The Disciples of the Apostles (The Patristic Period - Part 1)

So this is part two in the book, the patristic period.

So this will be from the 2nd century through the 5th century.

Lesson number three is titled the disciples of the

Apostles. Okay that's that makes you look a second time. Okay wait, what's being said here?

The disciples of the Apostles, because you know that the twelve disciples of Jesus were also called

Apostles, so we're not talking about them, we're talking about the men who followed the

Apostles. So after that generation of the Apostles died, that next generation of men who followed them.

The key passage is 2nd Timothy 2 verse 2 which says in the things, and of course this is

Paul speaking to Timothy who was a pastor. Paul tells him in the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

So number one in the footsteps of the Apostles, and I don't think this is in your book but I'll read it, it says in contemporary churches 2nd

Timothy 2 2 is often viewed as a model for multi -generational ministry.

That is certainly a valid way to think about that verse, but when Paul first wrote about faithful men and the others also, he undoubtedly had specific people in mind.

When we look back at church history, we discover the names of some of these faithful men.

They were part of the generation of believers who came immediately after the

Apostles. So the Apostles were in the first century, right? We think

John died somewhere around 95 to 100 AD, so now we're in the second century.

So these are men who learned from the Apostles. As noted in lesson number two, these men, they did not view themselves as Apostles, but rather as pastors and elders who have been entrusted with the truth.

Their charge was to guard the treasure they had received and faithfully preserve it for future generations.

And that's very important that they did not consider themselves Apostles, because what does that tell you?

That there's no such thing as what people call apostolic succession. So that throughout all the ages, because some people believe this and teach this.

The Catholic Church, I think, teaches this. Some Pentecostals believe this, that throughout all the last 2 ,000 years of church history, there's always been

Apostles, and that's simply not the case. The Apostles lived in the first century and the men who learned from them, they did not consider themselves to be

Apostles. So there is no apostolic succession, no Apostles today. The article, but the write -up continues, we refer to these early

Christian leaders as the apostolic fathers. The term church fathers should be thought of in the sense of founding fathers.

And of course we all, you know, when you hear founding fathers, you think of who? Yeah, you think of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, those men who were the early leaders who kind of built up this country.

But these men were the early leaders that helped build up the church after the

Apostles. They were early leaders of the church. In this case, their close connection to the

Apostles makes them apostolic fathers. The apostolic fathers include the authors of a number of works that have survived to the present.

In this lesson, we will consider five of these early authors. Number one,

Clement of Rome. Number two, Ignatius of Antioch. Number three,

Polycarp of Smyrna. Number four, the author of the Didache. And number five, the author of the

Letter to Diognetius. English translations of the writings of these early

Christian leaders are freely available online and they can be accessed with a quick web search.

Now how many of you are familiar with the names I just mentioned? Okay, so a small percentage of the group, less than half of the group,

Clement of Rome. I think a lot of people have heard of Clement of Rome. Polycarp is probably the most well -known.

So, and then we'll look at the others. So, moving on to the next page.

You do have this in your book. This is the discussion question. How many generations of Christian leadership are represented in 2

Timothy 2 .2? Okay, so let's go back to that verse. Let's turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2, if you would, if you're not there already.

2 Timothy chapter 2. And that's the first question. We'll come back to it in a second.

The second question is, what should that principle of multi -generational leadership look like in the church today?

Okay, so this is the question posed to you. How many generations are represented in this verse?

Where Paul says, the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

So, these faithful men and the ones they teach represent how many generations? Well, you know, depending on how you understand the question, you would say, yeah, it would be two, right?

The Apostles and the men who learned from them. But the way I, if I understand the question correctly,

I think it would represent all the generations throughout church history. Because whoever the next generation you're teaching, right?

There's men in this church that are in their 70s and 80s and they have studied the

Scripture and they're followers of Jesus Christ. And then there's other men in this church that are in their their 20s.

Well, I think all are included. As long as you're being taught and you are following Christ, I think this would include all generations.

So, at least that's how I understand the question. And if that's the case, what should that principle of multi -generational leadership look like in the church today?

What should that look like? Larry? There's a Scripture passage that says older men teach the younger men to do whatever and be men, to be leaders.

Older women teach the younger women. So, it's mentorship or discipleship.

Yep. Yep. Discipleship. Training one another. So, the older men and women teach the younger men and women.

Not only in word, but also in deed. They are to be an example to the younger people.

Marcus? That should look like Phil ran the church as a little boy. Yeah. Yeah.

Good. Erin? Everyone should have a Paul and a

Timothy. That's good. I like that. Everyone should have a Paul. Someone they look up to who's like a mentor to them.

But also everyone should have a Timothy. Someone that they're training. And having a

Barnabas to encourage you is a good idea as well. Good. These are some great answers,

Marcus. And it should look like these two guys to my left. Yeah. Yeah.

So, here's the thing. A local church. Here's what you often find.

There are some churches that are like the rock and roll churches where everyone is in their 20s and 30s. And the older people in the church are like 48.

And those are the old folks, right? But, you know, there are some churches where everybody's young.

And then there are other churches where everybody's a senior citizen. Well, if that's the dynamic, it's great to have a lot of young people and it's great to have older people who have that wisdom and experience.

But if you have one or the other, you don't really have multi -generational discipleship going on.

So, that's one thing I like about our church at the at the current moment.

I mean, it might lean a little more on the the older side, but we're getting a lot of younger people in.

So, it's good to have a variety of, you know, some teenagers, some people in their 20s and 30s, as well as 40s and 50s, and then 70s and 80s.

So, having a broad variety of people is what what you want.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whether it's somebody being taught

God's Word in Sunday school and, you know, eight, nine years old, or five years old, or 50 years old, or 85.

So, I think that's what he's getting at. All right. Any other comments or questions on that?

Moving along. Number two. So, we looked at, number one, in the footsteps of the

Apostles, kind of laid the groundwork for what we're talking about. Number two, Clement of Rome.

All right. So, this is a man that, as far as early church fathers go,

Clement of Rome is one of the more well -known, at least people have heard of him. It says that Clement of Rome died in what year?

100. Okay. So, he doesn't even really go into the second century. He would have been alive around the time of the

Apostles, but he's still that next generation. So, if, let's say, John was 90 years old,

Clement would have been 50. I don't know. I don't really know how old he would have been, but he's the next generation is the point.

So, look at your books. It says Clement pastored the church in what city? Rome. From around 90 to 100

AD. To put that in perspective, he was pastoring the

Roman congregation when the Apostle John was exiled to the island of Patmos.

Okay. Now, don't quote me on this. I should have double -checked before I came in this morning.

But, you know, things come to mind. So, if they come into my mind, I think it's correct. I'll share it with you. But, from what

I remember, the Roman Catholic Church claims that Clement was actually one of the early

Popes. Of course, they say Peter was the first Pope, and whoever came after him. I think

Clement was like, according to them, the second or third or fourth Pope.

Again, don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure that's what they claim. Is that the stance that this book is taking?

Is that the position we would hold? No. Because, again, none of these men claim to be

Apostles. So, they did not have that level of authority, the same as the

Apostles. Okay. And, again, this is in my book. Some have noted the possibility that the

Clement mentioned in Philippians 4 .3, because Paul does mention a man named

Clement, is the same person. Though possible, since the epistle of the

Philippians was written in the early 60s, that connection cannot be confirmed with certainty.

Because Clement would have been a fairly common name. So, we don't really know if these are all the same people. Clement wrote one letter that has survived.

It was likely written in the mid -90s, addressed to the church in, does anyone know?

No, it's not Rome. He was pastor of the church at Rome. He's writing to a different church. He's writing to the

Corinthians, and he's writing to the Corinthians from the church in Rome. Consequently, it is known as Clement's Epistle to the

Corinthians. Sometimes it's called First Clement. This is due to the fact that another early

Christian work called Second Clement was historically associated with Clement of Rome.

However, modern scholarship has shown that Clement was probably not the author of Second Clement.

Now, when you hear First and Second Clement, what do you think? I mean, it sounds like the way it's being referred to, it's as if like these are being talked about like they're books of the

Bible. But they're not, right? I think we all know that Clement never wrote one of the New Testament letters.

But people have been writing letters to churches, from churches, you know, right up until the modern day.

So, that does not imply at all that these are somehow, should have been included in the canon of Scripture.

The primary issue addressed in Clement's letter is division within the

Corinthian congregation. Forty years after the Apostle Paul addressed the same issue,

Clement articulates his concerns about the infighting and disunity that had once crept into the

Corinthian congregation. So, what does that tell you? That Paul, he writes a letter to them, and we think

Paul probably wrote four letters total, but two of them were lost to history.

So, Paul writes a letter that we call First Corinthians. It's basically telling the church how you better shape up.

And then, he writes Second Corinthians. It's like, okay, you have corrected a lot of things, but there's still some issues you need to fix.

Well, if those problems were resolved, what do we see? In the next generation, all the problems came back.

Marcus. And this is one of the common teachings of the heresies in our neck of the woods, that these letters are as important as the canon itself, which, of course, is not the case.

Right. Yeah, I mean, this truly was Clement having concerns, thinking he can help, and he wrote a letter to the church at Corinth.

You know, I've written some, not letters, but emails, you know, to people expressing my concerns, but just because I write a letter, it doesn't make it

Scripture. Because my letter only carries authority so much as I'm quoting

Scripture, and Scripture contains the authority. But yeah, Clement was writing a letter.

It's not authoritative. He's not an apostle. This is not Scripture. He was not inspired by the

Holy Spirit. Paul, his letter to Timothy was. In one important passage,

Clement explains that believers are justified by faith apart from works, just like Abraham was.

He writes this. Okay, so this is in your book. You can look at it. Clement of Rome. This is what he wrote.

And so we, having been called through his will in Jesus Christ, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works that we have done in holiness of heart.

Rather, we are justified through what? Faith, by which the Almighty God has justified all who have existed from the beginning to whom be the glory forever and ever.

Amen. Okay, so it's helpful to see that not only did

Paul teach salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and Romans and Galatians, the next generation was also teaching it.

So somewhere along the way, you know, people started inserting works into the gospel.

And of course, that was happening in Scripture, because Paul, that's partially what caused

Paul to write to the churches of Galatia, because they were believing in a different gospel, salvation by faith plus works.

So we see that even the early church fathers, at least Clement of Rome, he believed in salvation by faith alone as well.

It says, Clement rightly understood that justification is a gift of God's grace received by faith apart from works.

Okay, so this is the discussion question. Based on the quote above that we just read from Clement, how would you describe

Clement's understanding of the means of justification? It says read

Ephesians 2, 4 through 9. So let's turn there. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians chapter 2, 4 through 9. So that's the question.

How does the quote above, or based on the quote above, how would you describe Clement's understanding of the means of justification?

All right, Ephesians 2, 4 through 9. Do I have a volunteer who would like to read that?

Okay, Linda. Okay, so that's one of the most clear statements you find in the

New Testament. Paul says in verse 5 of Ephesians 2, by grace you have been saved.

Okay, so that eliminates the possibility of works. And then just in case you didn't get it, in verses 8 and 9, for by grace are you saved through faith.

That not of your self. It is not of works. So crystal clear what they believe.

So therefore when somebody comes and they start telling you that salvation is actually based on keeping the

Sabbath and obeying the dietary laws and doing this and doing that, you know that what?

What are they doing? They're preaching a different gospel than the Apostles taught. And even a different gospel than some of the early church fathers.

Okay, and we talked about this last week, things that people add to the gospel, right? In Galatians, circumcision was added to the gospel.

Paul says let them be anathema. Since then, over the past 2 ,000 years, people have added the sacraments.

So you need to have faith, but you also need to partake of the sacraments in order to be saved.

Others said you know you need to speak in tongues in order to be saved. Or you need to be baptized by water in order to be saved.

And they just keep adding this, that, or the other. And you always have to go back to the basics that know it is by grace, through faith, not of works.

So it's very helpful to see that was the testimony of not only the Apostles, but also of the early church fathers.

Now, is there some guy who's called an early church father who wrote something that seemed to say otherwise?

Well, I wouldn't be surprised, because in any generation, there's always these Christian leaders who are saying the wrong thing.

So you always test it over and against, you know this, you test whoever it is.

Clement, Pastor Mike, whoever it is, you test them against Scripture. Okay. So based on that quote that we just read from Ephesians 2, how would you describe

Clement's understanding of the means of justification? How would you describe that? What is it?

Yeah, same as Paul. And that's the way it should be. So very good. Here's the other question.

How does Clement's statement coordinate with Paul's declaration that salvation is by grace, through faith, apart from works?

Well, it coordinates, and he's saying the same exact thing. It totally lines up. All right.

So any questions? Or I don't know that there really is any discussion on this. I don't think there's discussion.

And I love it when it's so clear. Okay. Good. Okay. So we talked about Clement of Rome.

Again, he died around the year 100. The next person we're looking at is who? Ignatius of Antioch.

And of course it says he died in the year 117. It says the

Church of Antioch was established in the night, in the, I almost said 1940s, but just the 40s.

The Church of Antioch was established in the 40s under the pastoral leadership of who?

We talked about this last week. Paul and Barnabas. Good. That's Acts 11.

Though not mentioned in the book of Acts, Ignatius became the pastor there sometime in the late 1st century.

A 5th century tradition suggests that who? Who is it? Peter. Okay.

So this is a 5th century tradition. It suggests that Peter gave instructions for Ignatius to be appointed the pastor of the

Antiochian Church. Okay. So that's something that happened way later.

It's tradition. And what do we, what do you, you just said, what do we do with this stuff?

The tradition and what the fathers say? We test it against what? Okay. We test it against scripture.

Can that claim be tested over and against scripture? No, because the

Bible doesn't mention it. So we sort of have to take that, whether it's, you know, with a grain of salt, if that's the right way to put it.

That may be true. It may not be true. But that's what they're saying. Does it really matter either way?

What would be some of the implications? I'm not sure. But if you have any thoughts, let me know.

Tradition also indicates that Ignatius, along with Polycarp, who's mentioned next, was a disciple of the

Apostle John. Okay. So Ignatius and Polycarp knew John. They were taught by John.

They had that connection with the Apostle John. Seven of Ignatius's letters have survived.

Both a shorter and longer version of these letters exist. The shorter version is likely the original.

Like Clement, Ignatius wrote these letters to the churches. One theme highlights, or one theme highlighted, is that Christians gather for worship on what day?

What day? Sunday. So this would be the first day of the week, which is the

Lord's day. For example, in his epistle to the Magnesians, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, he writes what we are.

Is this in your book, Ignatius? We are no longer observing the Sabbath.

Are you reading this? Is that in your book? Okay. So according to Ignatius, he says, we, the early

Christians, we are no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the obedience for the observation of the

Lord's day, on which also our life has sprung up again by him and his death.

Okay. So according to Ignatius, Christians, even back in the earliest days, were observing the

Lord's day. Now, why is that significant? Well, it shows you there's been a change.

Remember, we talked about the book of Acts. Acts is a transitional book. It's transitioning from Israel to the church.

You know, from the Law of Moses, Old Covenant, to the New Covenant. Believers, under the

Old Covenant, the Israelites worshiped on Saturday. New Testament Christians worship on Sunday.

So let me just read that quote again. We are no longer observing the

Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's day, on which also our life has sprung up again by him and his death.

So it says, the church's practice of meeting on Sunday and not Saturday was already established in the

New Testament. So this is Acts chapter 20, verse 7. 1 Corinthians 16, verse 2.

It talks about how the early disciples gathered on the first day of the week. But it's interesting to see it reiterated by an early

Christian leader like Ignatius. Marcus. The last part of that sentence there, because our life has sprung up again by him and his death, or, and it mentions the

Lord's, it doesn't mention the Lord's Supper, but I thought it was because of his resurrection, not his death.

Well, it is. Yeah, we worship on Sunday because Sunday morning, it's not arbitrary.

It's not like somebody just picked Sunday morning because it seemed to fit best in their schedule. Christians have been worshiping

Sunday morning because that is the time, the moment that Christ rose from the dead.

I think that's what he's saying. But you see, you see what I'm saying? Right, but he says, on which also our life has sprung up again.

I think that's a reference to the resurrection. Okay, alright, alright. So Christians worship on Sunday because that's when

Christ rose from the dead. So therefore, and I told you this on Easter, I said, you know, because this may come as a shock to you,

I don't really believe in Easter. As far as this one day that's high above all the rest and all

Christians need to, you know, observe Easter, I don't believe that. I believe every Sunday is Easter.

Aaron. So he says we're no longer observing this Sabbath. Is that just referring to when we gather?

Or is it also like back in 1800s and before Christians would do no work whatsoever on Sunday, much like the

Jews did on the Old Testament? Right. And I was just curious as to what the full meaning of this,

I've never heard of these people, so. Right. Yeah, when he says we're not observing the

Sabbath, he isn't saying, and Christians now should work seven days a week. Because we no longer have a day of rest.

That's not what he's saying. He's saying, instead of gathering on Sunday, as the Israelites did for thousands, or excuse me,

Saturday, as the Israelites did for thousands of years. Now, we're observing the day on Sunday.

And, you know, I've, it just so happens the sermon today is from Matthew 12. And it's when the apostles are going through the grain field and they're picking some grain on the

Sabbath and they're eating it. And the Pharisees accused them of breaking the Sabbath. And, you know, of course,

I, I always make application to the Lord's Day because we're not Old Testament Jews.

So we're not under that Sabbath command. But for 2000 years, and you've heard me say this before, and I repeat it on purpose so that it does stick in your mind.

And some of you have even shared the testimony of how this church sort of went through a time of transition.

That in the 1960s, 1970s, before that, nearly all

Christians observed some sort of day of rest. Where on Sunday, you didn't go into work, you went to church.

It was the Lord's Day. So it was a day of rest and worship. And you spend time with your family and it's all based all around the

Lord. But in the 60s and 70s, with the social revolution and a new generation of Christian leaders.

Because some of the rules did, admittedly, some of it did kind of get out of control.

Where you couldn't go outside and play on Sunday. You couldn't read comic books on Sunday.

There's all these rules that kind of piled up over time. And even if they were well -meaning, you know, people recognized that it became a little too legalistic.

Is the term they used. But unfortunately, there is an overcorrection to where now,

Sunday is just like any other day. And that's certainly how it's viewed in the culture. But yeah, the point being that Christians did observe something like the

Sabbath. They just did it on Sunday rather than Saturday. So it's still my belief and conviction that a

Christian shouldn't go into work on Sunday. And that we gather with the church on Sunday morning.

I'm probably in the minority among pastors. But, I mean, that's what's being said here.

Okay, Marcus. Probably everyone here remembers the term blue laws.

Right. I'm wondering, and I know that there are, being in law enforcement,

I know there's many laws. Old, old laws that are still on the books.

You know, like moot and lascivious cohabitation. Those are still on the books, but they're just never enforced.

And I'm just wondering if that's the case with the so -called blue laws also. Whether they're still on the books.

I mean, spitting on the sidewalk is on the books. Like I say, cohabitation is on the books.

Yeah, is everyone familiar with blue laws? Massachusetts had blue laws that they were religious laws, basically.

That businesses had to be closed on Sunday. And some of you who are older, you remember back in the day, that's the way it was.

People didn't even mow their lawn on Sunday. You know, that's just the way it was all over the country.

And there's some documents in the file cabinet where that was the belief of this church. It was the belief of pretty much every church back then.

But somewhere people got away from that. But, of course, there were carve -outs for necessity.

You know, you still needed doctors and nurses to be able to care for people on Sunday. So there were exceptions, but by and large, business and commerce halted on Sunday.

So that's what Ignatius is saying. That from the very earliest days, and it's based on biblical passages.

Acts 20, verse 7, 1 Corinthians 16 -2. The early church did observe the

Lord's day. In his writings, Ignatius indicated his belief that each local congregation should have only one bishop.

Or today, as it's called, lead pastor or senior pastor. You know, it's one man who is like the leader of the church.

Even if you have multiple elders or deacons. Ignatius seemed to stress this point out of a concern that multiple bishops could lead to potential division and disunity within the churches.

And that's true. And I can just tell you that churches that are pastor -led, if the pastor makes a decision, hey, as long as the congregation is more or less on board, everything's going to go smooth.

And if he gets along with another pastor, and they see things the same way, then those churches can have wonderful fellowship.

But as soon as you start ordaining six different guys, and they all have equal authority, guess what? That all starts to break down.

So there are some churches that are elder -led, where every elder has equal say.

And, you know, that wasn't... You can have multiple elders, but there needs to be one man who makes kind of the final decision.

That's what he is saying. And I believe that's the way the early church ran.

He's saying that here, and I think that's still the way a lot of churches do it.

And just been my experience, churches that are run that way typically are more unified than the churches that are run by a committee.

But, you know, there's potential problems in any system, obviously, but that was his position.

So he called them bishops, but either way, it's kind of one man on top of the pyramid, if you want to put it that way.

Any comments? Is that a revelation to you? I mean, I think you just see that straight through the

Scripture. Even in the Old Testament, there's kind of always one man who stood out as the leader. You know, whether it was

Moses or Joshua when a judge would be raised up, or, you know, even

Peter was sort of like, among the apostles, he kind of stood out. Okay, so we're all in agreement, see?

We're all in unity. Wonderful. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I don't mean to throw anything that would lead us anywhere other than that, but on these footnotes and so forth, and nowadays also, you know, we're seeing references to the

Nicene Creed or these other creeds, or more specifically the

Westminster Catechism. Yep. And because sometimes in those, you can find things that you're worse than unsure of being accurate as far as following along with Scripture.

Yep. And I found, I was just memorizing a verse with Giles in the

King James Version where I finally have found one. It's Romans 8, 16 translated in the

King James Version as, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit.

And the Spirit is not an in -self, the Spirit is an in -self.

Okay, so you're bringing up creeds that have developed over time that not everyone agrees with.

Is there a question or you're just bringing it up as far as is there a question in the statement somewhere?

No, it's mostly comments. Mostly comments that Okay, so I, let me just say this.

If a church adopts a creed whether it's the Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, Westminster Confession, and I've looked at all those and depending on how you interpret certain statements, for the most part

I think I could get behind it. But, again, you have to test it with Scripture.

So when it says that Jesus, you know, the Apostles Creed that Jesus descended into hell

Okay, no, I'm not going along with that. Did he descend to the place of the dead? Is that what's meant?

Okay, that's biblical, but he descended into hell? No, I wouldn't phrase it that way.

With the Westminster Confession, there's at least a couple points that I don't agree with.

But, again, always testing it against Scripture is key. Erin? Yep. You said in the

New Testament Peter stood up. When I read through the book of Acts, Yeah, well there was a council, which

I think we talked about last week. So even when the council was held and even with churches that have one man as the leader he still gets counsel from the

Board of Elders or the Board of Deacons and it's still good to have churches communicating and sorting out problems when they come up.

That's all good and I think it's necessary. But even with the Jerusalem Council, it was to settle the issue with all the churches.

So representatives of the churches would come together, but even then James sort of emerged as the leader the one presiding over the council.

So you really can't escape the fact that in any given situation like that, there's always one person who kind of is the spokesman, the chairman, the bishop, whatever you want to however you want to put it, he emerges as the one kind of directing it.

But yeah, that does not mean, and I want to be careful and this might be what you're getting at when we say one bishop or one leader, that does not mean that nobody else has any input.

That's not what's being said. I wasn't getting at it. I was just confused. But I do want to address that because that I don't want anyone to misunderstand what

I'm saying. Because when you have one leader who is completely unaccountable and it's just his word and that's it.

There's a word for that. Tyranny. What's the word?

Typically we've called those cults. When there is one man who cannot be questioned and he's unaccountable.

That's how cults form. But that's not the way the church is. There are other people involved in council.

Ray? It's not pointing to something similar to a pope, is it? Well, I mean the pope would sort of be the ultimate example of a man who

I mean there supposedly is some accountability with him but not really. I don't see any accountability with the current pope.

He's saying all sorts of unbiblical things and even un -Catholic things. He's not being held accountable. That would be taking things way too far.

He has way too much authority. Aaron? You said Ignatius said the local church too.

And then you mentioned James was in charge of the Jerusalem Council for that thing about the non -eating. It sounds like Peter wasn't necessarily in charge of all the churches all the time.

But when he was working in an area, he was the lead guy. And Paul was the lead guy in the churches that he was working for.

So it wasn't just one apostle overall. But the apostles did take leadership of their local

Yes, thank you. It does say local church. So that's what we're talking about. The pope presides over the entire church worldwide.

Or at least that's their claim. But that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about each local assembly has the structure.

I'm a little confused. I'm glad you brought up some of that stuff because it adds some clarity.

Any other questions or comments on this, Marcus? Well, comments. Looking through all the footnotes from previous lessons and so forth too,

I see this Irenaeus a lot of his writings were on heresies.

So I'm reminded and it seems to me in all the epistles that there is a common theme running through them all about the danger of false teachers and heresies.

That's a major theme of the New Testament. Would you agree? Well, you know

I agree. See, I thought we were going to get through one with that not coming up, but I guess it did.

But I think he addresses that when I looked ahead on the next the next lesson, number four, is contending for the faith.

No, but that's true. All of these men who are leaders, that's one of the things they all had to deal with.

It's just part of life. It's part of the experience unfortunately. Okay. Why that verse that we just and Giles and I just memorized.

The spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit and that's what we really, really need.

Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice. Now we've got all kinds of crackpots saying, oh,

God said this and God said that. That's not already in Scripture, so we know that that's not true.

But at the same time some things will ring true is the way that I put it.

That's why we get together and we discuss Scripture. It continues, in the

New Testament the roles of bishop and elder are synonymous.

Acts 20 .17 and verse 28, Titus 1 5 -7, 1

Peter 5 1 -5 So that's the claim. I would expand that that bishop, elder and even pastor and overseer that these are really all used synonymously.

And again, he's using the term bishop but we call, technically the office I hold is bishop but I mean it's just over time churches started referring to it as pastor which, whatever.

You're saying the same thing. Starting with Ignatius these roles became distinct in church history with the role of bishop being elevated above the role of elder in terms of authority in the church.

So as time went on definitions start to change so that now when most people hear the word bishop they think of a man who rules over an entire region.

That's not the way it was in the New Testament. That's not the way it was early on in the church.

A bishop was the pastor of a local assembly. Bottom line. So today when you have a bishop who's ruling over New England it's an unbiblical office really.

He has way too much authority put on him. And it's good to go back and see not only what the

Bible says but what the early church father said because when it lines up with Scripture it's just that much more reinforcing the doctrine of Scripture.

So almost done Ignatius was martyred in which city? Rome. Around the year 117 according to tradition he was fed to wild beasts.

Possibly in the Circus Maximus. An arena similar to the Colosseum.

And then the discussion question which will end with this. It says in teaching that Christians gather on the

Lord's Day Sunday rather than the Sabbath Ignatius was following the lead of the

New Testament. Read Acts 20 verse 7, 1 Corinthians 16 to Colossians 2, 16 and 17 where that's the idea that the

Sabbath and some of these old, they were nailed to the cross and don't let anyone judge you in regards to the

Sabbath day. Revelation 110 John specifically uses the term the

Lord's Day. So that's all in line with what is being said and the question is what do these passages teach about the

Lord's Day? Why do Christians gather on the Lord's Day? John 20 verses 1 and 19 and as we've already alluded to the reason is because on Sunday morning that's when we meet.

Why? That's when Christ rose from the dead and if you read that passage in John, all the disciples gathered together on Sunday morning and then they gathered together the next

Sunday morning and Christ appeared to them and that's what Christians have been doing ever since.