do we need to uh Revere and pass down as scripture they’re asking one main question did this come from an apostle did it come from one of Christ’s officially commissioned Representatives because if it is we need to hold on to it therefore as soon as the original New Testament documents were written and received various letters the early church capped and copied these documents disseminated them as they made more converts and moved different places and throughout the Christian communities what was gradually assembled was the 27 books of New Testament scripture they copied it they disseminated it certain books emerged in certain places but then they got shared and probably by the middle of the second century Christian communities various Christian communities have copies of all 27 books of the Bible probably even by the end of the first century or maybe by the end of first century certainly by the middle of the second century now it did take time though to sift through the different documents that were available and that were even presented as scripture and Apostolic because if you’ve read the Bible at all you might have noticed that in the in the New Testament there are references to those who wrote In The Apostles name who weren’t really the apostles they sent fake letters pretended to be the apostles in their writing and we do have some of those that have survived today works that claim to be Apostolic but aren’t like the Gospel of Thomas the acts of Peter some of these Works were available being disseminated in the early church they had to be kind of weeded out oh this isn’t really from the apostles and it’s also true that some early church leaders some communities temporarily affirmed certain Christian works as being scripture which actually weren’t works like the Epistle of Barnabas or the diticay these were considered scripture for a short time but that designation didn’t last eventually people are like no actually I don’t think this is scripture or maybe that Community held on to it but everybody else was like no it’s helpful but it’s not scripture so there was temporary affirmation of certain work certain works as not being a scripture and maybe there was temporarily people saying I’m not sure if that’s scripture I’m not sure if the Book of Revelation is scripture I’m not sure if II Peter is scripture there was some of that temporarily in different places but as the different church leaders as different early church fathers considered the available documents and the evidence for Apostolic authorship they gradually came to affirm the 27 books just the 27 books of the New Testament as Apostolic and scripture and what were they using as sorry I missed that slide what were they using as their main criteria for assessing each document basically three three things they’re looking for the first and most important question they’re looking to answer was was it written by an apostle or someone under an Apostles oversight does the letter actually claim Apostolic authorship or imply Apostolic authorship is there evidence of apostolic teaching in the work and is there affirmation from any early Witnesses outside of that document that it was written by an apostle so they’re looking first and foremost was this written by an apostle or an Apostolic associate second does it fit with what’s already recognized as scripture especially the Old Testament because if they say oh Yep this is from the Apostle Paul but it’s like that totally contradicts what’s written in the Old Testament uh I don’t think that’s Apostolic and finally is there General consensus in the church that this really did come from the apostles now I’ve got to be careful with that last one this does not mean that people are being Democratic it’s me being like you want to include this description this wasn’t choosing what they wanted to be the Bible this is all about recognizing what God had actually determined the Bible to be they were not trying to just find whatever suited them they’re trying to say what actually is God’s word we want to recognize it as such different Christian leaders are independently using their analytical abilities on different documents letters to assess Apostolic authorship and as they did this let’s say you’re trying to look at the epistle a Barnabas and you’re like hey you know is this really a scripture I read it I’m not really quite sure what does everybody else say oh a lot of people don’t think this is scripture it’s a bad sign but if a lot of people are recognizing the scripture that’s a good sign that doesn’t mean it automatically is but when you’re trying to make a decision and you’re using these other two criteria this third one kind of helps you determine it a little bit as the strong reason to reject if if the community The Wider Christian Community sees the strong reasons to reject the book as Apostolic and it’s not a good sign for the book so anyways they’re using these three main criteria and that’s how they eventually come down to uh weed out the wrong works and put in the right works and we get the 27 books in the New Testament that we have today and if you just look at those 27 books you can see that they all do come from one Apostle or another either directly written by an apostle or written by a companion of an apostle under his oversight and if you just scan that list I’ve just put on the slide there you may notice a few interesting things Maybe surprised by James and Jude because the apostolic Authority for those letters does not reside with one of the twelve one of the original 12.
James the brother of Jesus he’s actually called an apostle in the Bible Galatians 1 19. he was recognized as an apostle and as the central leader of the Christian church and so he writes the book of James and he most likely was responsible for oversight of the book of Jude you also notice of course many of the books I think even most of the books are written by another Apostle who wasn’t part of the original 12. Paul he wrote most the New Testament even though he wasn’t one of the original Twelve he certainly called an apostle in the Bible and then we have Hebrews Hebrews is interesting because even today we don’t know who the author is for sure in the early church really wrestled with that book but what they determined from there you know various people analyzing the book is that it must have been written by Paul or a Pauline associate because it’s so Pauline in its explanation of theology so they said even though we’re not entirely sure we know this is Apostolic probably from Paul or maybe an associate now as I said most if not all the scriptures were recognized by the second century early second century mid-second Century so that the 100s period much later we do get certain published lists of the Bible of what’s recognized as scripture athanasius in the 4th Century will give us a list of all the New Testament books as being canonical you have other lists in the 4th century and in the 5th Century so certainly it was very obvious at that time but it would have been recognized even much earlier so even though there weren’t published lists there’s no council saying hey these are the books it was being recognized by different Christian authors they were using these Works they were considering them as scripture so by the second century we have the New Testament Canon recognized like I said there’s still maybe pockets of uncertainty or debate but generally the scriptures the Canon of the New Testament is recognized by the second century and of course we use the same one today now perhaps though you’re listening to all this or someone might listen to all this and say wait a second isn’t this circular reasoning you say you believe in the biblical Canon Old Testament New Testament because Jesus authorized confirmed and authorized it but Jesus is talked about in your Canon you only believe that because he says it in the Canon isn’t that circular reasoning how can you do that oh yes we admit that in this case we are engaging in a bit of presuppositional reasoning but you know what everyone does this all of us to understand the world to think we must reason according to certain basic unprovable assumptions also called presuppositions yet Christian presuppositions are assumptions are the only ones really in the world that are consistent with themselves and that also make good sense of what we see in the world so I don’t feel bad about this starting place in the end what do the scriptures themselves declare we believe the Bible because God has opened our eyes to the Bible to himself Through the Bible we can’t help but recognize that everything that’s written in these Works what the apostles declared what Jesus declared what the prophets declared what they say about us and what they say about the world is true and if we don’t recognize that Bible says it’s because we suppress the truth and unrighteousness but if we do recognize that it’s God it’s God Opening Our Eyes to it there is of course many good reasons to believe in the Bible and its canonicity from a human perspective but really it’s God’s spirit ultimately that gives us confidence in these 66 books and that itself is not to our credit it’s God’s gift so yes there’s a process that brought this about but ultimately we know that these are the books of the Bible because God’s spirit shows us it makes it clear in our hearts now there’s much more I could say about how we got the Bible in canonicity but we’re going to have to leave that there so we can get to our second topic today that’s the Canon I’ll turn over to the fathers some of the early witnesses to the apostles and even their scriptures what they wrote are the apostolic fathers we’re going to meet four of these men specifically and then we’re going to look at we’re going to meet some of them anonymously just by what they wrote to learn about these men and their Legacies I’m going to start with Clements of Rome climates of Rome I mentioned him in the first Sunday school class he was a bishop or Pastor in Rome apparently installed by Peter Roman Catholics identify Clement as one of their popes okay Clements actually might be mentioned in the Bible there is a clement mentioned in Philippians 4 3 who’s called a fellow worker with the Apostle Paul and the cause of the Gospel this could be that Clement might not be but this was a brother who was pastoring in Rome and when it came to his death the tradition in the Roman Catholic Church is that climate was exiled like the Apostle John but he was later martyred by being tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea you can see kind of a medieval painting of that Medieval Renaissance not exactly sure that may be true we don’t know for certain it was certainly a faithful pastor and we do have one surviving document from this Clement it’s his letter to the Corinthians that we call today first Clement there’s also a second letter falsely ascribed to him known to Second Clement he didn’t actually write that now Clement’s writing reflects a strong influence of the Apostle Paul and his great legacy for us if we want to identify oh what’s one thing we should know him for well it’s for explaining clearly what salvation is and means for the Christian what is salvation Clement tells us it is justification by faith that produces good works demonstrating faith and repentance so of course was not a new idea but it’s a beautiful affirmation of what the Bible teaches especially what James says on the one hand faith without what is dead faith that works is dead and what the Apostle Paul said you’re told the Galatians and many others you are justified by faith and Clement’s letter is the oldest surviving church history church history document we have it comes from the late 1st century it’s encouraging that we have this document because it’s proof that God provided another faithful leader to lead a local church after the apostles are passing away from the scene as the apostles are passing away another faithful leader to uphold the true gospel so let’s hear a little bit from this letter first Clement probably written in the 90s as I said which means whose persecution is in the background emperor dimitian he’s the same one under which the Apostle John would be writing Clement writes this letter partly because division is again a problem in the Corinthian Church and here’s an excerpt from that letter from chapter 30.
Clement rights let us therefore cling unto those to whom Grace is given from God let us clothe ourselves in Concord being lowly minded and temperate holding ourselves aloof from all backbiting and evil speaking being justified by works and not by words now just from that extra you can see Clement’s line of reasoning he says you will show the grace of God is indeed in you for salvation by doing what to one another yeah being gracious to one another being at Concord being at peace with one another that’s how you know that you really belong to God that his grace is working in you but you might hear that say justified by works what don’t worry Clement’s gonna make sure his listeners don’t think that works produce salvation because just a little bit later on in his letter chapter 32 he says they referring to Abraham and the Patriarchs all therefore were glorified and magnified not through themselves or their own works or their righteous doings which they wrote but through his will through God’s will and so we having been called through his will in Christ Jesus are not justified through ourselves or through our wisdom or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or Works which we rot in Holiness of heart but through faith whereby the almighty God Justified all men that have been from the beginning to whom be the glory forever and ever amen that’s pretty clear right that’s just what the Apostle said we’re not justified or saved by our good works or Pious heart but by faith from God it’s just by his gracious will and all to his glory that teaching wasn’t lost it was passed right on to the next generation and this from one of the Catholic popes right Roman Catholic folks he provides a good summary in chapter 34 of his letter of the whole concept he God exhorts us therefore to believe on him with our whole heart and not to be idle nor careless unto every good work that’s salvation this is the gospel repent and believe in the Lord to be saved and then let that belief in Repentance that true belief and repentance show up in Good Works of obedience in your life another way to refer to that is lordship salvation well say you believe in the Lord and then don’t walk obediently it was being taught in the first century Faithfully as the apostles taught so when you think about climate Clement of Rome think of his clear teaching and what is really the gospel and even lordship salvation but we’re moving on our next Apostolic father is Ignatius Ignatius of Antioch two possible dates for his life he’s martyred under one Emperor or another you can see them on the slide who is Ignatius I mentioned him before Ignatius was a pastor in Antioch Syria who was apparently discipled by the Apostle John it was also polycarp’s friend like Clement or as best as we can tell about climate Ignatius died as a martyr but there’s something notable about Ignatius martyrdom Ignatius he had been accused by somebody before the court condemned to die because he was a Christian and condemned to die specifically by beasts in Rome he lived in Syria but they say hey we’ve got this Festival going on in Rome soon let’s bring him there so we can die for the entertainment of a whole bunch of people it’s going to be put to death by beasts on the way though he wrote seven letters six to Christian churches one to his friend polycarp and he was permitted to write these letters have Christians take them to this various places those letters have survived you can still read them today in these letters Ignatius gives various encouragements for believers to follow the lord and ultimately to rejoice in Jesus he said your joys in Jesus keep following Jesus but one thing he made clear in his letters that’s a little surprising and this appears in his letter to the Romans specifically it’s an Ignatius didn’t want to be saved from the wild beasts he didn’t want anyone to prevent his martyrdom let’s hear a little bit of Ignatius in his letter to the Romans I write to the churches and impress on them all that I shall willingly die for God unless ye hinder me I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable Good Will towards me suffer me to become food for the wild beasts through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God I am the weed of God and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts that I may be found the pure bread of Christ interesting he’s like you might have the chance to save my life don’t do it let me be martyred and we can argue about whether that’s really a Biblical mindset or not but if we look here and if we look at the other parts of this letter to the Romans we can find out why specifically he didn’t want to be saved Ignatius saw his martyrdom not only is a way to testify to the world in a powerful way about The Treasure of Christ but also as an act of worship in which you would imitate his Lord and go to be with his Lord he actually writes shortly after this quotation that I gave to you in the letter to the Romans now in my martyrdom I am beginning to be a disciple so Ignatius is certainly notable for his legacy of joy in Christ even to the point of martyrdom but Ignatius has another Legacy which is more problematic and that is his exhortation to man episcopacy monopuscapacy can anybody tell me what that means yes Leader by one bishop or One Pastor in the church just one this is an extremely significant development since the popularization of this concept of Monica monopiscopacy it would affect the Christian church for centuries in some way still affects the church today listen to what Ignatius wrote to the magnesians this is one of his seven letters two paragraphs here since therefore I have and the persons before mentioned beheld the whole multitude of you in faith and love I exhort you to study to do all things with a Divine Harmony while your Bishop presides in the place of God and your presbyters in the place of the Assembly of the Apostles along with your deacons who are most dear to me and are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ who was with the father before the beginning of time and in the end was revealed do ye all then imitating the same Divine conduct pay respect to one another and let no one look upon his neighbor after the flesh but do ye continually love each other in Jesus Christ let nothing exist among you that may divide you but be United with your Bishop and those that preside over you as a type and evidence of your immortality okay let’s make sure we understand this from these two paragraphs you may notice Ignatius presents a tri-fold distinction of church offices which three offices does Ignatius assert as existing in Christchurch Bishop presbyter and deacon now if you’re confused about the terms bishop and presbyter they actually both come from the Bible Bishop you even see this in some translations of the Bible today Bishop is the translation of the Greek word episcopos which is usually translated overseer or Bishop and presbyter is from the Greek word press buteras which is usually translated as Elder now what’s the difference according to the New Testament between an overseer a bishop and an elder or presbyteras they are essentially the same those two terms have different emphases but they are actually describing the same office they are used interchangeably that we see this in the book of Acts we see this in first Timothy a bishop and a presbyter essentially the same a overseer and Elder are essentially the same but in the apostolic fathers in Ignatius and others who would come after him they begin to use these two terms bishop and presbyter Episcopal presbyter in a new way if you if you go back to the first paragraph here according to Ignatius what is the difference between an overseer and an elder or a bishop and a presbyteras yeses The Bishop’s in the place of God which means what’s The Bishop’s relationship to the uh uh the presbyters he’s above them I mean the analogy is pretty striking The Bishop’s in the place of God the presbyters are in the place of the Apostles so the bishop is really the leader above the other leaders now there is some historical precedent for this concept even by the end of the first century and the Jewish synagogues for instance there was a plurality of leadership elders and yet there was also a leader among the elders who would sometimes be called the president of the synagogue or even the leader of the synagogue we hear that term in the book of Acts early Christians seem to have adopted a similar leadership structure for the church even today we have churches that have a pastor and then elders or a senior pastor lead pastor and then associate pastor assistant pastor and elders here’s a bit of a loaded question is it wrong to have a lead Pastor or lead Elder in a church it is if that leader is not subject to the other leaders in one sense to have a first among equals a leader among leaders is actually kind of natural need a spokesman need somebody to set the discussion but if such a thing is to exist in God’s Church this main pastor this main leader he cannot dominate the other pastors or Elders it must be subject to them or else it is not really a plurality and it’s not really biblical leadership it’s just leadership by one the Bible does clearly teach a plurality of leaders elders in the church no person is to have final Authority even if you have a senior pastor he has to be subject to the other pastors and elders but coming back to Ignatius here we see his analogy the bishop is like Christ the presidents are like apostles so should the pressures ever overrule the bishop not according to this analogy the bishop has the final Authority now perhaps we’re missing some context here and the people understood that you’re not to follow your Bishop unquestioningly the other Elders are not to just submit to him unquestioningly but we certainly hear in this kind of exhortation a foundation being laid in which ultimate Authority in each local church rests not with the plurality of Elders but with one man the leader of the elders the bishop and paying attention to these two paragraphs why what’s the main reason that Ignatius exhorts this leadership structure that you would be accountable to the other Elders well do not do what he wants to do well that would be a Biblical understanding but that’s actually not what Ignatius says here why should you all unite around your Bishop rather than the plurality of leadership in the church according to Ignatius what is he seeking Unity peace it’s actually a little bit of overlap with commence letter he says this is going to help you be more unified come together around your Bishop and we can see a little bit of logic to this it’s much simpler much more efficient to submit to one supreme authority than to submit to several authorities who may not always agree with each other on everything actually I remember talking with a Catholic person a few years ago and he’s like why don’t you guys submit to the Pope isn’t it a lot simpler more efficient unifying to just have one leader I remember you said that to me well Ignatius is thinking the same thing we can prevent factions instead of having multiple leaders but just having one leader now is Unity a bad thing it’s peace a bad thing of course not so you can see there’s a good intention here but as has already been pointed out why is it dangerous having just one leader in the church nobody can keep them accountable nobody ultimately can keep them accountable so if he falls into sin into error it’s not much that anybody can do about it it’s going to affect the whole church and when you think about Colts and heresies that have emerged in Christianity across the centuries how many leaders do they usually have just one or at least one main leader so it’s kind of scary and some of you have experience with this it’s scary to be in a church that’s dominated by one leader because those who don’t agree with that leader what ends up happening to them they get driven out and you can even see that in the letter third John now did the early church fall off a cliff due to the increasing popularity of having one leader due to monopiscopacy no thankfully didn’t fall off a cliff God provided many servant leaders who even though this wasn’t quite a Biblical structure they served as good Bishops in many many early church congregations and one of the things that helped us is that becoming a bishop was actually to put a big Target on you because the Roman government when they’re looking for people to persecute they’d usually go after the Bishops first but still this foundation for increasing Bishop Authority it would prove detrimental to the church going forward in history as both Christianity the gospel spread and the practice of Mana episcopacy spread with it cities would start to have multiple churches and the way they decided to lead these churches that they divided up the original leadership of the main Church the bishop would lead the main Church and the presbyters would lead the minor churches the other churches around it and another shortened name for a presbyter came to be priest so Bishop in the main Church priests and the Lesser churches does that sound familiar also there began to emerge a hierarchy among the Bishops certain Bishops of important cities either because of the city’s size or theological importance they became Leaders with extra influence and Authority in the church at Large poignantly importantly five main bishoprics five cities with their Bishops became the most important in early Christianity and they formed what has been called the pentarkey the rule by five five super important Bishops and there was one in Jerusalem one in Antioch One Alexandria one in Constantinople and one in Rome so you have this hierarchy of Bishops emerge with these five Super Bishops also called Patriarchs or popes that have the greatest Authority in Christianity they were the ones in their region everybody had to follow what they were saying now in theory these five Patriarchs were all equal but might there be a leader among the leaders might there be one supreme patriarch over the other Patriarchs this was a question that got bad and back and forth as the centuries of Christianity went on and of course there would be eventually one patriarch who would assert his Supremacy above all the others and of course that is the patriarchy of the patriarchate of Rome so inadvertently Ignatius and others who popularize man episcopacy they contributed to the establishment of the papacy and of course that has led that led to so many problems and abuses over the Middle Ages and into the Reformation period so when we think about Ignatius and his legacy we do have to on the one hand be thankful to the Lord for his testimony of Joyful martyrdom for Jesus on the other hand we have to say this monolithicy thing that was not a good Legacy that Ignatius left us such as the case with a number of things in early church and other parts of church history all right so we have Clement we have Ignatius a third Apostolic father is polycarp polycarp of Smyrna now you may have heard of him before attending this course he’s not a Pokemon just want to make that clear he’s instead a very famous martyr and the account of his martyrdom is one of the earliest genuine moderologies that we have born around A.D 60 martyred around 8155 so how old was he when he was martyred almost 90 full man Bishop of Smyrna and Asia Minor apparently also appointed by John the Apostle he was a disciple of John and as I mentioned a friend to Ignatius we do have a surviving letter letter written from him the letter to the Philippians but the more important document related to polycarp is the account of his martyrdom barley carp was a revered leader beloved Christian many who witnesses martyrdom did not want to lose the record of it and its encouragement according to the notes at the end of the surviving account we have today of polycarp’s martyrdom which comes from a Christian in Smyrna writing to Christians in philomelium which is also in Turkey the first testimony the original testimony was written by irenaeus we mentioned him already in this course he’s going to come later he was apparently polycarp’s disciple and he wanted to make sure that his uh his discipler his disciplers martyrdom testimony was not lost now I’ll read to you a few excerpts from polycarp’s martyrdom account I got about three paragraphs here and when he came near the pro console asked him whether he was polycar on is confessing that he was the proconsul sought to persuade him to deny Christ saying I have respect to thy old age and other similar things according to their custom such as swear by the fortune of Caesar repent and say a way with the atheists remember that was a term for Christians the polycarp gazing with a Stern countenance and all the multitude of the wicked Heathen then in the stadium and waving his hands towards them while with groans he looked up to heaven and said away with the atheists what did polycarp just do a little bit of irony he’s like the real atheists you guys then the proconsul urging him and saying swear and I shall set thee at Liberty reproach Christ polycarp declared 80 in six years have I served him and he never did me any injury how then can I blaspheme my king and my savior this is polycarp’s famous line right and it’s intensely reasonable why on Earth would I do what you’re asking me to do why would I do wrong to the one who’s done me such good who is goodness in himself one more little excerpt here but again the pro console said to him I will cause thee to be consumed by fire seeing now despises the wild beast if thou will not repent but polycarp said thou threateness me with fire which burneth for an hour and after a little is extinguished but aren’t ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment and of Eternal punishment reserved for the ungodly but why Terry is thou bring forth what thou wilt so what is polycarp essentially doing here with the pro console is witnessing to him even that the pro console might fear the real fire and be saved actually in another part of the account he offers to explain Christianity to this Pro console anyways the account goes on and polycarp is eventually condemned to burn but the burn the Fire doesn’t actually kill him so then he’s stabbed to death but he remains steadfast even happy in Christ until the end and we have the powerful Legacy now even today of his faithfulness amid martyrdom all right the fourth Church Father early Apostolic father to meet is papius of hieropolis now here heropolis is mentioned in the bible it’s another city in Asia Minor it’s near colossae and laodicea famous for its Hot Springs papias was Bishop and heropolis and a contemporary of polycarp it wrote a five volume Treatise called the interpretation of the sayings of the Lord unfortunately that has not survived we know he wrote it we don’t have it all we really have from papius are a few fragments that we get via other writers irenaeus mentions a few things that papias wrote in the second century and eusebius the 4th Century church historian he also mentions a few things that papias wrote from these fragments we learn a few things from papius we do learn about the canonicity of Matthew and Mark is claimed that Mark wrote Under Peter’s Direction and that Matthew was the one who originally wrote his gospel the one that’s associated with him so a little bit of witness about canonicity papius is also notable for his pre-millennialism because when eusebius writes about him in the 4th Century he criticizes papias for believing that there would be a literal Kingdom of Christ on the earth for a thousand years eusebius was an all-millennialist and it’s actually kind of interesting that and this is acknowledged by Christians of all stripes before the year 250 every early Church Christian who writes about eschatology presents a pre-millennial point of view I remember pre-millennium means that Christ will come after the tribulation and then he will establish a thousand year reign on the Earth but in the 300s this changes and most Christians at at that point afterwards they are all millennialists they don’t believe there’s going to be a literal Kingdom of Christ on the Earth after the tribulation rather Christ already Reigns in a spiritual Kingdom and he will return finally one day now why’d that change we’ll discuss more why later but the change has to do with two main factors greater popularization of allegorical interpretation and the change of the Christian situation in the Roman Empire things got a lot better for Christians but anyways in terms of Legacy we can think about papius in terms of helping us in canonicity and also being an early witness of premillennialism of course that’s the view we hold in this church so that should be encouraging to us now our next four Apostolic fathers are Anonymous we only know them by the influential Works they wrote I don’t have a ton of time left so I’m going to move to these kind of quickly four works just to mention to you we have the of a work called The Shepherd of her Moss round 150.
this book is perhaps the first piece of Christian fiction very allegorical also very popular in the early church it follows the Visions Parables and commands given to Hamas who is a former slave he’s like the central character of this story and if you read a translation of this work today you’ll probably think it very weird but you need to think of it kind of like Pilgrim’s Progress it’s kind of it’s that kind of allegory and its purpose was to exhort towards repentance and holy living so we have whoever wrote The Shepherd of Hamas we have the letter to diogenitus we don’t know who wrote that it’s one of the early apologetic Works offers a clear explanation of the Gospel seventh we have the one I already mentioned the Epistle of Barnabas and despite the title it was almost certainly not written by the Barnabas of the Bible not Barnabas the Apostle some think it may be written by another guy named Barnabas who happened to live in Alexandria Egypt but we don’t really know it’s still called the epistle Barnabas this document is important Legacy wise because how the writer presents supersessionism and how he supports that with allegorical interpretation now can anybody tell me what supersessionism is goes by a few other names uh replacement theology fulfillment theology it’s the idea that the church replaces Israel in God’s plans New Covenant nullifies or spiritually fulfills many of the promises that were given to Israel in the Old Testament known in the old Covenant now there are many types of supersessionism but the Epistle of the Barnabas is an early example of this kind of thinking it this concept of the church replacing Israel spiritually fulfilling the promises given to Israel it would become more and more popular more and more adopted by early Christians even though I would say we would say as a church that this is not biblical the idea became reinforced by certain events that took place and 132 to 136 Israel was obliterated by the Romans in the barcokba revolt Simon barkokba he led a revolt against Rome in Judea thousands of Romans were massacred the Romans responded how do you think they responded by brutally putting down the Revolt Exterminating or enslaving almost all the Jews that were in Judea and sending them to different corners of the Roman Empire in essence this the nation of Israel certainly the state of Israel ceased to exist at that time actually it’s probably around that time that that Province was renamed no longer Judea but Palestine really trying to just associate that from the Jewish people Christians are observing this like oh yeah I think God’s done with Israel look what’s happened certainly God must have forsaken the Covenant with Israel so like I said we see supersessionism but we also see allegorical interpretation if you read through the document you’ll see him quote from the Old Testament and you see like see look God said he’s done with Israel but it’s only it only makes sense if you see that they’re they’ve taken some words out of context and applied a allegorical or spiritual meaning as I think I may have alluded to in previous classes Alexandria Egypt it becomes like a center of allegorical interpretation we’re going to see more teachers come from there who promote this kind of view and it’s going to become popular in various pockets of Christianity and that’s ultimately going to hurt the church allegorical interpretation is not a good thing but it is sometimes popular even today one more work to introduce to and that is the Dita key uh probably around 100.
the dedicate or the teaching of The Twelve Apostles it’s kind of like an early Christian handbook it probably was given to new converts or even to baptism candidates probably written in Syria between 80 and 160.
maybe 100 is most likely and if you read through this document it is essentially a summary of the teaching of the New Testament on a very application Level very application-minded level and I’ll read I think I have time I’ll read you a few excerpts okay maybe not that much time there are two ways one of life and one of death but a great difference between the two ways way of life then is this first you shall love God who made you second your neighbor as yourself and do not do to another but you would not want done to you and of these sayings the teaching is this bless those who curse you and pray for your enemies and fast for those who persecute you for what reward is there for loving those who love you do not the Gentiles do the same but love those who hate you and you shall not have an enemy that sounds very like what section of teaching in the Bible Sermon on the Mount Sermon on the Mount Matthew five to seven now the estimate the document this is the way it opens the rest of the document illustrates what these two different ways look like and more specificity there’s a hilarious section of the document I’d love to read you but can’t it talks about how you can recognize false teachers and some of the criteria given are you know they make a lot of sense if he teaches something that contradicts the apostles he’s false if he doesn’t do what he teaches he’s false but I like these other ones too if he stays too long at your house is false if he orders a meal in the spirit and eats it he’s false and if he asks for money he’s false which is actually a pretty good list to recognize false teachers today if they come to visit you but one other notable Legacy from this document is what it says regarding baptism I’ll read this excerpt and just briefly comment on it and concerning baptism baptized this way having first said all these things baptize into the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit In Living Water that is flowing water but if you have no living water that ties into other water and if you cannot do something cold water do someone warm but if you have neither pour out water three times upon the head into the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit but before the baptism let the baptizer Fast and the baptized and whoever else can because but you shall order the baptize the fast one or two days before interesting expectations there about fasting and baptism but according to this little section what is the ideal way to get baptized according to this document and flowing water and what kind of water where are you going to find that yeah ocean River some big body of water which implies immersion as the mode of baptism and you’re looking for a local River looking for the right temperature but you got kind of like all these ideal ways of being baptized and then he says at the last resort what can you do you can just pour pour water over someone three times of course a lot of history has gone by but we know that there are sectors of those who call themselves Christians who not just allow for the last option but that’s the standard practice we don’t immerse you’re poor or sprinkle so kind of a strange way I don’t think it necessarily emerged just from this document but you can see that there was this idea about how to baptize that allowed as a concession in extreme situations for an alternate way to baptize but the exception somehow maybe just due to convenience there’s a lot of cold places to get baptized in northern Europe and where Christianity eventually spread the concession became more and more of a utilized option and then became the rule a lot of things like this happened from early Christianity just like okay we’ll allow this this isn’t really good but we’ll allow this or all right you know we got no other option so we’ll allow this and then later generations they just they just run with it and they make it something that was never intended to be but we do at least see from the decay they were exhorted to immersion baptism but pouring was allowed in some circumstances and that’s it we’ve met the main Apostolic fathers Faithful Men Who got raised up in a crucial time when the apostles were patching on passing on the torch of the Gospel to the Next Generation they didn’t get everything right and sometimes they made concessions that ended up becoming big errors later but as a whole these men were faithful and we benefit from their legacies today when imitate them in their faithfulness we want to learn from their mistakes thank the Lord for these spiritual forebears now where are we going next in our church history series well let me give a few quick announcements you might know from what I shared in the church prayer sheet that I’m going on vacation going on vacation for the next two weeks so I’m not going to be here next Sunday but we will have Sunday school because our brother Mark twombly has agreed graciously agreed to teach that day he’s going to be teaching church history but not early church history he’s going to be doing a little preview of something we’ll talk about later he’s going to talk about Reformation Church History I think that would be useful to you not only to get a preview of what’s to come maybe a year from now but also you can start making connections between things you’re seeing in the early church and things you see in the Reformation Church it’s going to present about different people um some of the the main people and events of the Reformation so there will be Sunday school next week I won’t be here but Mark will be here so please come back for that but when I do come back and I’ll be back on the 20th we’re going to learn about church fathers in the second century two main groups they’re called the second century apologists and the polemical fathers we’ll learn about what kind of Legacy they have left us how we can be encouraged but also learn from mistakes hope you’re back for that as well let me close in prayer Lord thank you for this time thank you for these brothers who came before us thank you for raising them up God thank you that you do preserve your word it would help us to be faithful and to pass on a good Legacy and to not compromise and something that we think is not a big deal because who knows what the next generation will do with it would help us to stand on your truth even to suffer joyfully for you just as our Brethren did in the past in Jesus name amen thank you welcome