I have always loved and been a student of history with sports history, and American history being at the top of the list. But if you would’ve told me five years ago that my focus going into retirement would be on the early Church and Church history, my response would’ve been one of surprise because neither was ever an area of interest or even on our radar.
As the Lord has lead Amy and I down this road, we’ve both been surprised by the depths of not knowing what we didn’t know when it comes to the scriptural and historical roots of Christianity, even though we had been Christ followers for over 25 years. What we found his led us closer to the Lord with more growth and a deepening of our faith that we had ever experienced.
Given our church background as born again, evangelical Christians, we just assumed that real, authentic Christians just experienced church the way we did – a gathering with either a choir or a praise and worship band where you sang 20 to 30 minutes, a preacher behind a pulpit at the center of the church where a 45 minute sermon was given, followed by an altar call (even though there was never an altar) to conclude the service.
We just assumed that traditions that were more liturgical had added layer upon layer to the gospel message and church experience over the centuries. We did not know, for instance, that communion in the partaking of the Lord’s Supper was what united the entire Church for the first 3/4 of church history. We certainly didn’t know that the bread and wine were seen as the literal body and blood of Christ. We also didn’t know that the altar (the Lord’s Table) was the center of worship for the first 1500 years, and not the preacher and the pulpit. From our experience, the Lord’s Supper was seldom, if ever, partaken of in church and, if it was, it was taken in a merely symbolic way. We didn’t know that baptismal regeneration was a universal belief and not symbolic.
We also thought that the church structure, doctrine and theology of our church experience was the same doctrine and theology of the Early Church and Church Fathers. That again, traditions that we weren’t a part of, had added later to layer to the authentic doctrine of the apostles. So we were shocked when we started reading scripture through the eyes of those who received the scriptures directly from the apostles themselves. Those who didn’t have to interpret the scriptures through a clouded lens across multiple centuries, multiple cultures and multiple translations. But rather those who came from the same culture, spoke the same language and some who walked among the apostles themselves.
Click here for A Disciple of John: Ignatius of Antioch andThe Foundation of Faith: Irenaeus and the Battle for Early Christian Truth.
Another example is Justin Martyr. Probably the most well-known of all the Church fathers post-Apostolic Age, he wrote in the First Apology (AD 155-157) which gives us the structure of Christian worship in the early Church.
The First Apology of Justin Martyr –
On Sunday we have a common assembly of all our members, whether they live in the city or the outlying districts. The recollections of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as there is time. When the reader has finished, the president of the assembly speaks to us; he urges everyone to imitate the examples of virtue we have heard in the readings. Then we all stand up together and pray.
On the conclusion of our prayer, bread and wine and water are brought forward. The president offers prayers and gives thanks to the best of his ability, and the people give assent by saying, “Amen”. The eucharist is distributed, everyone present communicates, and the deacons take it to those who are absent.
The wealthy, if they wish, may make a contribution, and they themselves decide the amount. The collection is placed in the custody of the president, who uses it to help the orphans and widows and all who for any reason are in distress, whether because they are sick, in prison, or away from home. In a word, he takes care of all who are in need.
He tells us that this structure was already taking place throughout the early Church – the gathering on Sunday, the reading from scripture, the homily (sermon) by the presider (priest), prayers of the faithful, offering of bread, wine and water; eucharistic prayer of thanksgiving, the communion, the distribution to those absent and almsgiving. For anyone that’s ever attended a Catholic Mass or Orthodox Divine Liturgy, this structure is very familiar to them.
He also confirmed the universal acceptance of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist as well the regeneration of the waters of baptism –
“No one may share the Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we teach is true, unless he is washed in the regenerating waters of baptism for the remission of his sins, and unless he lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.
We do not consume the eucharistic bread and wine as if it were ordinary food and drink, for we have been taught that as Jesus Christ our Savior became a man of flesh and blood by the power of the Word of God, so also the food that our flesh and blood assimilates for its nourishment becomes the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus by the power of his own words contained in the prayer of thanksgiving.”
Note as well that he was describing the practice of the Church in Rome. Rome was preeminent in decision-making within the universal Church as I previously discuss in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch. Next week, we will discuss Clement of Rome, the Bishop of Rome in the late first century. He was the first of the Apostolic Fathers of the Church and thought by historians to be the Clement mentioned by Paul in Philippians 4:3.
Echoes of the Fathers 