Didache and the Apostle's Creed

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We have come tonight to the third lesson in our series on church history, examining the creeds and confessions of the church through the ages and why they matter.
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Tonight we are going to be looking at the creeds and confessions of the early church from the Didache to the Apostles' Creed.
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So far in our study, we have seen an overview of the 2000 years of history and we have examined the creeds which are found within the Bible itself, demonstrating that having creeds and confessions is not improper, but rather is a positive way of establishing doctrinal positions.
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Tonight, we're going to focus on two important doctrinal works from the early church.
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Now, when we talk about that term, we talk about the early church.
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What are we talking about when we say the early church? Well, tonight, when I say early church, I am referencing the first and second centuries of the church.
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Somebody might say, well, the early church is the only the few decades following Christ.
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Well, we're we're expanding out to what we would say is the early church, including the first century.
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That's the century in which Jesus lived.
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You know, he died somewhere around 30 to 33 A.D.
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And Jerusalem was destroyed in 80, 70.
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That's all within the first century.
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The second century is when we get to the 100s.
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We start talking about 105, 110, 150, 160.
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That is the second century.
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Sometimes that confuses people because the 100s of the second century, the 200s of the third century following Christ, because the first century, of course, is where it's all two digit numbers year 80, 33, 80, 70, 80, 55, things like that.
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There are many works which are written in this 200 year period, and they're not part of the Bible, but they are still very valuable.
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Authors from that period include men like Clement, Polycarp and Ignatius.
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These are just a few of the names of the men that we would call the early church fathers.
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How many of you ever heard the term the church fathers or the early church fathers? The early church fathers are the men who came after the apostles.
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They're the second generation of believers, sometimes third and fourth generation because they're their students.
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But we're talking about the the earliest Christians, the Christians who were the first church, if you will, the first the first generation after the apostles.
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And two of the writings which we're going to focus on, like I said, if we focus on all of them, we can make that a series in and of itself.
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If we did all of the works of Clement and Polycarp and Ignatius, we we would stop here.
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But in our study of history, we're going to focus on two documents specifically the Didache and the Apostles Creed.
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These two documents are normally considered to be well within the range which we would define as the early church.
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They are among the writings of what is called the early church fathers.
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And though there is not certainty about the original authors of either work, they were circulating very early in the history of the church.
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That's the point.
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We don't know who wrote them, but we do know that they were circulating within the church very early in the church's history.
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I want to remind everyone of something as we do this study.
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These are not scripture.
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They do not carry the same weight as scripture, nor do they carry scriptural authority.
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They are, however, very helpful and insightful when it comes to learning about the lives and the behaviors of our Christian ancestors.
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They also bear the marks of being creeds and confessions, which we're focusing on in this course.
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That's why I chose these and I didn't choose like Clement of Rome or something like I didn't choose the writings of Clement or Polycarp or Ignatius.
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I chose these two documents specifically because they bear the marks of having one, a creed, and the Didache is like a confession of faith.
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So because that's the focus of our study, that's why these are getting the attention outside of other works, which would be called works of the early church or the early church fathers.
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So we're going to begin first with the Didache.
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The word Didache comes from the Greek word for teaching.
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When we talk about didactic literature, we're talking about literature which is intended to teach.
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Many of Paul's letters are didactic in nature.
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They're meant to teach lessons to the church about certain specific doctrines.
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So the Didache is also called, and this is the first blank on your sheet, it is called the teaching of the twelve apostles, the teaching of the twelve apostles.
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It was written likely, I'm going to put likely because we don't have exact numbers here, but it was likely written between 80, 65 and 80, 80.
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Sure.
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Yes.
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Pentecost would have happened 50 days after Christ's ascension or well, 10 days after his ascension, 50 days after the resurrection.
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So that would have been sometime between 30 and 33 AD.
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So you're talking about, you know, 35 years to 45 to 50 years after that.
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This puts it, though, well within the range of the other New Testament books.
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Because the other New Testament books are also written in the 50s and the 60s.
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This is this is well within the range of Paul's letters, well within the range of the Gospels, well within the range of all of those books would all be in the 60s and the 70s.
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So the fact that it is this early testifies to the fact that it has a great deal of importance.
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And it's talking about a time in the church that is just for lack of it's pregnant with meaning that this is a time in the church's history when it's just powerfully significant as far as what is going on.
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Yes, a lot of these people would have been eyewitnesses to Christ, eyewitnesses to the death, burial and resurrection.
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Certainly when Paul wrote first Corinthians, he said, there are many of you who are many who are still alive today who saw Christ's resurrection.
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Yes, it is believed by some that this represents what the apostles taught to the Gentiles concerning the Christian faith, like a statement of faith, if you will.
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And when you read it, it reads very much like a confession of faith or a statement of faith.
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There is debate as to its authenticity, but it's potentially cited by Eusebius and Athanasius in the third and fourth centuries, which would add to its credibility.
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If it is actually cited in the third and fourth centuries by Eusebius and Athanasius, that adds to the fact that this was respected among the church.
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If nothing else, it provides us a source of guidance to help us understand the conduct and behavior of the early church.
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So it is a very important document.
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Now, the next blank that you have on your sheet, it is obvious that major portions of the Didache are simply quotes from Christ and other scriptural texts.
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I want to read to you, I'm going to put it up on the screen.
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I want to read to you the first chapter of the Didache.
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I want you to read it while thinking about the scriptures that you already know, the New Testament, and you'll see the connections.
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All right, let's look now at chapter one.
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The two ways and the first commandment, there are two ways, one of life and one of death, but a great difference between the two ways.
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The way of life, then, is this first, you shall love God who made you second, love your neighbor as yourself and do not do to another what you would not want done to you.
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And of these things, the teaching is this, bless those who curse you and pray for your enemies and fast for those who persecute you.
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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 abstain from worldly lusts.
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Did we? OK, let me turn you there.
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Abstain from worldly lusts.
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If someone strikes you your right cheek, turn to him the other also and you shall be perfect.
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If someone impresses you for one mile, go with him, too.
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If someone takes your cloak, give him also your coat.
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If someone takes from you what is yours, ask it not back, for indeed you are not able to give to everyone who asks you and ask it not back.
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For the father wills that to all should be given of our own blessings, free gifts, happy as he who gives according to the commandment, for he is guiltless.
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Woe to him who receives for if one receives who has need, he is guiltless.
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But he who receives not having need shall pay the penalty why he received and for what and coming into confinement, he shall be examined concerning the things which he has done.
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And he shall not escape from there until he pays back the last penny.
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And also concerning this, it has been said, let your arms sweat in your hands until you know to whom you should give.
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All right.
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So that puts together the first chapter of the dedicate.
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Did you recognize any of it? I hope so, because great many portions of it were simply lifted from the Sermon on the Mount, the portion about going an extra mile, the portion about allowing someone to strike you on the right cheek.
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All of those were simply references to Christ's teachings.
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Also, we see the reference to the great commandment of the Lord, your God, who made you love your neighbor as yourself.
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This, of course, is a is a restatement of the great commandment.
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Love your Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.
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There are some portions, some major variations within this text from what the scripture says.
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In fact, one of the ones that most people wouldn't even recognize, but I picked up on it as soon as I read it was this.
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I want to just call your attention.
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I'll go back so that you can see it.
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It says, first, you shall love the God who made you second, love your neighbor as yourself and do not do to another what you would not want done to you.
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Beloved, that is not exactly what Christ said.
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Christ said, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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This says, do not do what you wouldn't want done.
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There is a difference because Christ's command is in the positive.
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This command is in the negative.
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The positive is do unto others as you have to express love, express mercy, express grace to do something.
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This is a similar command, but not the same because this says, do not do not do evil, do not steal, do not take from, do not lie.
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Don't do the evil.
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But Christ's command was more of the positive.
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Do the good.
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So I think that that is a major difference here, not that it not that it really is saying that this is wrong, but this is not taking into account the fullness of what Christ gave us.
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So, as I said, this document is not perfect.
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It is an expression of the teachings, but it again is not scripture.
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And that's why I'm giving you some insight into some areas where it might differ some from what Christ actually taught.
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Another thing that we see is in the very last sentence when it says, let your arms sweat in your hands, that is not found in scripture.
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It is an interesting point, though, because your arms are your gifts for the poor and the needy.
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And when it says, let your arms sweat in your hands, it means to consider to whom you're supposed to give.
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This is something that we don't necessarily see in scripture, but it is a good principle for stewardship, that if we are going to be stewards of what God has given to us, we should be considerate of how we spend that which God has given to us, how we give that which God has given to us.
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So in a way, this sort of does it doesn't violate scripture, but it gives us more insight into how the early church managed its giving to those who are in need.
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It said, actually, make sure that you are diligent in regard to that which God has given you to help others.
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So, like I said, there's a lot of interesting information here, and it's likely that this statement was added because Christians being known for their philanthropy, their love and wanting to help others were possibly being taken advantage of.
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And that's the truth.
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People who are charitable have oftentimes become the victims of those who would take advantage of those who would try to take advantage of their charity.
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So here we have an example of the early church being being wise and saying we need to make sure that when we're doing our works of charity, that we're doing them appropriately.
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So I think that's an interesting little little thing there.
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And again, it's not scripture, but it does show wisdom.
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It does show an expression of a desire to be wise in the handling of what God has given to them.
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All right.
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The didache is 16 chapters and it can be broken into four categories.
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Here are your your outline.
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The first is the two ways and that is chapters one through six.
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The two ways are the way of life and the way of death, and it spends six chapters expressing there are ways that are pleasing to God and there are ways that are not pleasing to God.
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There are ways which lead to life.
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There are ways that lead to destruction.
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And it expresses those ways and it compares and contrasts those ways in the first six chapters.
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And by the way, when I say chapter, that was one whole chapter.
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So it's not long.
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It is not in any way a long document, but it is set up very much like a statement of faith.
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If you look at a church statement of faith, our statement of faith has chapters starts out with what we believe about the Bible, what we believe about God, what we believe about the Trinity, what we believe about Christ.
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It's in their little paragraphs.
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Well, that's sort of the way the didache is laid out.
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We also see the second grouping is the rituals.
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The rituals are verses are chapter seven through 10, the rituals of the early church, baptism, communion and fasting.
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Fasting is included among the practices of the early church.
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The next we see is practical guidance.
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Practical guidance is 11 through 15.
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It is 16 chapters, I think I already mentioned that once.
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The 16th chapter is the apocalypse, the apocalypse.
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What is an apocalypse? References the end, the time of Jesus's return, apocalypse is a revelation, an ending, a coming of Christ.
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So there is one reference to that, and that is in chapter 16.
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One of the most interesting portions when you're reading through the didache, at least one of the most interesting portions that I found to be helpful and beneficial was the one that regarded the rituals.
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How did the early church handle the rituals of baptism and fasting and communion? Well, beloved, the church has been divided on those issues for centuries.
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It's been divided on those issues down through the ages.
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And particularly the issues of baptism and the Lord's Supper have been areas of major division.
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And it's good to see how the early church practiced these things.
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So I'm going to put it up on the screen, these portions.
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I'm going to let you see what the early church, what the didache references, how the early church.
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Because even though we see baptism and Lord's Supper in the New Testament, there's not a lot about how it was practiced.
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It's only mentioned as that it was being done.
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There's not a lot of how was it practiced? Well, this is what it says.
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Chapter seven concerning baptism, it says, and concerning baptism baptized this way, having first said all these things baptized into the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit in living water.
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Living water is running water.
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Like a stream.
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But if you have no living water, baptize into other water.
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And if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm.
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But if you have neither, pour out water three times upon the head into the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit.
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But before the baptism, let the baptizer fast and the baptized and whoever else can.
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But you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before we end there.
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That's that's chapter seven on baptism.
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Now, historically speaking, there have been three debates on the subject of baptism.
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Historically speaking, there have been three major debates.
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I would say there's only been three debates.
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There've been three major debates.
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The first is on the efficacy of baptism.
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What do I mean by efficacy? What does it do? What does baptism do? There are those who say that baptism itself saves someone.
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The historic Church of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church, believes that when a person is baptized, that's the moment that they receive the grace of regeneration.
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The Church of Christ says that's when their sins are remitted or when remission takes place.
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So that's what we see being taught.
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What does this document say? I find this very interesting in regards to that.
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This document says that a person who is going to be baptized in the early church must first practice a spiritual discipline prior to their baptism.
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What's the spiritual discipline? Fast and fast what? One or two days prior.
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Beloved, if you go to the Church of Christ and you tell them you want to receive Jesus, they baptize you right then because they believe that the baptism must take place for you to receive the remission of your sins because they believe the baptism works in accord with your faith to wash away the sins and for you to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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Beloved, this tells me that the early church believed that a person was saved prior to their baptism.
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That's something that they would never the Church of Christ would say, no, no, but I would say yes, yes, because how would I ask an unsaved dead spiritually person to act on a spiritual discipline? How can I say to an unsaved person who is still dead in your sins here, I want you to do this spiritually alive thing.
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You've got to do something that a spiritually alive person can do, which is to fast and meditate and pray prior to this action.
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People ask me all the time, you know, when they come and we talk about baptism, they talk about their children being baptized and they ask me, when should my child be baptized? I say whenever they can demonstrate their expression of faith.
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By more than simply saying, yeah, I believe in Jesus, my kids have been able to say that since they were since they were very small children, but they have not been able to express demonstrations of their regeneration.
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That's what this is saying, that they're expressing that they have been regenerated.
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So I think that that's that's the first efficacy of baptism.
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The second is the mode of baptism.
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I find this fascinating.
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As you know, we practice baptism by immersion.
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What is immersion means to put someone under water.
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We do practice that.
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This demonstrates that that was a practice of the early church.
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But it also says there was another practice that was happening in the early church.
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What is it? Pouring.
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If you want to say sprinkling, pouring, they allowed for this secondary mode, but it was not preferred.
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It was done in the in the event that someone could not be immersed or there was no place for the immersion, they would allow the pouring.
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I had somebody asked me one time, pastor, if a person was on their deathbed and they were dying, would you pour water on them? If they wanted to be baptized, I said, absolutely.
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Get the rubber sheets and let's get going.
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Let's let's let's do it.
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If that's the only way a person can be baptized, I certainly see no nothing wrong with that.
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If they want to have that obedience to Christ.
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But I also would say that the mode preferred, even in the earliest part of the church, was the mode of immersion.
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And we see that in this document.
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And hey, they were immersed in running water.
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That's something we don't even practice.
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We have a pool that we put people in.
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But again, this isn't scripture.
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It's just demonstrating the practice of the early church.
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And we're looking at how do we practice what we do versus what they were doing.
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And it's just interesting that they mentioned running water is great.
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If you don't have that, you can use something else.
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It's better to be cold, not warm.
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I guess the tepidness of the water is something that needs to be chilly.
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You know why that would matter.
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I would have to do a little bit more study, but all of this is part and parcel.
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Now, the third one is the candidate for baptism.
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The candidate, according to this document, was someone who could practice a spiritual discipline, the spiritual discipline of fasting.
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I realize that there is a humongous amount of debate in the history of the church as to who can and who cannot be baptized.
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There is the view of infant baptism, which is that if a person is born into a family, which is a covenant family, a family where the father is a Christian, that his children are baptized in accordance with his faith so as to demonstrate familial solidarity or to demonstrate that his children are part of the covenant with him.
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That is what is taught in the historic Presbyterian Church.
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It's what is taught in some ways in other Protestant denominations, that a child is baptized in accordance with the faith of the parents, particularly the father, so as to demonstrate solidarity of the family and entrance into the covenant.
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We do not teach that we teach what is that is called pedo baptism or the baptism of infants to pedo or pediatrics, children, infants.
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We teach what is called credo baptism, that is, that we do not believe that a person should be baptized until a person demonstrates faith by being able to confess their faith and demonstrate their regeneration by confession and repentance.
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Here is where the difference really lies in the pedo baptism view.
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The belief is that a person can be a member of the covenant, but not be saved because you enter the covenant by virtue of the baptism.
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But you are not confirmed in the covenant until you exercise faith, but you enter into by virtue of the baptism.
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So the covenant is a family thing.
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Am I saying this correct? Am I being OK? I want to make sure I'm being fair that you enter into the covenant by virtue of the parents doing this act.
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You're not saved.
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And that's the one thing that's important about like the Presbyterian view.
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Is they do not say that infants are saved by this, where that that's where they differ from Roman Catholics, Roman Catholics believe that there's regeneration which occurs in the baptism.
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Presbyterians do not believe that.
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And I want to make sure that that's expressed right.
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And these gentlemen came out of the Presbyterian Church.
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That's why I'm deferring to them on this question.
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But credo Baptist believe to be a part of the new covenant means that you are made a part by faith.
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So we do not give the sign of the covenant until a person is a part of the covenant fully through their expression of faith.
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So that is the difference.
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This doesn't tell us anything about infant baptism.
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All it tells us is that the candidates for baptism.
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One second.
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All it tells us that the candidates for baptism were expected to be able to demonstrate their faith through an expression of spiritual activity, fasting.
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And again, that would that would lean towards the idea of the candidate having to be an adult.
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Yes, sir.
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Sure.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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The Pato Baptist and the credo Baptist both practice adult baptism.
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That's something that's often that's something people don't often realize.
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Presbyterians baptize adults if they've never been baptized.
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If you come if you're an adult, you come to Presbyterian Church and you get saved.
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They baptize you.
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They practice that.
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The difference is they practice the baptism of infants in a covenant family.
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That's the difference.
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It's not just the father.
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And they base it on some of the scriptures where it would say this person was baptized and his household.
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There are references to household baptisms in scripture and some of the argument debate is referencing what that meant.
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How did the household be baptized? Were there no infants? Were there infants? Were there children? Were there not? That's that's a that's a debate for another time.
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But yes, and that is why theology matters.
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You prove the point of Sunday sermon because that's why theology matters.
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Very good.
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Yeah.
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All right.
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Let's move on to the next chapter.
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And we got to kind of giddy up here because we're slowing down a little bit there on baptism.
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The next is on fasting and prayer.
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It says, but let not your fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and fifth day of the week, rather fast on the fourth day and the preparation Friday.
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Do not pray like the hypocrites, but rather as the Lord commanded his in his gospel like this.
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Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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Give us today our daily needful bread and forgive us our debt as we also forgive our debtors and bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one or evil for thine is the power and the glory forever.
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Here's the interesting thing.
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Our modern expression of the Lord's Prayer comes from the dedicate, because if you read it in Matthew and in Luke, it does not read as we as our modern expression of the Lord's Prayer.
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It actually is this one.
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It's it's close to the ending part for that is the kingdom and the glory and the power.
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Most of your modern translations do not have that.
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It is considered to be by some scholars to be something that was added later.
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It wasn't part of the original prayer.
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It's only found in the King James Version and the New King James Version.
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It's not found in like the NLT or the NASB, the ESV and things like that.
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So it's interesting that this prayer in its form has maintained for the last two thousand years from this document.
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We pretty much still use the same expression of this prayer.
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So I just want to share that with you.
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It's kind of neat to see some of the history.
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Number chapter nine, the Eucharist, Eucharist is Lord's Supper or communion says now concerning the Eucharist.
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Give thanks this way.
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First, concerning the cup, we thank thee, our father, for the holy vine of David, thy servant, which you made known to us through Jesus, thy servant, to thee be the glory forever.
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And concerning the broken bread, we thank thee, our father, for the life and knowledge which you made known to us through Jesus, thy servant, to thee be glory forever.
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Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills and was gathered together and became one.
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So let thy church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom for thine is the glory and power through Jesus Christ forever.
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But let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist unless they have been baptized in the name of the Lord for concerning this.
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Also, the Lord has said, give not that which is holy to the dogs.
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Boy, that's powerful because.
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Think about what it's saying, there's a big question, who should get to take communion? We have always said it's for believers only.
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And this shows that that's an expression from the beginning.
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And this is an interesting thing, you know, among my Presbyterian brethren, my friends who are Presbyterians, the infants are baptized, but they do not take communion until they have that expression of faith.
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The communion is only practiced by those of the faith.
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And and that's and we can see that goes that that has a very powerful historical significance.
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And I just I think it's powerful.
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The quote that they use, they quote Jesus here.
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Jesus is the one who said, do not give that which is holy to the dogs.
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And we don't cast pearls before swine.
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Remember that reference? You know, that's powerful to use in relation to communion.
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This may end up sneaking its way into my communion meditation at some point.
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I may just read straight from the Didache because that's powerful thoughts.
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Who is it to take communion? Those who have been redeemed and those who have been regenerated are the candidates for communion.
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All right.
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There's one last thing from the Didache.
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I want to share with you.
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And that is a very beautiful prayer, which is written in regard to communion that's written in the Didache and I'll read it to you.
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We thank the holy father for thy holy name, which you did cause to tabernacle in our hearts and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which you made us known to us through Jesus, thy servant to thee be the glory forever.
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Thou, master almighty, didst create all things for thy name's sake.
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You gave us food and drink for men for enjoyment that they might give thanks to thee.
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But to us, you did freely give spiritual food and drink and life eternal through thy servant.
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Before all things, we thank thee that you are mighty to thee be the glory forever.
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Remember, Lord, thy church to deliver it from all evil and to make it perfect in thy love and gather it from the four winds sanctified for thy kingdom, which thou have prepared for it.
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For thine is the power and the glory forever.
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Let grace come and let this world pass away.
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Hosanna to the God son of David.
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If anyone is holy, let him come.
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If anyone is not, let him repent.
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Maranatha, amen.
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What a powerful thought.
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That last sentence, if anyone is holy, let him come.
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If anyone is not, let him repent.
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What a beautiful prayer.
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So we call the believer to come and the unbeliever to repentance.
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And it's just it's such a powerful thing.
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Now, one of the things we see in the dedicate before we move on, one of the things that we see in the dedicate is the commitment to propriety and order in the early church.
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There were methodologies and steps which were employed early on to ensure that these activities of faith were done in the right way and for the right people.
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There is much more that we could glean from this, but I think that to me was the most expressive because there has become an attitude in the church today, an attitude of flippancy when it comes to behavior, particularly behavior in worship.
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The Bible says all things, particularly those things done in worship, are to be done decently and in order.
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And we see from the earliest time of the church, there was great order.
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Hell, even if you figure these people are being martyred, these people are being run down, these people are being outcast, they're being made criminals.
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But they said, even so, we will maintain order in the church.
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I say that's a powerful thought and I think an awesome thought.
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All right.
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We have a little bit more to get through tonight.
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We'll move on now to the Apostles Creed, the Apostles Creed.
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You have a place for blanks.
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Let me give you the blanks.
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The Apostles Creed was not written by the apostles.
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But it is considered a summary of the doctrine concerning the nature of God and the work of Christ was not written by the apostles.
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But it is a summary.
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It is very short and it does not attempt to give specifics in regard to the particulars of theology or Christology as later creeds do.
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We're going to see as we go through this next week, we're going to be in the Nicene Creed and we're going to go on to Calcedon and different things like that.
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We're going to see how it became more expressive.
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But in the early creed, the Apostles Creed, what we're going to see is it wasn't an attempt to give all of the information, but rather to give a summary of the information.
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The most common view is that it originally developed in the first or second century and was later influenced by the Nicene Creed.
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The earliest historical evidence of the creed exists in a letter written by the Council of Milan in 8390.
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However, that doesn't mean that's when it was written, that's the first reference that we see to it, but likely it was written earlier than that.
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There are various iterations of the creed.
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We're going to look at the one which is most commonly used today.
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This doesn't mean this was the original.
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This is the one most likely used today or the one that is mostly used today.
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This is the Apostles Creed.
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I believe in God.
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I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.
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He descended into hell.
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The third day he rose again from the dead.
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He ascended into heaven and sit on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.
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From this, he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
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I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
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Amen.
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Now, the Apostles Creed is a good summary of Christian truth, but it doesn't does include portions which sometimes are considered to be controversial.
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I gave you two blanks.
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So if you want to write down the two controversies, the first one is that Jesus descended into hell.
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That has long stood as a very controversial statement from this creed.
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It is likely based on something written by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter four and Ephesians four.
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It says this.
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Speaking of Jesus, it says in saying he ascended, what does it mean? But that he also descended into the lower regions of the earth.
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He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.
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So the reference there is when it talks about descending into the lower parts of the earth, that is often considered to be the reference that's being made here in the Apostles Creed.
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There are many debates about this, and the larger debate takes place on what did Jesus do between his crucifixion and his resurrection? Where was his spirit? That's the question.
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And there are some who believe that it was then that he went to Sheol, which was the place of departed spirits, where Abraham and all the other saints were.
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And he took them to glory.
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That's what some people believe.
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I'm not here tonight to argue that case.
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That is a pretty lengthy debate.
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What I'm saying, though, is there are other people who believe that Jesus actually went to hell and was punished during that three day period.
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I would say I don't believe that.
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First of all, when we talk about hell, we have to talk about the now and the not yet.
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Hell, when a person dies and they are not a believer, they do go to a place of punishment.
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But it is not the final place of punishment.
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The final place of punishment has not yet been filled.
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And that's coming at the great judgment when the when God will raise the living and the dead and the living will be brought into everlasting life.
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And those who are not believers will be sent to the lake of fire.
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Jesus did not go to the lake of fire for three days.
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And that's the that's the point I'm trying to make.
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Whatever we believe about what happened to Jesus between the crucifixion and the resurrection, we must concede that he was in the lake of fire for three days.
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Do you have a.
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Well, he suffered the wrath of the father on the cross.
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The Bible says that's that's where he suffered the wrath of God.
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There is, again, some debate, but if you wanted to ask the question, what does it mean when they say he descended into hell at this reference? They are referencing most likely whoever wrote this creed is referencing the writings of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians, chapter four, verses nine and 10 is referencing his descending into the lower parts of the earth.
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Ephesians, four, nine and 10.
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All right.
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The second thing that is probably even more argumented argument or even more argued within the creed is the statement the holy Catholic Church.
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In our modern world, when we say Catholic, we know that the Catholic is what? Well, what is it today? The Roman Church, the Roman Catholic Church, however, that is actually an oxymoron, right? Richard Roman Catholicism is an oxymoron because Roman is Rome, a place in Italy.
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Catholic means universal Catholic means universal in the writings of the early church fathers.
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There was no such thing as a Holy Roman Empire or a Roman Catholic Church.
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There just wasn't any such thing.
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However, there was a belief in a universal body of Christ that everyone who became a follower of Jesus, whether he was in this church or that church or another church, whether he was in the church of Sardis at the church of Philippi or whether he was at the church of any church.
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He was a member of the universal body of Christ, the universal church.
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So when the early fathers write about the universal church, they're not talking about the Roman Catholic Church.
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They're talking about the body of Christ in general.
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And I would say the same thing.
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A person is saved by becoming a part of the body of Christ, the universal church.
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So let us not be confused when we see the term universal or Catholic.
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If you just replaced it with the word universal, if you said, I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy universal church, the community of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, it wouldn't it would have any debate there at all.
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Just the word Catholic has become so synonymous with a system, the Roman Catholic system, that it's hard for people to not see that connection in the creed.
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No, no, neither do I believe that this creed references that the communion of saints is the fact that when we come together as the body of Christ in communion, we are the saints.
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We are the holy ones.
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We are the ones made.
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That's another thing that Roman Catholicism has twisted, because they say the saints are specific Christians who have been lifted to a certain level or who have attained a certain level of belief.
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That's not true.
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A saint is hagyosmos in the Greek hagyosmos comes from the root word hagyos, which means holy hagyosmos is a saint or one who has been made holy.
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And guess what? Everyone who's ever come to faith in Christ is a saint.
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Somebody may say, I mean, I don't feel like a saint.
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It don't matter how you feel.
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It matters what you are.
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You are declared righteous by the work of Christ.
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You that makes you a saint of God.
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So the communion of saints is the communion of the body is the communion of all believers who are made holy to the work of Christ.
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Yes, yes, I would agree with that statement.
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All right.
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Now, one final thought regarding the Apostles Creed, it is likely that the Apostles Creed was written in opposition to Gnostic heresy.
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Gnostic heresy occurred very early in the church.
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And remember why? I don't know if you remember this from last week, but I mentioned that creeds are often put in place so as to differentiate truth from error.
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Because there's an error, we're going to see that about the Nicene Creed when we study next week, the Nicene Creed was written to oppose Arianism.
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Arianism was the error.
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The Council of Nicaea convenes to oppose that error.
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Same, same here.
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There is belief that the Apostles Creed was to combat the Gnostic heresy.
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Gnostics held that the physical universe is evil and that God did not create the physical universe because God would not create that which is evil.
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If you read through the Creed, you will see that the work of God in regard to creation and the fact that Jesus was truly a man.
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He was conceived, born, suffered, dead, buried, resurrected.
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All of those things are pointing at something very important.
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The fact that he was a real man, the fact that he really came and the fact that he was part of this fleshly world, he became part of it.
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Oh, I have I have actually written a book called God in Three Persons.
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It's a very short book, but I have written a book on that subject because I did a class like this about six years ago on the Trinity.
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And I took the notes from that class and I turned it into about an 80 to 90 page book on the doctrine of the Trinity and why it's important.
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Well, yeah, you are here.
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Yeah.
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But yeah, the book is available on our online library if you ever wanted to get it.
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But it's yes, I have taught it and I plan to teach on it again because I think it is one of the important foundational truths.
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But we're going to see so much of it in this course, though, because we get to Nicaea.
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It's it's about the deity of Christ.
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You get to counseled on.
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It's about the dual nature of the persons.
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There's so much referencing who Jesus is in these creeds.
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So we're going to get a lot of this as we go through the next few weeks.
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But the point is, I again, the Gnostics wanted to become free from the taint of matter because they believe that matter itself was evil.
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And here it says we're going to be resurrected bodily resurrection.
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That would have been in opposition to what they were teaching.
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So, again, one of the purposes of the Apostles Creed is possibly we don't know for certain, but there is evidence that it was likely or at least possibly being written to oppose the false teachings of the Gnostics of the day.
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All right.
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What we have seen in these two documents is that even from the earliest time of the church, there was a concern for proper practice and proper doctrine.
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The early church wanted to be sure that they were following the apostolic principles and that the church would remain pure from heretical influence.
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So in the weeks to come, we're going to see the growth in the need to affirm and reaffirm truth while at the same time standing against the onslaught of heresy after heresy after heresy.
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The church has from its beginning had to stand for truth.
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And that's what these creeds and confessions are.
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They're the church taking a stand for the truth.
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Let's pray.
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Father, thank you for this opportunity that we've had to study tonight, the Didache and the Apostles Creed.
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I pray that this will give us a hunger and a thirst to want to continue studying, continue to learn about your history, because the church history is the history of your work in this world.
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We thank you.
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We praise you and bless you in Christ's name.
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Amen.