Exploring the Enduring Legacy of the Early Church
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"I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." The church has had its ups and downs through the centuries, it's had times of great strength and great weakness, of great faithfulness and great frustration and wandering from the truth, but Christ has always fulfilled His promise that He would build His church, that He would preserve His church, and that the church would never fail. [00:01:13]
The whole history of the church has shaped who we are as Christians today, and has shaped the churches to which we belong today. And the better that we can understand that history, the more we can really understand ourselves, and the more we can preserve and treasure what Christians who've gone before us have learned and understood from the Word of God and in service to Jesus Christ. [00:02:40]
The number one thing, the central thing that we ought to look for, is the formation of what I call the catholic tradition of the church, the catholic tradition of the church. Now some of you may well go to churches that use the Apostle's Creed in your church services, and in the Apostle's Creed we say, "I believe a holy catholic church." [00:04:21]
When we say we believe in the catholic church, we're saying we're believing in that church that Christ has promised to found and preserve, that Christ has always had a church through the whole history of the Christian movement. And that word catholic belongs to us as Protestants, and that's part of what the Reformation said over and over. [00:05:13]
The word tradition can be used in at least three different ways. It can be used to talk about a school of interpretation of the Bible, a way of interpreting the Bible, so we can think about the Reformed tradition as the way in which Calvinists interpret the Bible, or we can think about the Lutheran tradition as the way Lutherans interpret the Bible. [00:06:55]
In the ancient church itself, the word tradition would take on another meaning, and that would be the meaning that says, "There are teachings of the Apostles, preserved in the life of the church, but not recorded in the Scripture." And there were some who would teach, later in the ancient church period, that that tradition, that Apostolic tradition, preserved in the oral memory of the church, has an authority that we have to honor and follow. [00:08:00]
In that ancient period, that catholic tradition came to a clear, Biblical understanding about some remarkably important things that sometimes we're tempted to take for granted. For example, it was the ancient church that came to a very clear, a very full Biblical understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. [00:10:13]
The early church, without others to help them and to guide them spent a great deal of time trying to get that doctrine Biblically correct. And part of the reason that we can sometimes take it for granted, almost assume it, is that the ancient church invested so much care and time and study and reflection and controversy to understand it, that we are the inheritors. [00:11:03]
Another great achievement is what we call Christology or the doctrine of Christ. Who was Jesus exactly? And again, we can very quickly and easily say, "Well, he was God and man, hundred percent God, hundred percent man." There again, that simple statement that we can embrace took a long time and a lot of effort, a lot of study for the church to come to understand clearly, fully, carefully in a Biblical way. [00:12:14]
The ancient church was a missionary church, and we'll see as we go along that there was a remarkable growth under the blessing of God of the church -- great growth of the church in that ancient period. In fact, historians tell us -- we never know whether to trust them or not -- but historians tell us that the number of Christians in the world in 500 was about the same as the number of Christians in the world in 1500. [00:13:26]
The great missionary work of the church was really in the ancient period, and then alive again in the modern period. So that missionary thrust of the church is another great treasure that was performed and preserved for us in the ancient church period. So we ought to go in with expectation and thankfulness to those Christians who went before us, and the remarkable achievements that they won for us. [00:14:50]
Our aim is to sense how Christ has built His church and how we are the inheritors of a catholic tradition that we very largely embrace and still helps define us. [00:16:58]
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The whole history of the church has shaped who we are as Christians today, and has shaped the churches to which we belong today. And the better that we can understand that history, the more we can really understand ourselves, and the more we can preserve and treasure what Christians who've gone before us have learned and understood from the Word of God and in service to Jesus Christ. [00:02:40]
The number one thing, the central thing that we ought to look for, is the formation of what I call the catholic tradition of the church, the catholic tradition of the church. Now some of you may well go to churches that use the Apostle's Creed in your church services, and in the Apostle's Creed we say, "I believe a holy catholic church." [00:04:21]
When we say we believe in the catholic church, we're saying we're believing in that church that Christ has promised to found and preserve, that Christ has always had a church through the whole history of the Christian movement. And that word catholic belongs to us as Protestants, and that's part of what the Reformation said over and over. [00:05:13]
The word tradition can be used in at least three different ways. It can be used to talk about a school of interpretation of the Bible, a way of interpreting the Bible, so we can think about the Reformed tradition as the way in which Calvinists interpret the Bible, or we can think about the Lutheran tradition as the way Lutherans interpret the Bible. [00:06:55]
In the ancient church itself, the word tradition would take on another meaning, and that would be the meaning that says, "There are teachings of the Apostles, preserved in the life of the church, but not recorded in the Scripture." And there were some who would teach, later in the ancient church period, that that tradition, that Apostolic tradition, preserved in the oral memory of the church, has an authority that we have to honor and follow. [00:08:00]
In that ancient period, that catholic tradition came to a clear, Biblical understanding about some remarkably important things that sometimes we're tempted to take for granted. For example, it was the ancient church that came to a very clear, a very full Biblical understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. [00:10:13]
The early church, without others to help them and to guide them spent a great deal of time trying to get that doctrine Biblically correct. And part of the reason that we can sometimes take it for granted, almost assume it, is that the ancient church invested so much care and time and study and reflection and controversy to understand it, that we are the inheritors. [00:11:03]
Another great achievement is what we call Christology or the doctrine of Christ. Who was Jesus exactly? And again, we can very quickly and easily say, "Well, he was God and man, hundred percent God, hundred percent man." There again, that simple statement that we can embrace took a long time and a lot of effort, a lot of study for the church to come to understand clearly, fully, carefully in a Biblical way. [00:12:14]
The ancient church was a missionary church, and we'll see as we go along that there was a remarkable growth under the blessing of God of the church -- great growth of the church in that ancient period. In fact, historians tell us -- we never know whether to trust them or not -- but historians tell us that the number of Christians in the world in 500 was about the same as the number of Christians in the world in 1500. [00:13:26]
The great missionary work of the church was really in the ancient period, and then alive again in the modern period. So that missionary thrust of the church is another great treasure that was performed and preserved for us in the ancient church period. So we ought to go in with expectation and thankfulness to those Christians who went before us, and the remarkable achievements that they won for us. [00:14:50]
Our aim is to sense how Christ has built His church and how we are the inheritors of a catholic tradition that we very largely embrace and still helps define us. [00:16:58]
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