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FORERUNNERS OF THE FAITH - Lesson #The 4 Contending for the Faith / The Polemicists Part 2 (Study of the Early Church Fathers).
Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian of Carthage & Origen of Alexandria
So we're continuing lesson number four, contending for the faith, and we ended last time in section four, the polemicist, and we talked about what a polemicist does, basically they are, the word comes from the Greek, I said Latin last week, but it's Greek, so it means at war, so a polemicist is really fighting against those influences within the church, as Jude says, certain men, they creep in unaware, and they teach false doctrine in the church, so the polemicist is dealing with false teachers within the body of Christ.
So we're going to pick up with A, Uranus of lions, does everyone see that? Okay, so I, well now it tells us how to pronounce his name, so I might go back and forth, Uranus of lions, he died in 2002, but he was born in the year 130, and as a young man, it says he heard Polycarp of Smyrna, thereby linking him to the apostolic fathers, because Polycarp had a connection to what apostle, you remember, John, right, so Uranus, he became the bishop of a church in the Roman province of Gaul, so that's in France, what is now Lyons, and I'm sure it's not pronounced Lyons, Lyons, is that how it's technically pronounced, so his most famous work, this is in your book, you had to fill this in, his most famous work is known as what, against heresies, and it was written to refute the false teachings of which false religion that was really prominent in the first few centuries of Christianity, what is it?
Gnosticism. Gnosticism, okay, so Uranus was fighting against the heresy of Gnosticism, Uranus pointed to the scriptures to defend the truth and also to refute the errors of this false teaching, this is in your book, here's what he said, a quote from Uranus, we have learned from none other, or excuse me, we have learned from none others the plan of our salvation than from those through whom the gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public and at a later period by the will of God handed down to us in the scriptures to be the pillar and ground of our faith, or the ground and pillar, the foundation of our faith, so who's he talking about?
He's talking about the apostles, okay, you get the truth from the apostles of Christ, of course the apostles of Christ are deceased at this point, but you know what they taught, you know what they believed because we have the scriptures, okay, and that's really no different today, we still have the Bible, that's what we're going by and as long as we stick with the Bible, then we're sticking with the apostles of Jesus, now the Gnostics were not, there were no Gnostic apostles, Gnosticism actually developed a couple hundred years later, there was probably an early form of it, who remembers one of the defining teachings of Gnosticism, what did they say about Jesus?
He had no body, he had no earthly body, so whatever human form he had, it was just an illusion or something like that, Irenaeus also identified the basic Christian beliefs that had been handed down from the time of the apostles, here is how he described those theological truths, here's what he said, this is also in your book, the ancient tradition of the apostles is believing in one God, the creator of heaven and earth and all things therein by means of Jesus Christ, the son of God, who because of his surpassing love towards his creation, condescended to be born of the virgin, he himself uniting man through himself to God and having suffered under Pontius Pilate and rising again and having been received up in splendor, shall come in glory, the savior of those who are saved and the judge of those who are judged and sending into eternal fire, those who transform the truth and despise his father and his advent, okay, so you learn a few things about Irenaeus and the things that he believed, he believed that all things were created through who, Christ, right, and Christ was born of a virgin, of course, he's getting all this from where, what source, yeah, well, the scriptures which the apostles wrote or they supervised those who wrote.
Believers today, this is in my book, believers today should be encouraged to see those core Christian doctrines articulated with clarity and defended with boldness by this second century church leader.
And speaking of boldness, Irenaeus was martyred around the year 2000, excuse me, 202, when persecution against Christianity erupted in the region of Gaul. Okay, any questions so far, we're going to get the discussion question and then we'll move on to the next early church father.
The discussion question is the Gnostics confronted Irenaeus or the Gnostics confronted by Irenaeus taught that there were many gods. What passage of scripture would you use to refute that erroneous idea?
They also denied that Jesus had a real human body. Again, where would you go in the Bible to disprove that idea? So let's start out with the first question. What passage in the Bible would you use to refute that idea that there are just many, many gods?
Okay.
So what's that? Deuteronomy, is it six?
So there's the Lord, our God, there's one, one Lord, right? And then it's, I think Ephesians four, one Lord, you know, one faith, one baptism. So there's only one God. And of course, most of the people we come across are, I mean, we live in a country that's been heavily influenced by Christianity.
So most people who believe in some God or some concept of God, they usually believe in that there's one God. Even people that are not Christians will affirm sometimes there is a God out there and there's one God.
It was very common in pagan cultures though, to believe in just many, many deities. So Judaism, Christianity, Islam, like the three biggest religions in the world. Well, I guess maybe Judaism isn't one of the biggest, but it's one of the most influential.
Have this idea of one God monotheism. Can you name a religion that believes in many gods? Jehovah's witness technically believe in one God, although they say, you know, well, technically they would be monotheistic Hinduism, right?
Yeah.
What's that? Satanism.
Well, I don't know.
Maybe.
Maybe this is what Larry was thinking of. The Mormons are the ones who believe in all of these different gods who were once men and then men can ascend to Godhood and yeah, but the Bible is clear. So many passages.
Anyone else have a passage you want to, okay. So that would be Exodus chapter 20. Have no other gods before me, Isaiah 45 five. This is God speaking and he says, I am the Lord and there is no other. There is no God besides me.
I don't, I don't think it could be put any clearer than that. So yeah, without question, the scripture teaches there is only one God.
What about this other question though? They denied that Jesus had a real human body again. Where would you go in the Bible to disprove that idea to me? This is such an odd thing, you know, because you just see Jesus throughout the gospels.
Clearly he had a body. It is a bizarre teaching.
Barb.
I don't know the reference right off the top of my head, but when he appeared to the disciples in the upper room, he said, they thought he was a ghost. He said, you know, a ghost doesn't have a flesh and bone like I did.
Right.
I mean that, that would pretty much settle it.
Jesus.
I'm not, I'm not a ghost. I'm not a spirit. I have flesh and flesh and bone handled me. He said, right. Jesus made breakfast and he ate. Well, how can you eat if you don't have a body Larry.
And throughout the gospels, I don't have the references, but you know, he slept because he was tired. He, he ate because he was hungry. He suffered, you know, being beaten and, and you know, suffered on the cross.
He died, he rose again.
Um, let's turn to second John for a second.
What did you say?
He was born of a Virgin, right? Like the whole story of Christ proves that he had a human body. So like I said, it's a, it's a bizarre thing to teach, but uh, the Gnostics did that and you remember why the Gnostics believe that Jesus didn't have a body while they were influenced by Greek philosophy.
And the idea was all material things are evil. Anything material is bad. So therefore God could not come and have a body because that's, you know, below him or.
Something.
All right.
Second, John, this, this is so very clear. Second John, uh, there's only one chapter starting in verse seven. For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.
This is a deceiver and what an antichrist. So John is dealing with false teachers who were saying this very thing. So it's believed John was dealing with an early form of Gnosticism. So if you, if you say Jesus didn't come in the flesh, you're, you're an antichrist.
According to John, uh, look to yourselves verse eight, that we do not lose the things which we work for, but that we may receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ, he does not have God.
He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the father and the son. And if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house or greet him for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.
So again, this is all about the false teacher who denies that Jesus came in the flesh. So that's clearly the teaching of scripture. But again, uh, false teachers, the Gnostics, they didn't, they weren't all that concerned with what the Bible said.
Any other passages either for there being one God or that Jesus had a human body?
Well, I think, I think these verses are enough, but there are plenty of others. So if there's nothing else, uh, for Uranus, we're going to move on to the next one, Tertullian of Carthage. So he lived from 155 to 240 AD, born in North Africa in the city of Carthage, Tertullian is traditionally thought to have been trained as a lawyer, whether or not he received such training, he exhibits a high degree of education and rhetorical ability in his writings.
He was the first major Christian author to write predominantly in what language in Latin rather than Greek. Consequently, he is known as the father of Latin or Western theology in describing the reality of God's three in oneness.
Tertullian was the first person to use the Latin term. This should be easy because it just told you what, so he's the, he's the, this is important. He is the one who coined the term, what?
Trinity.
Trinity. So we know Trinity, tri means three, like triangle, tricycle, tri means three, unity speaks of one. So the Trinity simply is a word meaning the three in one. So one God in three persons, Tertullian firmly upheld the truth that there is only one God.
Yet, he also recognized that the Trinity consists of three persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit. Every once in a while, you'll find someone who kind of argues about that term person because you know, I don't know if the Bible actually uses the term persons for father.
But they do have personality, right? The Holy Spirit has a personality. He can be grieved. He speaks. So I think that's a perfectly acceptable. It's the best term we have to describe.
Indescribable.
What can, we talked about this last week. How can you describe God or compare the Trinity to what, an egg, right? With the shell, the yolk, and the, the white. It's not really an accurate comparison. There's nothing like God.
He's totally different from everything in the creation, which is what you would expect. But yeah, so who, who coined the term Trinity? Tertullian.
So that's pretty significant because that's a dividing line today. If you don't believe in the Trinity, that really is the, speaking of the Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses, that really is the dividing line between Christianity and the cults.
You know, I did this video on YouTube that people often comment, you know, well, who are you to say that Mormons or Jehovah's witnesses are a cult? And it's like, well, I, I'm nobody to say that, but that's been the universal testimony of Protestants and evangelicals for 150 years now or more.
If you deny the Trinity, that, that really puts you outside of Christianity. Because if you deny the Trinity, what are you doing? You're denying what?
You're denying that Christ is divine. So, I mean, that's the whole core of Christianity, the confession that Jesus is Lord. If you say that he's not divine, then it's not biblical Christianity.
This is in my book as a defender of Christianity, Tertullian wrote an apology or defense as well as a number of polemical works, including a polemic against Marcion. Do you remember what Marcion taught.
Is Marcion, a good guy or a bad guy? Good to get bad. He taught that there's something about some, something about the old Testament that he.
Didn't like.
Jehovah or Yahweh, the God of the old Testament, he said was evil. And then Jesus came, you know, sent from a different God or was a different God. But yeah. And we talked about this, how people say, you know, the God of the old Testament is one way and Jesus is so different or something, you know, people say that, and that's kind of a, an idea that Marcion would affirm.
But there's, like we said, there's only one, there's only one God and Jesus constantly referred back to the God of the old Testament as his heavenly father. So that's, that's why Marcion had to take the Bible and cut out all the parts he didn't like and then, you know, present a new Bible that just was just ripped to shreds.
Really?
Uh, Tertullian was also strongly opposed to the idea that Christianity should be influenced by what? This is something you had to fill in, right? So he didn't want Greek philosophy influencing Christianity.
And that would go back to the idea that everything physical is, is evil and that led into Gnosticism. So here's, I don't think this is in your book, identifying Greek philosophy by its birthplace, which is Athens and the church by its birthplace, Jerusalem.
Tertullian asked the rhetorical question. This is in your book. He said, what indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What Concord is there between the academy and the church? What between heretics and Christians?
Our instruction comes from the porch of Solomon who had himself taught that the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart away with all the attempts to produce a modeled Christianity or a muddled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic and dialectic composition.
For this is our honorable faith that there is nothing which we ought to believe besides what the gospel. And that doesn't mean that you only talk about the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and nothing else.
I mean, the gospels can be used as an all encompassing term to talk about the story of Christ, which is in scripture. But does this happen today? Can you think of an example where philosophy has influenced the church?
Does this happen today?
How?
Because people are preaching what they think people want to hear to bring them in.
Whatever's popular in the culture, whatever new movement, new philosophy, which might not be philosophy per se, I just think of social justice, which really is a whole philosophy in and of itself. And people will try to take that and kind of mix it together with Christianity and make this hybrid.
Problem with philosophy is it's what it's kind of man's reasoning, right? It's human logic and logic is good, but sometimes we take these, these man-made systems of thought and impose it upon the Bible or interpret the Bible through what we already assume what I learned in college or something, and that can be dangerous.
Larry,.
I just wanted to comment on the Stoics and the philosophers. In Acts chapter 17, Paul was in Athens and they brought him up to the Areopagus and asked him, may we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak for you are bringing some strange things to our.
Ears.
Therefore, we want to know what these things mean for, and then verse 21 says for all the Athenians and foreigners who were there, spent their time and nothing else, but either to tell or to hear of some new thing, right?
That's what, you know, they look forward to hearing new things, kind of like what's going on, relative cultural.
And the Epicurean philosophy was that the whole mindset was to enjoy the finer things of life. You know, life is about experiencing pleasure. So whatever life can offer, I mean, indulge, I was kind of the, the idea with the Epicureans and I just look at that today.
And how is that concept been blended together with Christianity? I don't know to me, maybe, maybe I'm off base on this, but I think of the prosperity gospel where it's, you know, health and wealth and all the finer things in life.
Jesus is a means to an end that if you just believe in Jesus and do X, Y, and Z, then you will have all the finer things in life and you can indulge in and be rich. And I don't know, maybe that's, maybe there's no direct connection, but yeah, which is attractive.
And there's a, an element of truth where God has blessed people, but yeah, we just need to, we need to keep the focus on, on scripture, on the gospel and test all things. So it says here in the book, in spite of this theological precision in some areas, Tertullian eventually joined the Montanist movement.
His association with that movement has made him a somewhat controversial figure in subsequent church history. So the Montanists were sort of like an early form of Pentecostalism. You know, they believed in new prophecy, new revelations were being given, static utterances and all of that.
So they were kind of, you know, it was a step beyond Pentecostalism, but it was similar, at least in that way. But Tertullian, now this is the discussion question. The doctrine of the Trinity is based on two fundamental truths.
Number one, there is only one God. And number two, one God eternally exists in three distinct persons, father, son, and spirit. Each of whom is truly and equally God. Can you think of some verses that would support these dual biblical truths?
Now, we kind of already looked at this, the idea that there's only one God, we, didn't we just, who's the editor of this book? Didn't they catch this? They just asked this question, but, but let's focus in on that one God eternally existing in three distinct persons.
What's the verse on that? Oneness of God, one God. We already covered that. What verse would say that there is only, that there are three persons?
Matthew 28, the great commission baptized in the name of the father, son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus was given all authority in heaven and on earth. I mean, I think that's a pretty good, a pretty good verse to use.
Anyone else? Let's turn to, good.
Genesis one 26. God speaks of himself in plural form. Let's turn to Hebrews chapter one, Hebrews one. Of course, I think the best evidence is a John one, one in the beginning was the word. The word was with God.
The word was God. Verse 14. He became flesh and dwelt among us. So if Jesus is God, I mean, all of a sudden now you have at least two and obviously the Holy Spirit is spoken of as the Holy Spirit of God.
So I think John one is maybe the most clear passage, but here in Hebrews one, uh, you have, cause really the Trinity, the issue of the Trinity is the deity of Christ. So like I said, the cults, Jehovah's witnesses, Mormons, they, they deny the Trinity because they deny the deity of Christ.
The two go hand in hand, but here's what God, the father says about the son in Hebrews chapter one, look at verse eight. And when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, you notice he is capitalized.
So he is a reference to who God, the father, he says, let all the angels of God worship.
Him.
And of the angels, he says, who makes his angels, the spirit, uh, who makes his angel spirits and his ministers, a flame of fire, but to the son, he says, so this is God, the father speaking to the son.
He says your throne, what Oh God is forever and ever in a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. So you have God, the father speaking to the son and the father calls the son God. And he says you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.
Therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companion. So it's like the father and son talking to each other, calling each other God. Did Jesus have a God?
It's God, the father. So, but Jesus at the same time is God according to scripture. So like I said, the, the Trinity is the best, uh, word that we have to describe, uh, something that the human mind really can't, we can't wrap our minds around it, which we shouldn't be able to.
If, if we worship a God that we can understand, like, you know, some people were bow and serve.
Idols.
Let's say we have this, this big hunk of wood up here that somebody carved and it's made out of pine. And I can understand this hunk of wood, right? I know who carved it. I know what it is. I know what it's made of.
And it's not all that deep, just a block of wood. You don't want to be able to understand, at least not fully, uh, the God you serve, because if you can understand God, that probably just means that you're just as much God as that person you're worshiping.
If not more so, but that's not the way it is.
Any questions on this before we move on to the next one? We're really covering a lot of ground this morning.
Yup.
Hey, we keep going like this. We'll finish the book by January, but, um, okay. Next is origin of Alexandria. So he lived from 184 to 253. Who's heard of origin? Uh, he's, yeah, he's one of those names that people have heard of him and he is another controversial figure.
Some would say that he shouldn't be listed as an early church father because some of the things he believed, some would say are heretical, but we'll go through the book and see what the book says. No, this is in my teacher's guide.
It says no survey of the pre-Nicene church would be complete without mentioning origin. Origin was born in Alexandria, Egypt. As a young man, his father was martyred for being a Christian. Origin wanted to go with him to be martyred, but was prevented by his mother who hid his clothes so he could not leave the house.
Hey, it worked.
He attended a Christian training school in Alexandria and was part of the church there until he came into conflict with the bishop. Origin moved to Caesarea where he became a well-known teacher and prolific writer origin.
This is in your books. Origin was one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the early church, producing roughly how many treaties? Okay, 2000 different writings on various theological subjects.
His legacy, however, is a mix of both positive and negative contributions. Okay, that's a lot of writing. On a positive side, so we're going to talk about the positive first, Origin organized the first systematic approach to theology in a work called On First Principles.
And I realize there are people today who they don't like systematic theology, so they wouldn't see this as a positive, but a lot of people think it's good. So he did that. He also wrote commentaries on a number of the books of the Bible and defended the Christian faith against a pagan philosopher named Kelsus, I think is how you pronounce his name.
But now on the negative side, okay, so there's good things to say about him and some good and some bad, which let's face it. When we went through the church history series on Wednesday, you'll remember I mentioned several times church history is messy, right?
Some of the early church fathers, their writings really were a mixed bag. I think you could say that today. I mean, there are some teachers today, some well-known Christian leaders that they've done a lot of good, done a lot of good teaching, and there's a lot of bad things you could.
Say.
Just to throw out one name, Robbie Zacharias was kind of like one of these, he was one of the most famous Christian evangelical leaders, and you could say he did a lot of good as an apologist, but obviously when history is written, if he's remembered, a lot of bad things could be written.
There's all sorts of people who have taught wonderful things, like Billy Graham. I mean, Billy Graham led probably more people, if you just take the numbers, he probably led more people to Christ than any other one man in the 20th century, but then you have these other things that he taught and you're just scratching your head, like it's hard to make sense out of the two, but that's the way it is, you know, because human beings are flawed and we all have our moral shortcomings, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and then there's doctrinal things, you know, and origin is certainly one of them, where there's some things he taught.
One thing he taught that is not biblical is the pre-existence of the human soul, okay? So what do we believe about mankind? When were you, I'm not going to say when you were born, because you know your birthday, when did you come into existence?
We'll put it that way. The average evangelical would say that people, life begins at conception. That's the standard evangelical view, but he says, no, you actually pre-existed. Now it doesn't go into detail here, but this is actually something Mormons believe, that you were once in heaven with God and God sent you to earth and you took on human form.
So this pre-existence of the human soul is not a Christian concept at all, but origin taught it. He also promoted an allegorical approach to the interpretation of the Bible. Now quick quiz, do we take an allegorical approach to scripture?
What would we, what would you tell someone, well, how does Morse Corner try to, you guys interpret the Bible? You would say what? Yeah, we interpret it literally. And that's not to say there are no allegories in the Bible, that there's no, there is symbolism in scripture, right?
In the book of Revelation, there's tons of symbolism, but it doesn't mean everything is literal and a wooden literalism, as they say. But origin went a little too far with his allegorizing. So this allegorical approach had already been used in Alexandria and origin continued to popularize it.
This is in your book. So take a look. According to origins, allegorical method, each text of scripture has three levels of meaning corresponding to the body, soul, and spirit. So the body, it says the what?
You had to fill these in. Let's just go through these. What did you write in the first empty slot?
Literal.
Literal. The second one?
Ethical.
And then the third?
Spiritual. Spiritual.
Spiritual.
So the body corresponds to literal, the soul corresponds to ethical, the spirit corresponds to spiritual. So let's go through these. The body, number one, the literal meaning focused on what the text says, if taken at face value.
This meaning was regarded as what? The least helpful. So we would view that totally different. So according to origin, the literal interpretation of what the text says on its surface was the least important.
So you can already see built into the scripture, according to him, there's some sort of hidden meaning in there. We just got to draw it out. No, no, no, no. Sometimes there are deeper meanings. That's true.
But no, we want to take the Bible at face value. Because once you open it up to secret meanings and allegories, all of a sudden now it's kind of up for grabs. What does the Bible even mean? Because people are going to have different ideas.
So next, the soul, he said the ethical meaning involved the moral truth being taught by the.
Text.
And then third, the spirit or the spiritual meaning allowed the interpreter to turn the text into a series of symbols or metaphors, which were generally interpreted in ways that pointed to Jesus. Now, here's where it might get a little confusing, because if you attend on Wednesday night, you're constantly hearing me go through the book of Exodus or numbers or Joshua.
And we're saying this is a type of Christ or this person, you know, Joshua is a type of Christ or this points ahead to Christ. And that's not really what origin. I wish I had an example, because I've heard some examples over the years where they'll take an Old Testament text and allegorize it.
And it's just so far out there. It's like I can't even think of how you would even get that meaning.
But Larry, well, the guy, Nathan, whoever did this book, he used as an example that origin did like Joshua, for instance, Joshua is Jesus, Jericho is the world, Rahab is the.
Church.
But and so he was able to turn it to where it's all it's about Jesus and the church.
Right, right.
Now, that does sound familiar now that you bring that up. So so there's something the point is there's something to be said that, yes, Old Testament does speak to Christ. Jesus said in John 539, he searched the scriptures for in them.
You know, what does he say? He searched the scriptures for in them. You think you have eternal life, but he says these are they which testify of me. So Jesus is saying the Old Testament is speaking of me.
But yeah, origin of some of these guys.
This means this that this symbolizes that that symbolizes. And all of a sudden you have this whole complex allegory. Then you're kind of missing the main point that Joshua went in to the city and here's what happened.
But anyways, in my book, it says through origins, allegorical approach to interpretation. Sorry, though origins allegorical approach to interpretation was undoubtedly well-intentioned. It opened the door to all sorts of imaginative and fanciful, fanciful interpretations during the persecution of Christianity under Emperor Decius.
Origin was tortured for his faith. Those injuries permanently damaged his health, and he died several years later because of some of origins, controversial teachings. He was condemned by a sixth century church council, which is the second council of Constantinople in 553.
So this is long after he was gone. So if you ever read the early church fathers, just know that you're going to find some stuff that's good. You're going to find some stuff that's going to make you scratch your head.
You're going to find some stuff that's bad. I mean, just like today, you know, if you listen to all these Christian pastors, well known late, you're going to hear the good, bad, and the ugly, right? That's kind of the way, way it's always been.
Except for the apostles and how they were inspired to write the scripture. We believe that's the, that's the sole, you know, authoritative source. We can look to that. The scripture is the final authority.
The discussion question as noted above origins approach to biblical interpretation left the door open already. Did I already read this?
Left the door open for imaginative and fanciful interpretations that had nothing to do with the passage of scripture being studied. Why is it important to have a sound method of studying and interpreting the Bible?
See second Timothy two 15, you know, be diligent to present yourself approved to God or workman who need it, not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Based on that verse, what are some potential consequences for misinterpreting scripture?
So number one, why is it important to have a sound method for studying and interpreting the Bible? Why is it important? Because if you don't have that, who knows where you're going to end up? It really, really, who knows?
Because yeah, well, someone could, could create an allegory. This symbolizes that that symbolizes that they could literally make up anything really. What are some potential consequences for misinterpreting scripture?
Any ideas? Well, you could be condemned in a church council. A few hundred years later, we learned that as origin was what's that?
Lead people astray.
I mean, that, that's the real danger. You're leading people into error. And of course there's a danger for your own soul. If, if you're really teaching heresy and leading people away from the true gospel, then it's devastating for that person and others and the church as a whole.
So in lesson number six, it says, we will look at a fourth century preacher named John Chrysostom who exhibited a much better approach to Bible interpretation.
We'll cover him, but we have a few minutes left. Let's try to finish up this section. Number five says standing for truth. This is in your books. Says the Christian leaders of the second and third centuries faced unique challenges.
Faithfulness to Christ required the courage to stand firm, even in the face of severe opposition, violent persecution, and possibly even execution. Men like Justin and Arrhenius gave their lives as martyrs for Christ.
As did other believers during this time period. Their resolve did not waver even in the face of death within the church. Faithfulness to Christ also meant holding fast to the truth in the face of error.
False teachers presented a constant threat in response. Church leaders wrote careful and convincing refutations, basing their arguments on the teaching of God's word. As we consider their examples, let's stop to consider what faithfulness to the Lord looks like both in our lives, in our lives and inside and outside the church.
Here's the discussion question. How can believers in the church today continue to contend earnestly for the faith? How do we do that?
So we want to, I would say, yeah, use the scriptures, test all things, hold fast to that which is good. Whatever philosophy is out there, whatever somebody's teaching, some guy on TV, me, everything, test it against the word of God.
And when something's wrong, you know, you need to apply these passages. When something's wrong, you need to actually address it instead of sweeping it under the.
Rug.
Next, what prevents believers from taking a strong stand? You know, why isn't this happening? What prevents believers from taking a strong stand in the areas of apologetics and polemics? What, what's the hindrance to me?
There's one thing, one main thing. Why don't people confront error?
Some people don't, that's a good, that's a good answer. Some people don't know better. They had never been taught. They're not equipped.
I think like today, the abortion issue, people are afraid to stand up for their faith because of being bullied.
So afraid of being bullied or persecuted. And this is where I was going with, I would just kind of put that under the category of fear of man. Like people are afraid because if I speak up, you know, people are going to say things, they're going to slash my tires.
They're going to, well, and of course these men did speak up and well, what happened to.
Them?
They, I mean, they were killed. It's probably not going to happen in America in 2023. It could, but yeah, but the thing is it's the fear of man, fear of what will come next, I think is what prevents it.
And then finally, what can you do to be a faithful, to be faithful as a follower of Jesus Christ? And just going back to sticking with scripture, testing everything you need to fight against swim against the current is what you need to do.
You really need to fight against it because if you're not fighting against it, you're going to get swept along with it.
You're dismissed. Thank you.