Church History: Fathers of the Faith

My desire in this church history study is to teach you how the Holy Spirit moved over human history to build Christ’s Body and introduce you to the people He used along the way.

When the church began its westward movement it took deep root in Rome and then slowly moved toward France. One of the most prolific ancient Fathers, Bishop Irenaeus, ministered in Lyons and left a wealth of Christian writings. Irenaeus was firmly orthodox. He lived in a time (the second century) when false interpretations of Jesus were rampant. Not only did he defend the biblical Jesus and fight for authentic Christianity, but Irenaeus was instrumental in establishing the canon of scripture we know as the New Testament.
Canonicity means the collection of sacred writings which were accepted by the church as authoritative and true. Irenaeus argued for specific requirements in determining which writings would be included in the Christian manifesto: agreement with direct apostolic teaching, prophetic revelation, and early creedal statements. He eschewed fantasy and mythology, relying instead on eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ works and the works of His followers in the first century.
Irenaeus was a “third-generation” Christian. He was a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of John. He sat at the feet of the man who sat at the feet of the man who sat at the feet of the Lord Jesus. He endured fierce persecution in Lyons, taking the office of bishop after his predecessor’s death due to abuse. He was held in highest esteem by the churches of that era and lived up to his name as a peacemaker in an era of great doctrinal turmoil while still defending the orthodox Christian teaching against Gnostic heresies. Irenaeus argued that salvation had nothing to do with intellect or secret knowledge but was solely rooted in the work of Jesus.
By the end of the third century, the church had moved into Spain and Britain, then headed south into North Africa where Christianity was well-received and fruitful. North African churches were the first Latin-speaking churches in the world. Just west of Egypt was the town of Cyrene. The man who was drafted to carry Jesus’ cross was Simon of Cyrene (see Mark 15:21). It is almost certain that Simon became a believer and returned home to share the gospel. Simon’s son, Rufus was highlighted in Paul’s list of fellow Christians in Romans 16. By the end of the third century, the vast Roman empire was replete with gospel proclaimers.
What does that mean for you and me in the twenty-first-century church? Just that the seeds of the gospel were planted some two thousand years ago and they are still growing and still producing fruit for the Kingdom of God. When you and I tell the old, old story, Beloved, we are standing on the fields where Irenaeus and others went before.

Piddles and Pankins and the Doctrines of the Faith

Joy loves to play doctor’s office and Nana is her favorite patient. She takes my temperature, looks in my ears, listens to my heart, checks my reflexes, and even examines my teeth. She also usually gives me a shot. Lately, she prescribed me piddles. I thought that was what puppies do, but I was wrong. Piddles, in her medical practice, are what the rest of us call pills. It was one of her malaprops. I thought it was so cute that I didn’t correct her. I love her tangled-up words like pankins for pancakes and Honey School for Sunday School. I know that one day she will learn the correct words, but for now they are harmless so I let her hang onto them as long as she wants.
But there are some things that she – and all of us – need to get right. They are theological and doctrinal truths that carry a tremendous amount of weight. They make up Christianity’s core and all other truths are derived from them. If we get them wrong, everything else is wrong too. And therein lies great danger. If we do not correct the misunderstandings and errors concerning these issues the consequences will be most severe and eternal.
They raise questions about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, man, sin, salvation, the gospel, the Bible, the church, the Christian life, resurrection, eternal life, the Kingdom of God, heaven and hell, and more. They are “spine issues” because, like humans, a healthy spine is vital for a healthy body. A broken spine leads to paralysis and even death. In many ways, the church’s spine is near the breaking point because we have drifted from biblical truth and embraced error and dangerous false teaching We are weakening her spine – and her witness. The church is unable (or unwilling) to fulfill the great commission because her people are paralyzed by false doctrine.
Paul warned Timothy, “Watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Tim 4:16). It is wise counsel we need to heed. He said, “In later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (4:1). “They will gather around themselves a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Tim 4:3).
God has impressed on my heart to dedicate Sunday’s devotionals to studying the core doctrines of Christianity. No more piddles or pankins Beloved. Get ready to strengthen your spine with the truth.

Stand Guard

I’m fascinated by the Levites, the descendants of Levi, the son of Jacob. They were called out as God’s servants in His house with a variety of responsibilities. The descendants of Aaron would always serve as priests, another group would minister as singers and musicians, some would be responsible for administrative tasks such as overseeing the treasury, others would serve as judges over Israel, and some were tasked with the care and maintenance of the Temple elements.

The Korahites were given one of the most crucial responsibilities of all the Levites – they were the gatekeepers. Gatekeepers guarded the entrance to a city or other important place. Think of those who guard the White House, the United States Capitol, and Supreme Court buildings. They are tasked with protecting the people in the buildings as well as the process of democracy. They only allow authorized personnel in and keep unauthorized people out. Recently we’ve seen what happens when they fail at their jobs – chaos and destruction ensued.

The Korahites were similarly charged with protecting the Temple – guarding its treasuries and storehouses and keeping out of the Temple anyone and anything that was unclean (see 1 Chron 26). They safeguarded the Lord’s dwelling place with their lives. I see at least three applications for us today from this Scripture.

First, we have a responsibility to protect the house of God and the people of God – the church. Every member is responsible for ensuring that no ungodly philosophies or teachings are allowed in to cause chaos and destruction. Our best defense against such lies is to be deeply rooted in the truth of God’s Word. Secondly, the text says that “Guard was alongside of guard,” they stood together as a unified wall around the Temple. Believers must also stand alongside one another to protect and defend the holy place and people of God. We must be united in the Word and doctrines of the faith.

Third, as Christians, you and I are the church and the dwelling place of God through His Holy Spirit. Everything that is done to protect the sanctity of the church and the Temple must be applied to the individual Christian. We must take the same precautions to preserve holiness in ourselves. We must stand guard against every false doctrine and teaching, measuring everything against the pure and perfect Word of truth. We must guard our hearts from unholy desires and shield our minds from impurity in the world. These are choices we have to make every day.

Beloved, it’s time to pick up your Shield of faith and your Sword of the Spirit and defend your holy ground. Too much is at stake to let down your guard.

You Better Believe It

I was in the 5th grade and was doing my math homework one night (and anyone who knows me knows how much I hate math) and I kept asking my mom, “What’s so-and-so times so-and-so?”, over and over until she lost her patience with me and snapped, “Figure it out!” So, I did. I added and added and added until I got the answer. I know for certain that 7×8=56 and you can bet it will remain with me for the rest of my life.

So, here’s a question for you: Why do you believe what you believe? Because your childhood Sunday School teacher told you a Bible story? Because your pastor preached about a passage on Sunday? Because you read something profound in a book by a smiling author? There’s a malady in the church called biblical illiteracy. It simply means most people in the church don’t know the Bible very well. We know Bible story sound bites. We know a few verses (mostly taken out of context). And we know what the culture tell us – that God is all and only love and doesn’t want us ever to be unhappy or deny our “true selves.”

What we believe is too often just what we’ve been told – but not what we know. And there is a difference. What you’ve heard just sits in your ears, but what you know takes deep root in your heart and, like your circulating blood, affects every part of you. If your faith is built on others’ thoughts and opinions, how can you be sure you are building on solid truth? When someone challenges your belief, you can’t make a good defense and it all starts to crumble. But if your belief is built on what you have mined from the Scriptures and chewed on and have wrestled your heart and mind into submission then your faith will stand up against the questions of the world. Like my math equation, what you invest in stays with you.

Paul said, “I know whom I have believed and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day” (2 Timothy 1:12). Are you convinced that what you believe will hold you up? As Christians come under fire, it’s more important than ever that you know what you believe – and why you believe it. And it’s eternally important that what you believe is the truth. Beloved, you don’t just need to know about religious-sounding stuff. You need to know the truth.

Hebrews: Yes, God

My granddaughter loves to do “hidden picture” puzzles. These are scenes with small things drawn to make them blend into the other elements of the picture, essentially hiding them in plain sight. For instance, a banana becomes the bill of a cap or a ruler sits among the rails of a fence. She’s gotten quite good at finding the prize amid all the rest of the picture.

The passage we’re considering today in Hebrews is like that. “May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing His will, and may He work in us what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.” Amen. (Heb 13: 20-21).  There are some deep doctrinal truths here: God is the source of peace and He imparted that peace to us through Jesus Christ, His Son, who signed the eternal covenant with His blood and sealed it with His resurrection. He has taken up His position as our great Shepherd as we – His sheep – follow Him. You could fill countless theology books with just verse 20. But for the purpose of our study, we’re going to set the descriptive text aside to get to the point. We’re not changing the Scripture, we’re just zeroing in on the hidden nugget. “May God . . . equip you with everything good for doing His will, and may He work in us what is pleasing to Him . . .” There it is! A prayer that God will equip us to do His will and work in us the things that please Him.

This verse echoes Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth: “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Cor 9:8). This is a promise that if God calls you to it He will equip you for it. When God called him to rescue the Israelites, Moses pointed out his stuttering problem (Ex 4:10). And God said, “I will help you speak and will teach you what to say” (v. 12). And He did. And God was pleased with Moses and called him His friend (Ex 33:11).

Yes, the calling is bigger than you but you have the promise of God – the God who brings peace through Jesus Christ – that He will help you do it. Say “Yes” to God’s call Beloved and discover what He will do through and in you.

The God of the Bible

We’re New Testament Christians – why should we read the Old Testament? What good does it do me to study old laws and rituals? Why should I learn about people so far removed from my own life? Because we don’t study the Bible to learn about laws and rituals and long-dead people – we study the Bible to learn about and draw hope from God. I am in a group that is writing through the Bible, we’ve been mired in Job for months. Lots of misery and grumbling and arguing. But by slowing down the pace and paying attention to the text, we’ve come to understand Job – and God – from a whole new perspective.

Paul said, “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). He’s talking about the Old Testament. When I am discouraged, I go to the stories of God’s deliverance in Exodus. When my life has fallen apart I turn to Nehemiah where God enabled His people to rebuild the broken-down walls. When I face a frightening situation Esther is my go-to book as I remember how God rescued His people. And when the world looms dark and evil, I turn to Daniel and witness God’s sovereign control over human events.

The Old Testament is filled with evidence of God’s power, purpose, love, and faithfulness. The same power, purpose, love, and faithfulness is found in the New Testament and in my life two-thousand plus years later. In the Old Testament, I find the God who delivered Israel, rebuilt Jerusalem, and rescued the Jews. In the New Testament, I see the same God who delivered mankind, broke the bonds of sin and death, and changed the world. He is the same God I call to in this present season of struggle. I know He is able to do for me today all that He did then. I put my name in those verses of rescue and promise and the God of the Hebrew people, of Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel becomes the God of Dorcas Elizabeth. He hasn’t forgotten how to rescue and restore. His power hasn’t diminished one bit. This God is your God too if you have trusted in Jesus. Beloved, get to know the God of the whole Bible. Get to know the God of your life.

Spiritual Math

My favorite way to study the Bible is to slowly chew on small bites of Scripture to get every bit of flavor from it I can. But there is also great value in looking at the bigger picture. I was reminded of that when a memory popped up on my Facebook feed this morning. It said: Light + Truth = Life 1 John 1.

John made several proclamations in this first chapter. He proclaimed Jesus as “the Word of life” (1 John 1:1), much the same way He called Him “the Word” in his gospel (John 1:1). He was the “Word made flesh” (Jn 1:14). The walking, talking Scripture who came to deliver the message of the Father in person.  What is that message? “God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all” (v. 5). Wherever God is, light exists; not just a lamp, but a floodlight. That’s why John said we can’t claim to be a Christian and walk around in the darkness. It’s impossible. That’s also why, when a light-filled believer enters a place where there is spiritual darkness, one of two things happens. Either the light changes everything it touches, or the darkness and the ones living in darkness flee. Light illuminates, it reveals, and it forces us to confront the things that were hidden or take them and slink farther into the dark recesses.

Because light shows us things – including ourselves – as they really are. That’s the “truth” part of our equation. Light says, “If you run from me it’s because you don’t want to know the truth.” I’ll admit, sometimes the truth is hard to take, but who wants to live by lies? I know I don’t. The truth is, I was born a sinner and lived like it. Then the Light came and I saw what I was. I saw the lies that said I was “good enough” and my wrongs were too petty to keep me out of heaven. I saw how the enemy and the culture said that my sins were just “lifestyle choices,” “addictions,” “illness,” “personality quirks,” and “errors in judgment.”  And I saw the corollary to the 1 John equation. If Light+Truth=Life, then Darkenss+Lies=Death.

Beloved, I pray you will choose Life. I pray you will choose light and truth. I pray you will not run away from the sin you see in the light, but will put it all in Jesus’ hands. The darkness is no place for you.

Hebrews: The Living Way

In our last Hebrews devotional, we talked about the confidence we have to come to the Lord with all our needs and concerns – all because of the blood of Jesus (Heb 10:19). The author went on to call Jesus’ sacrifice “a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body . . .” (v. 20).  There is so much here, we could spend days unpacking this one verse. The old covenant was built on the sacrifices of dead animals, whose blood had been drained away. But Jesus shed His blood on the cross and rose from the dead – He is a living sacrifice and a living Savior. And He is The Way (John 14:6) – the only way – to the Father.

But I want to focus your attention on “the curtain, which the writer says is “His body.” Picture Jesus on the cross, his hair matted with blood, His body beaten and broken, life draining from the holes in his hands and feet and side. And as death begins to crush the life out of Him, an unseen hand reaches down from heaven, into the Temple, and tears the tall, heavy curtain in two – from the top down (Matt. 27:51). The curtain had long separated sinful man from holy God. Now the perfect blood sacrifice had been given and God Himself tore the curtain and opened the Way into His presence.

Do you see the beauty here in Jesus’ broken body and the torn curtain? For centuries there was separation between God and man. But through the blood of Jesus, we are invited to “draw near” and “approach the throne of grace” (James 10:22; 4:16). Paul confirms that we have been reconciled to God in his great doxology: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword. I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35, 37-39).

Do you know who Paul was talking to? You, Beloved. The one scrolling through this devotional on your phone. God loves you. Jesus died for you. If you trust in Him, there is nothing – not even your sin – that will keep you from God.

Hebrews: Love and Obedience

Why did Jesus come to earth? Why did He willingly go to the cross? Why did He leave the glory of heaven to suffer and die? In our modern theology, the answer is because of love – and that is not a wrong answer, but it’s also not entirely the right answer according to the Scriptures.

First, let’s consider the love of God. I’m sure you know John 3:16, which perfectly defines God’s love: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That verse says volumes about God’s love for mankind. Likewise 1 John 3:16 says, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.” (Isn’t that a wonderful parallel!) Plain and simple: God sent His Son to die for man’s sin because of His great love.  Paul tried to express this amazing love in dimensions that we could understand talking about “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:18). Indeed love was what nailed Christ to the cross.

But there is another element to consider and the writer of Hebrews borrows from David to highlight another important aspect of Christ’s sacrifice:

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said:

Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You prepared for me;

With burnt offerings and sin offerings You were not pleased.

Then I said, “Here I am – it is written about me in the scroll

– I have come to do your will, O God.”

Hebrews 10:5-7

Christ came to earth and surrendered to the cross in obedience to the will of His Father. He came because this was God’s plan from before the foundations of the world. Jesus was “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world’ (Rev 13:8), and He said that the Father arranged our inheritance, a “kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Matt 25:34). God provided for your salvation before ever committed the first sin, in fact before you were born; even before He called forth the light (Gen 1:3). Jesus coming to earth, living a perfect life, dying a selfless death was an act of perfect obedience to the will of the Father. So was saving you, Beloved. Because He loves you.

The Imago Dei

All my life I believed there was nothing good in me – nothing worth redeeming. Recently I took that belief to God’s Word – back to Genesis and creation.  Please take a moment and read Genesis 1:26-27. Both verses record the creation of man in the image of God, the Imago Dei. What does that mean?

It means there was a certain essence of God imbued in man at the time of creation. It’s the very nature of humans, something we are rather than something we have or do.  Man was created as body, soul, and spirit.  It is within this trichotomy that we are unique from every other living creation. We have a body – a physical shell –. that houses the soul – the seat of reason and emotion. But what truly sets us apart from all the rest of creation is the spirit – the part where the most distinctive image of God is found: the Imago Dei. It is the spirit that enables us to commune with God.  Scholars and theologians have debated this for centuries. It is one of God’s great mysteries and we can only accept it and rejoice in it, for this image is what God sees in man that calls out to His heart for redemption.

God saw His image – the Imago Dei in me, and He pursued me. Me, who’s never been pursued in her life – and He drew me to His Son. He saved me through the cross of redemption, through the blood of Christ, and in saving me He imparted His Spirit to me, and His Spirit brought my spirit to life.  He brought Image and Spirit together to create a perfected being – (Perfect – teleioo – to perfect, complete, finish, to reach a goal, be fulfilled, made complete.)  He restored me to God’s original design – complete in Image and Spirit.

Now God sees in me His completed design. He does not see my faults and failings, my shortcomings, my weight, anxieties, character flaws, temper, or impurities. He only sees His Son. Because of Jesus, He sees a completed, beautiful and whole person. I don’t know what that means to you, but it means the world to me. In Christ, I am made complete. Beloved, this can be your testimony too. You were made in the image of God and the redemption of Jesus Christ is available to you – just receive this wonderful gift – it is given freely. Will you be complete in Christ?