Learn Church History with Dr. White

The Lord's Day in the New Testament and Early Church

On the Lord's own day. Now this is another rather important issue, yes. The Kuriake, Kuriake Hemera, the Lord's day is a New Testament term. John was in the spirit on the Kuriake Hemera, the Lord's day.

And we know from texts like this, we know from Ignatius that Kuriake Hemera, Lord's day is Sunday. And so once again, in one of the earliest sources that we have, the people are gathering on Sunday, not on the Sabbath day.

And this could be before the end of the first century. Why is this relevant? Well, you know why it's relevant. There are all sorts of folks who will tell you that it's the mark of the beast to worship on Sunday.

That's what the original seventh day of Venice taught anyways, and some still do. They're the old crusty type. But that term Kuriake Hemera, Lord's day, something has happened and Christian worship normatively is found on that particular day.

Unity in Worship and the Role of Elders and Deacons

And the gathering of the saints is to be one that is marked by unity. So that if there is disputes, they are to be taken care of beforehand. So there is unity amongst the people in their offering of worship.

A point for yourselves, therefore, elders and deacons worthy of the Lord, obviously if you can, you've got enough people or people that have been called in that way, men who are meek and not lovers of money and true and approved for unto you, they also perform the service of the prophets and teachers.

Therefore despise them not, for they are your honorable men along with the prophets and teachers. So this is another reason why this is viewed as a very, very early document. Because it's sort of in between governmental formulations of the church.

You still have these itinerant prophets and apostles, but you also have elders and deacons. And they're existing alongside of each other during this transitionary period. So that's why a lot of people would put this very, very early, but other people would say, well, that lasted for a while.

Ignatius and the Development of the Monarchical Episcopate

The problem with that is when we get to Ignatius, we're gonna find that Ignatius writing in the second, the first decade of the second century, dies 107 -108. Ignatius, we're gonna see, already in the Eastern churches, a singular bishop for a particular church, normally a city, has already developed in the East.

This is called a monarchical episcopate. You've heard of a monarch. So a monarch bishop. So Ignatius is the bishop of Antioch. Instead of there being a number of bishops in the house churches in Antioch, he is the guy over all of Antioch.

But we can tell from his epistles that, for example, when he writes, and this is extremely important, when he writes to the church at Rome, he does not mention a bishop. He speaks to a group of men who have the leadership there in Rome.

There is no one bishop. Primitively, up until the 140s, there was a plurality of elders in the church of Rome. And only later does the monarchical episcopate arrive there in the middle of the second century.

That plays havoc with Rome's claims to the papacy. But that's the historical reality. The point is that, at least for Ignatius, there in the first decade of the second century, you already have the next step in this development.

So either the Didache is written in more of a rural area where these developments haven't taken place, or it's extremely early. You know, 80s, 90s, which some people have put it that far back. But those are things that scholars sit around and write papers about when they got nothing better to do.