Church History Part 3

Good evening.

I am back up here.

I try to stand down here on Wednesday nights so that it puts me in a different headspace than preaching and also it feels more conversational.

But this rug and this bouncy floor is way more comfortable for standing for an hour, so I'm gonna stay up here, not trying to get further away from you.

Yeah.

Let me uh well I'm gonna pray for us and then we're going to excuse me look back at last week just for a bit, spend some time with the the discussion question, and then look at our content for this evening.

So please join me in prayer.

Father, thank you uh for this place that we can gather, excuse me, in this this church body who who loves to gather, uh to spend time with one another.

I'm thankful for those who have prepared food for us to enjoy.

Uh bless the teaching that is happening all throughout the building this evening, and and may our fellowship bring you glory and honor.

Uh please guide our conversation this evening.

Uh may it be fruitful and accurate, and uh we pray for your grace for I am not.

And uh we thank you and we love you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Excuse me.

Okay, brief summary.

Last week we talked kind of right after the apostles have uh finished their ministry or are finishing their ministry, and there's a bit of an overlap that uh at times is considered the sub-apostolic age, and we spoke of the the body of work called the apostolic fathers.

Don't stress if none of this is ringing a bell, we have it recorded, but we talked about the the body of work known as the apostolic fathers, uh things like the Didiche, first and second Clement, the writings of Ignatius and others, whether or not those were all written by the men who bear their names, is almost regardless.

But we have this picture of right after the apostles were were either living andor writing, we have this other body of work that continues orthodoxy as a as a review.

We're thinking kind of as a theme all the way through church history, the concept and the uh and the defense of orthodoxy, insofar as that means right teaching or central teaching, particularly what are what is the core of what it means to be a Christian and what has the church understood that to mean from the beginning, from Pentecost onward.

Excuse me.

And I've mentioned every session, my goal here is by no means in six sessions to try and cover 2,000 years of church history.

It's I tried, I set out to try to be very detailed and found that even no matter, even if I was, even if y'all wanted it and I desired to just hit you with fact after fact after fact that will just uh it's too much.

So we're trying to think, particularly in terms of what we can learn, uh, what what what are the warnings, what are the encouragements, and and what does it mean currently to be the torchbearers of we are the right now of church history?

Should the Lord continue to tarry and there's another generation or two, and they add chip chapters to church history books, ours will go in there, so will we be found faithful?

And a wonderful way to equip ourselves in that way is to look back at how brothers and sisters have done that historically.

Last week we ended the discussion, excuse me, or rather I ended the my monologue with at least introducing Roman persecution in the Christian church.

It starts as early as Nero in the 64 AD with the fire in Rome.

A fire breaks out, Nero blames it on the Christians.

We have no reason to believe it was the Christians, they were the scapegoats.

Uh it sets a precedent for Christian persecution throughout Rome, really for several hundred years following.

At this time, for clarity, at this moment, we're well, we're this evening we're talking about like 100 to 200 AD, up into right before 300.

So we've got about a 200-year span.

Persecution doesn't become systemic or really, really widespread until a bit later in the 200 and 300s.

But for the context of last week and even into our discussion, it was beginning.

Uh the Romans needed a reason to.

The Romans were a rule of law society.

It was not barbaric for them to execute an individual.

They had to have some kind of legal basis.

And so this evening we will talk about some of the legal basises that Rome was using to persecute Christians, which uh uh birthed out of it some of the very first significant intellectual and theological writings within the church.

And so, in part, we need to answer the question did theology become something that was added to church life later?

Uh, spoiler, no, uh orthodoxy was there.

But what what has happened is I think the crux of the discussion question I left with you last week, and I do want to spend a couple minutes letting y'all think about this out loud.

You'll see in the handout, excuse me, I had the settings incorrect, so everything's a bit smaller in margins.

If it looks weird to you, it is weird.

I I don't know what I didn't press.

Excuse me.

But I asked at the end of last week, how might persecution affect orthodoxy?

What about in times or um and what about in times of peace?

So when the church is not under persecution.

Said in a couple other different ways.

Does persecution help orthodoxy?

Is it a hindrance to orthodoxy?

Did orthodoxy develop out of persecution?

Should we seek persecution because of whatever our answer may be?

I'd be interested in, and if you need qualifying questions, feel free to ask those.

But let's start with a bit of a, what just uh from what we've read of church history so far, in terms of the historic faith of the apostles given to us, what did persecution do to it?

Good, bad, or otherwise, and and what might we draw out of that just categorically?

Any thoughts at all?

Let me prod as a reminder, I'm not expecting you to remember an hour-long monologue from last week.

If they start to execute Christians, thinking will quash this.

It ramps up, it ramps up the evangelism because people see what in the face of persecution.

Boldness, faithfulness.

Okay, what else?

What else might persecution have done to orthodoxy, right?

Thinking I'm sorry.

That's always the goal of persecution.

Uh or not all may per that's maybe uh too generalistic.

Often the goal of persecution, particularly against a religious group, is to quash whatever the teaching is.

And the Rome claimed that the teachings of Christianity were anti-Roman, and we'll get to that in a bit when we talk about the apologists.

It seemed, yes.

Right, wrong, or indifferent.

The and we'll talk about this in another session.

The church got to the point where they had to say to people, hey, quit trying to be martyrs.

Because the legit the legitimizing effect that it had upon Christianity uh became almost a fever pitch.

Well, I want to be, it became a who's holiest by who could run to martyrdom.

But yes, in its appropriate form, the Lord took what was meant for evil and made it good there.

Yeah.

There is no easy believism in first and second century Rome as a Christian.

There's just uh and maybe that's untrue.

Again, persecution wasn't ra it wasn't as a Christian, if you walked out your door, you're at risk of being beheaded.

But but you you were eyed with suspicion.

You your social standing, forget maybe even if you weren't martyred, your social standing would have been in jeopardy because so yes, it will it will separate.

Do you believe this at your core or not?

It's something that's difficult for us to wrap our minds around.

Uh, our faith does not, frankly, cost us much, relatively speaking.

I'm not downplaying the difficulties of being a Christian in the Bible belt in 2026, but when you lay that next to Roman emp Roman empirical persecution of the first and second century, we aren't asked much uh in terms of pressing in against our orthodoxy.

And then uh even as I'm studying and preparing, I'm going, man, if if I'm pressed, would I be bold enough to maintain orthodoxy?

Particularly, a lot of times the the persecutors, the jailers, uh, even the individuals who would go out just to find them, the officers to arrest them would say, Hey, keep your Christianity stuff just burnt.

We have records of them saying, essentially, this is an English uh paraphrase, just burn some incense and say that you and say a prayer to Caesar, and I can go away.

They were trying to give them to give them ways out.

The the uh another category, perhaps the final one, again, not in not in every way, and at every time, but historically, on average, persecution galvanizes orthodoxy, it brings clarity to theological thought, and it and it re um it recontextualizes the the message of the gospel for the current moment.

Okay, so it it it often, again, under persecution, when when when we and we'll see this with the apologists and and with the teachers who are against the heresies, the not just persecution, but just challenges within the church.

So there's outward persecution of a government trying to kill these individuals.

We're starting to see inward conflict with uh heresies and heretics starting their own schools of thought, uh, in the case of Marcion starting another church, uh, and then and then we have the this internal conflict of well what how how much should we seek out martyrdom?

Within that persecution requires orthodoxy to be given fine points.

Because up until this point in the church, it's not that they were inventing theology, they weren't inventing thoughts about Jesus, but to that point, it was post-Pentecost, it was the missionary journeys of the apostles, it was run and gun.

We see later in the New Testament the development of ecclesiology, the kind of a framework of what it means to gather and organize as a church.

In Acts 2, they're they're gathering in living rooms.

Uh, it almost sounds informal.

By the time we get to the Pauline epistles, he is correcting order of service considerations.

So even just in the New Testament, we see a development of thought and structure around, it's not giving it theology, it's theology insofar as we are describing what we're seeing in Scripture in ways that we are able to communicate and to affirm in creeds and to rally around.

And just again, historically, persecution or times of persecution seem to produce the sharpest orthodoxy.

It's not inherently that we should seek it out, but we but we we will treat persecution like it is always inherently and all and in totality a bad thing.

But frankly, I don't the Lord has used persecuting events throughout history in part to maintain the integrity of the gospel message, because again, it comes back to this do you believe this or not?

Uh and if you believe it, you're still gonna want to make a defense for yourself and a reasonable one.

And so we will talk about tonight some of the not every figure, but but some of the leading intellects and even bringing that into uh uh the current era to go, we're still operating in the same way where God has gifted some individuals with an extra measure of ability to write and to contextualize orthodoxy into the current moment.

So let me move into, I want to do, and I intend to do, less talking, more discussion questions, but what that means is for the next 30 minutes I need to focus and just talk on about what I need to talk about.

The uh three particular uh points of tension in the Christian church during the era we're considering this evening, about 100 AD to about 100 or 250 AD ish.

Uh again, the apologists, that's apology, apologists, apologetics is the work of defense to defend the concept, particularly within Christianity, is to defend the faith.

And defend the faith against what?

Various things we'll look at in a bit.

So this is uh the the tension within the early church comes from the outside world, particularly Rome, as a political force, and Greek culture as a uh cultural and linguistic force.

Uh Greek was philosophic or Greece was philosophical, Rome was had its own mythologies, and there was a pressure upon Christianity, particularly as a new religion, for validity.

Uh, part of why they were able to be persecuted at all is because they were not recognized as a valid, uh initially a valid religion.

Uh so they've got the external force, uh, that particular type of persecution, which uh the Lord rose up individuals to write apologetic manuscripts in defense of the faith that forever have shaped how we talk about and think about our faith.

There are internal struggles during this era, heresies, uh, the the idea of something, uh a false teaching that threatens the validity of the gospel.

Be careful of the difference between error and heresy.

A heresy is egregious to the level of if this, if you are to believe this, you have missed something of the gospel that is critical to salvation, and those things are starting to pop up.

So the church has to respond to, uh, particularly in terms of orthodoxy, needs to think about and articulate it in some ways for the first time.

This is the written-down and agreed upon understanding of the apostolic faith.

It's not until really that second century that they're really required to start, okay, we have got to put this into a system because we're still not canonized yet.

The New Testament is, we believe, uh recognized.

They were using at this time the same letters we use now, uh, the same gospels we use now, but it wasn't for another couple centuries that they would make that into canon, say this is the authoritative text of the New Testament.

So throughout this era, there is yet to be defined, this is the Bible.

So Orthodoxy in particular at this point needs individuals who can articulate well the very first thoughts that become what we think of as theology in the defense of Orthodox Christian doctrine.

And then the third, of course, so we again we've got uh the pressure of Christianity being new and distrusted, the internal pressure of heresies, and then the third one, and we're not gonna talk about it as much because we already have, but persecution, uh, this idea that uh you you must abandon Christ or die.

But ultimately the church defends what it received from Christ and the apostles, and here we stand many, many years later, still in the shadow of that.

So let's turn to your listening guide.

We're gonna be on that first page inside the front cover under point one, the apologists.

There's not just one apologist.

However, for the sake of time and just as categories and to give you a feel for what those individuals were doing, we're gonna talk just about Justin Martyr, uh, that names assigned to him after he is martyred.

But Justin Martyr is considered the largest body of work, the most significant theological contributions to orthodoxy, uh, and is uh widely regarded as the apologists of the time.

But again, the the early church didn't sit down one day and decide what Christianity would become.

To that point, there's no meetings happening.

Uh it is initially orthodoxy emerges out of responses to heresy and other pressures.

It is the pressure point of the internal and external struggles that that moves individuals towards writing down these thoughts and developing what we now almost take for granted as uh orthodox conservative Christianity.

But but these things weren't built yet.

So the apologists are kind of uh the the first individuals to consider.

They're Christian writers who defend Christianity against accusations and the intellectual attacks from the surrounding Greco-Roman culture.

Uh the particularly there um we think of apologetics if you think about apologetics at all.

And if you don't, don't panic.

But if you think about apologetics at all in modern times, I don't know if you it uh it didn't occur to me until this week that I think about apologetics in our current context, which is the Bible belt during peacetime for the church, realistically.

So apologetics becomes uh sometimes we think of it as an evangelistic tool, or it's to bolster our own confidence and our own faith.

When you hear a gifted apologist spell out the reasons to believe in God, you leave that room feeling 10 foot tall and bulletproof.

That's not the apologetic work that's happening here.

Rome is leveraging charges against Christians, all kinds of charges that seem wild to us, but they they were they were valid and they were getting the citizens concerned on charges of incest because of the brother-sister language.

Husbands and wives would refer to each other as brother and sister.

It does sound like that if you're uninitiated.

They were bringing charges of cannibalism because of the way they talked about the Lord's Supper, the eating the uh consuming the body and the blood.

Uh uh secretism, mysticism because the they had gatherings, they were having meetings.

And so apologists in part are saying, hey, you don't need to persecute us, don't need to kill us.

Please just give me a moment to explain what we're doing.

It's a different goal for apologetics under persecution.

The primary goals of Justin and others were, again, first, hey, that this is true.

They were concerned with this faith is true, it's trustworthy, and therefore it is valid.

And in the Roman system, valid religions or recognized religions were given a place of safety in particular, uh, that it's reasonable.

Justin's interacting with the Greek philosophers who are particularly interested in reason and rationality, even at that time.

Uh so it without he's not trying to syncretize Christianity into a Greco-Roman uh uh philosophy.

However, like Paul, he's saying, Hey, I can speak your language and put it in terms that you will understand and appeal to the things that you find important, like at the time, reason.

So he said, listen, Christianity and the belief in Christianity is reasonable.

Uh that they were arguing for the moral superiority towards uh uh of paganism.

Uh they uh Justin was writing to show that um Christianity in the new covenant was consistent with the old covenant and the old testament and centered on Jesus.

Now, why would that be important?

Uh things like um just even a quote from some of my study material that says uh people today consider the latest the best and the most recent the truest, but the opposite was the case in the Greco-Roman world.

The oldest was the truest.

It's an interesting thought.

We are so inundated and used to the idea of have you heard, have you read the latest whatever about whatever?

Have you, it's medicine, it's science, it's car technology, it's cell phones, it's everything, whatever the latest iteration is, we have come to think either consciously or otherwise, that latest is, not even latest is greatest, but there is this constant forward movement of the next is good.

I think we're at a cultural moment where we're starting to question that, but for a long time in our recent history, we have thought the opposite.

And so Justin's having to make this argument that actually just because we're young, we're actually ancient, because look at how we draw our roots down through Judaism and how Jesus is the fulfillment of the old covenant.

So uh Justin is writing perhaps uh amongst the first considerations of how is Jesus a fulfillment of the old covenant in a systematic way.

Paul obviously understood that, Matthew understood that.

We had a lot of New Testament writers already making connections, uh, but but Justin is having to do it in a way that says, no, look, this is this is proof of the validity of our faith.

It's not something new.

Now, they're also contending with the Jews who were uh unconvinced of Jesus or maybe even antagonistic.

That's got to be difficult when they're saying, no, no, no, this is not, but it's still the work of the apologists.

Within apologetic work, what's interesting, uh, what I've I've found in study and even thinking about modern examples, um, the particularly strong thinkers among us, when they take off thinking real good, tend to accomplish more things than they than they meant to.

But right, have you ever just been around someone who's unbelievably adept at figuring something out?

Doesn't matter what the something is.

Um I i I would imagine that a gifted mechanic going to change the brakes is gonna notice everything else that needs to be fixed on his way into the brakes and fix those things.

In the writings and the teachings of Justin the Martyr, as well as the other theologians.

We'll read of.

They're accomplishing multiple things.

As an example, in Justin seeking to connect with the Greek sensibilities, they're used to the concept of the Lagos or the Logos, the idea of reason expressed, reason inherent to who we are.

And so Justin develops a thought around, have you ever heard of Jesus as the Lagos or the Lagos as the Word of God?

Perhaps you have the Bible study software called Lagos.

And if you prefer logos, you're I'm driving you crazy, I'm trying to say both of them.

Justin in his defense of the faith in general gives us the first glimpse at this type of Christology of thinking about Jesus in the way that John chapter 1 does.

John 1 · chapter mention

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And we see as a sequence of events through the first chapter of John that the world is created through the Word, that the Word is with God.

There's a lot of things happening all at once with the Lagos.

And then at the end, in verse 14, I think, in verse 14, we get this, and the word was Jesus.

So there's this development of, in Justin's mind, the Lagos is reason and it's wisdom, again, appealing to the Greeks.

The Lagos is the spoken and articulated word of God.

God spoke his word.

And so we think of Scripture as the Lagos.

It is imminent in the world.

God planted his reason in the universe, giving rational order to creation.

It's how we think of the natural created order through a Christian lens.

Yes, we can observe the systems because God created an orderly, reasonable system around us, and so of course we'll be able to observe patterns.

It is the revealed word of God in the prophets.

And finally, it is the incarnate Jesus, the divine word, becomes flesh.

It connects Jesus to the object of the Christian faith with Greek philosophy and concepts that were familiar to the Greeks.

And so it gives clear at the time illustrations of how Jesus could be one with God and yet distinct from Him.

It's helping them with monotheism.

Along the way, as Justin and the apologists and others are defending themselves, they're spitting out very thoughtfully the beginnings of what become accepted teaching and modern seminaries and churches, and we're seeing those develop very early on.

There's some other things that uh that that we get from Justin and the apologists.

I mentioned earlier that Rome, depending on the emperor and depending on the moment, was interested in persecuting Christians.

But because they were an ordered, civilized society, very modern for the time, they they couldn't just round them up.

They needed legal reasoning.

And so part of what we get even from Justin's work is a picture of what that church during that time was doing because he goes off and writes on this hey, I'll just tell you what we've been up to.

Let me just write it down.

I'll just tell you what we're doing.

And it's in response to things.

Uh, and to a charge of mysticism, he explains baptism.

They were baptizing, to the charge of cannibalism.

He says, No, no, no, that's that's our Lord's Supper.

Let me describe what we what we mean.

And he's having to, again, for many of these things, for the first time, write down an explanation, a theology, of the things that they had been reading and practicing and had been learning from those who were discipling them down through the apostolic succession to that point.

Scripture reading, it's their holy text.

Sunday morning worship, he describes, to dispel the idea of secret meetings.

So we're here, here's where we are.

You can gather with us, and here's what we're doing.

He he gives uh um uh for for the collection of the poor, says we're we're called to this.

Rome was charging them with circumventing the um the social programs of the Roman Empire because the Christians were just going out and helping people uh and they they were bringing charge of um insubordination in that way.

So, look, we're we're just called to help, that's all we're interested in.

We pool our money together, we give it to them.

Uh the we can see from uh Justin responding with orthodoxy to the challenges against the church, develops all sorts of things.

In part we see that already during this time there's a recognizable Christian community that's observing scripture, preaching, baptism, communion, prayer, so on and so forth.

Now, what what would be um thinking in terms of the the moment, the cultural and historical moment required a response, required an apologetic.

That's not isolated to, it's unique, it's historically and culturally unique to that moment.

However, in the interest of we're a Christian church, what can we learn from our forebearers?

What are the the current apologetic concerns of this historical and cultural moment?

W what are we defending against?

Just to kind of draw us into modernity a bit.

Everything can be explained in a formula.

What are the um apologetic implications there?

Create yes, there's there's there is a degree of apologetics inherent in discussing creationism.

Maybe not versus evolution, although that that conversation has become incredibly nuanced and detailed, but it requires someone to at some point in the 1800s, some Christian had to go, oh, here's a new thing that we need to write and update and clarify orthodoxy as a response.

It's not we need a new theology, it is what does Scripture have to say that informs us about Mr.

Darwin's work.

The work of the apologetic is an ongoing cultural, historical moment.

And so we have these examples of Justin the Martyr and others giving us the encouragement and and the the and the and the the confidence to say we it's not about again creating or making things up.

It is about historical brothers and sisters defending the faith of the apostles by saying, in this moment, how do we need to say this accurately and faithfully to scripture?

But what is the what is what does the moment call for?

Justin the martyr is not writing apologetics against the Egyptians.

It wasn't wasn't the context.

What what what maybe would be some other apologetic considerations now?

Abortion.

Abortion.

I have um AI as is one.

What do we what should we do with that?

Particularly in um I say our Michael and Robert and I's professional world.

There's a lot of discussion about the appropriateness of using that.

What are we obligated to create on our own without the help of those things?

That's maybe less of an apologetic, but there is more of a there's gonna be a cross-section of preachers who go, praise God, he allowed for AI to be developed, he must want us to use it, and therefore, please write me a sermon about this in my style.

You could probably even go in and say, here's five of my recordings, make it sound like me.

What do we do with that?

It requires a historical consideration of how historically have we held on to orthodoxy in thoughtful ways that match the cultural moment that defends the faith.

Okay.

Moving on into um uh the next page on under major heresies, because we're transitioning here, because the the the apologists defend the truth of Christianity.

Their work is not inherently against um uh the in-house crowd.

But we have to move into that second pressure point for this early church, and that was uh heresies and heretics, and it forced further clarity of content within Christianity.

So you'll see I have I have five, technically, I have three little categories: Gnosticism, Marcionism, and then it says others, docetism, Montanism, modalism.

Let me read you brief summaries of each, and that just so you can get them down in front of you, and then I'm gonna go back through and we'll discuss each of them to some degree.

Uh uh in Gnosticism, salvation comes through special knowledge, salvation via special knowledge, and the material or the physical world, often viewed as evil or bad.

There's a distinct separation between the good, spiritual, the disembodied part of existence, and the incarnate, which is inherently marked.

Marcionism, there's a lot to this one for now.

You might have jot down that the God of the Old Testament is different from the Father of Jesus.

Marcion and his followers separated the creator God who was debased and judgmental and mean, with the Savior God who would come later and certain and supersede him.

These these three I put together, because in a lot of ways they they flow out of the others, or they just weren't as significant during this particular time.

They'll come back up.

Docentism, Jesus only appeared to have a physical body.

We would believe in orthodoxy he did have a physical body.

There were a lot of individuals at the time, perhaps even now, maybe less so, but at the time they were they were unable in their minds to reconcile the idea of a divine debasing himself into the material.

So you can see how some of the upward stream, particularly of Gnosticism and Marcionism, both had a what we would call a um uh an aesthetic uh emphasis.

The the idea of uh uh refrain from physical intimacy, uh it was uh a lot of personal discipline because the material, the created, the physical was inherently bad, sinful, repugnant.

And so how could the divine ever indwell one of these awful things in this awful world?

So it must have been that Jesus only appeared to be human.

Montanism emphasized continuing prophetic revelation, of an ongoing of authoritative scripture.

We'll see how one of our heroes succumbs to that at some point.

Then modalism.

The father and the spirit, father, son, and spirit are of one person.

Where we would think of um uh uh one essence and three persons, that the father, the son, and the holy spirit are one and the same, but they are distinct from one another.

Modalism was popular at the time, saying, how could we, how do we reconcile monotheism, that there is only one God and and and there shall be no other gods before me with this this budding.

We don't have a developed theology of the Trinity at this moment.

And so they're operating in a time where they're trying to affirm monotheism while also wrestling with this.

It seems like there's more than one person in the Trinity, but that can't possibly be the case.

And so a modalist would say when when God needs to be Jesus, he he hits the Jesus button, he becomes Jesus.

And then when he needs to switch into the, that is a gross oversimplification, but it it becomes part of the narrative here.

So let's back up again a bit uh and consider the the spend most of our time with Gnosticism and Marcian and his school of thought.

Gnosticism, that G-N-O-S-T-I-C, the Gnostics is a Greek word for the knowledge.

To try and describe what is a Gnostic is is probably unfair to the Gnostics because there was such a broad spectrum of what it meant to be under the school of thought.

And even as you if you were to order five church history textbooks, uh they're all gonna have various opinions about what did Gnosticism come out of Christianity, did it develop alongside Christianity, or was it a uh some sort of pagan spirituality that got co-opted or they co-opted Christianity into it?

And that'll make sense in a moment as I start to describe part of what it is.

But there's some some common uh uh pieces to this uh amongst all Gnostic thought.

Let me get to my notes here.

Let me read just a couple of the uh the typical uh uh features of the Gnostic myths, regardless of the group.

Uh the you can jot these down if you want.

I I wouldn't necessarily feel the need to, just just if it's helpful to just follow along.

The original divine element produced other spiritual principles.

So a divine produces the divine.

This is their understanding of creation in the world in a very broad sense.

A fault occurred in the divine spiritual world during this moment of one divine begetting another divine.

As a result, matter, physical things, come into existence.

That's not good in the Gnostic system.

Fourth, some of the pure spiritual nature was planted into some souls, which is where we get to this idea that the Gnostics, uh, regardless of which category they were in, and again, it's extreme diversity.

But what seems to be shared amongst them is they were at least Christian adjacent.

They were speaking of getting to Jesus in heaven, but the way to Jesus was not via Jesus, it was a special inherent knowledge that was implanted by the divine at the moment where the fault happens, matter enters the world, which is bad, but some of the magic dust makes it through into particular individuals.

And so, Gnostics had a reputation for being nose in the air.

If that's your understanding of salvation, is that there's really nothing you can do about it.

You either have the special knowledge or you don't.

Uh creates a strange system, but it was it was widespread.

It was the most significant heresy and issue facing the early church for centuries, really.

We we think to some degree, even John is writing in opposition to some of Gnostic thinking it's as early as the New Testament.

Uh the fifth, a Redeemer revealed the way of escape out of the material world for the divine element.

So you need the special knowledge to escape the material worlds.

And then finally, the soul passes through the realms of the world rulers and it's returned to its spiritual home.

Sounds modernly, uh, we we would, I don't want to be crass to the degree of being unhelpful, but it sounds like vague spiritual.

Uh having lived in Maui for some time uh and encountered a lot of people who were happy to affirm Jesus, uh, and I thought, man, I'm talking to there's a lot of Gnostics on Maui.

There is this vague, special wink-wink.

I know I couldn't possibly explain it to you, but there's a connection to the divine.

Gnosticism seems to be inherent to some amount of human nature.

Now, they would call it divine revelation or special knowledge.

We at times can discredit it as cuckoo.

Um, but but but this was a significant school of thought uh and and heresy facing the church at this time.

Uh matter, again, was regarded as inferior or even evil, and therefore the incarnation becomes a huge problem.

If physical matter is evil, why would the Son of God actually become flesh?

And so getting trapped, the Gnostics were getting trapped in their own, what they saw, school of reason, which led to heterodoxy.

If orthodoxy is right teaching, heterodoxy is we're it's it's other, it's different, it's in opposition, and that it moves into heresy, and the church has to move against it.

And we'll read of individuals who their significant, the reason we know their name, at least initially, is that God was raising up people like Justin Martyr uh theologically to respond to these early challenges.

Now, uh let's talk Marcion for a few minutes.

Uh Marcion is especially important because uh for multiple reasons.

Uh this one, I if I I'm sure maybe I learned this at one point, um, but I had forgotten.

So as in prep, I was startled to be reminded that, and I'll just read the quote, Marcion started from the distinctiveness of the uh the Christian revelation, and he established a new church.

That's something that other heretics had not done to that point, and at its peak, Marcion's church rivaled the Orthodox Church and lasted until the fifth century.

Significant, and we'll I'll just I'll describe the heresy in a moment, significant heresy that swelled at least at one point to the size of the Orthodox Church and lasted for 400 years.

The the heresy and error and threats to the gospel are not inherently always easy to deal with.

Scripture is full of warnings of these teachings will come, they're already here.

Uh, and so it serves, the story of Marcion another serves as a stark reminder to be on alert, to guard the good deposit, to teach the gospel in season and out of season.

There is a watchfulness that the story of Marcion should call us to.

So let me just give you a couple uh uh uh broad categories here.

Marcion is credited with codifying the first canon, the first, the the Marcionites and the Marcion church had the first Bible.

What do I mean by that?

We we would not affirm their Bible, but they were the first group of Christians, heretics or otherwise, uh, to say this is the holy text of the new covenant people.

He rejected the Old Testament largely or or eventually in entirety.

Uh he further had difficulty or was unable to accept uh the the uh again in a docetic way the uh the humanity of Jesus.

And so he believes that uh his gospel of Luke starts in chapter three and includes a description that in the 15th year of Jesus' ministry, uh the the divine of Jesus descends into the body of Jesus in some way that he can then reconcile this idea that that matter is grotesque.

Let me just read uh a couple uh summaries here.

Again, I mentioned he Marcion believed there were two gods, the creator God, the evil God, the bad God, the mean one, and the redeemer God.

That law and judgment belong to the creator, that that Old Testament God, but then redemption is the work of the Father.

So he separated not only God into two, but the work of God into two.

Uh the Old Testament is revelation of the Creator, and if the Creator is, again, bad or at least not who we need or want anymore, it makes it easier to reject the Old Testament.

As I've mentioned, Jesus was viewed in what uh we would consider a dosetic manner.

He only seemed to suffer, yet his death was uh uh uh described as a purchase.

His was a resurrection of the soul, and he raised himself.

The physical birth of Jesus, stumbling block for Marcion.

Again, so he he cuts out the first couple chapters of Luke.

Paul was the only true apostle, according to Marcion, because the other twelve Judaized, and so the father had to call Paul to restore the true gospel.

And see how these schools of thought begin to develop and they cascade based on sometimes it can start with a singular error, uh, but but but this one snowballs out of control.

Um Marcion uh had a particular view on written revelation.

Uh the development of the canon uh in in his way was again the first one.

And in part, we have the canon we have today in response, not just to Marcion, but in this interesting development of what we now think of as this is our Bible, these are our theologies, this is how we've historically thought about Christianity.

Most of these things, if not um uh almost all of them, begin at least initially in response to what the church recognizes as error and then heresy.

It says, hey, we we need to address this and codify it.

So just thinking about that, it it makes sense.

That almost seems like a like the Lord has put that in us innately as humans.

I don't know what y'all's professional worlds are like.

In our professional world, uh, we we say if there's a policy, it's because something happens, right?

And that's not always a that we don't always mean that negatively, but but there does seem to be something in us that we go, oh, I thought we were all on the same page here, but clearly not.

We need to write this down.

And so we see the development of theology through, in part, the Gnostics, through Marcion, through the persecution.

Doesn't necessarily mean that we should celebrate these challenges, but it is not inherently cause for concern when we have this uh testimony throughout church history that says we can respond.

Let me let me I gotta speed up a bit.

Let's talk about on this last page, two uh the theologians in particular.

One lives a bit earlier, um Irenaeus is before Tertullian, uh, but they are both responding to some of the uh things that we've discussed Gnosticism, Marcionism, and others.

Uh, and I just want to give you a picture of how the early church is thinking about and responding and developing their theology as we go.

So Ireneus.

He is at the time working in what is now France.

He responds to Gnosticism by essentially his significant contribution here was to respond that Christianity is not a secret teaching possessed by an elite group.

That's in some ways a summary of Gnosticism.

It's a secret knowledge held by an elite group.

Irenaeus is the first to write down and codify this argument against that that Christianity is the faith publicly handed down through the apostles and preserved in the churches.

That sounds so normal to us now, but somebody had to conceptualize that and write it down.

And Irenaeus gets to work there.

He appeals to the teachings of the apostles as the standard of Christianity.

Irenaeus is kind of the OG of let's go back to the early church and see what they were what they were saying.

Let me give us uh, we've got, I'll come back to here.

It's important for us to also understand the the early church created orthodoxy following heresy, but it doesn't mean that, again, orthodoxy is something that is humans created.

We can see through the works of again, even the apostolic fathers that we looked at last week, and in the responses to uh the challenges to the church that there was already an Orthodox way of thinking.

We're just writing it down here.

Irenaeus provides a different picture, says we we received it from the apostles.

So in response to Gnosticism, they are starting to develop the first, what would become the creeds, and we'll look at those next week.

The Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed.

It's not a direct result of Irenaeus, but this is where we start to see these written, codified, we take for granted our statement of faith.

We've taught through our statement of faith.

I if if somebody reaches out to me and wants to partner or to work together or any of it, I'm going, I just expect to go to a website and see a statement of faith.

That's so normative now at the time.

We're still developing those things.

So Irenaeus says, in response to the uh the Gnostics, uh, in particular, he starts to develop a confession or what we now call the rule of faith that would later be uh influence the creeds.

It says there's there's one God, the Father, there's Jesus Christ, the Son.

He taught on creation, he affirmed incarnation, the death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit, resurrection, and the final judgment.

He is he is uh through his work considered perhaps the the first significant theologian to write extensively in ways that we might think of as a systematic theology.

Long-formed discussion of what do these, as we read through the New Testament and we hear the oral communication of the gospel and the teachings of the apostles, what how is it, what is the agreed upon center way that we think about it?

And so here we see the early moments of creeds and confessions of which we still benefit from today.

Interestingly, or I find it interesting, what Ireneus also did was lay the groundwork for the papacy and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

He wasn't alone, uh, but but in part his defense against the Gnostics was no, we we affirm that we have orthodoxy and the right answer because through the public succession of the apostolic teaching, we know that we are maintaining the same teachings that the very early church did.

So we hear the reasonableness of that response.

The Gnostics were saying, here's our line of teachers.

They're saying, no, no, no, our line of teachers are the apostles, and we come back in that way.

Later, the church would further develop what was just an argument against Gnosticism into the concept of apostolic succession, which develops into the papal uh seat.

Not alone, not in a vacuum.

It's not Irenaeus' fault, so to speak, and depending on who you are, that's the wrong word to use.

It's not just to his credit if you're Catholic.

There were others.

But we begin to see very early, this is the 200s, almost a separation and the early stages of development of what we would now consider the Roman church.

Let's look down to uh Tertullian because he contributes here as well, both in speaking against the challenges but but furthering uh what we're doing.

Tertullian uh is uh later in life, he's uh working in North Africa, or not later in life, he is after uh Irenaeus.

I get Irenaeus, not Irenaeus.

Irenaeus.

Sorry, I'm tired, I'm getting hung up.

Tertullian is after that guy.

About 155 to 220 AD, but he's responding also to the Gnostics.

Some interesting things that come out of Tertullian's teaching, he is credited with uh the the framework and and really the vocabulary for the Trinity.

Tertullian didn't invent the Trinity, uh, but he's the first theologian writing in Latin, and so he comes up with the concept of the Trinitas, and for the first time, 200 years-ish after Pentecost, we we have a codified language, a vocabulary term for the Orthodox teaching around what is the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And in many ways, Tertullian develops that in response to the pressures and the persecution against the church, against orthodoxy.

One substance, three persons, something that we're still wrestling to understand how that works, but we all, especially within Orthodox Christianity, and in some ways we can we can include our high church brothers and sisters here, affirm a Trinitarian view of the gospel.

And there is a historically accepted orthodoxy around that that comes from the work of Tertullian, who initially gets to work in part in response uh or in response to uh the heresies.

Now, transitioning into the last little bit of our time for conversation, Tertullian later succumbs to heresy.

Uh I don't mean that lighthearted, but just it's ironic.

Tertullian later becomes associated with Montanism, which makes him uh an interesting teaching case.

So Montanism as a just a brief review.

Specifically, they are affirming that revelation is ongoing.

Uh depending on which Montanist you speak to, maybe that's authoritative canonical scripture, or it's uh with at least with the same authority of the Lord has spoken to me, I've spoken to you, and we need to act on that in a particular way.

They're uh strictly aesthetic, again, strict lifestyles uh retracting from the world.

Tertullian goes into this and it and it begs a question.

While we have in the early church the beginnings of significant development around orthodoxy, language that we still use today, like the Trinity, uh like creeds, like uh like basic concepts of Christ as the Lagos, we're getting from this early era while also dealing with individuals who who are in, we would now confirm either an error or heresy in other ways.

So as we study church history, as you pick up a book off Amazon from your favorite theologian, preacher, whoever, and you come across a chapter that goes, actually, I I think you're wrong here.

Well, what do we what do we do with those things?

What do we how do we process this idea that Tertullian is a is a titan uh of who are we to question this guy and he filled into heresy?

What do we do with him?

Is it is his is his orthodox teaching still good and right and helpful?

I think it's an incredibly pertinent question for modernity, because unfortunately, it seems like every year one of your favorite theologians has a moral scandal, and we're left with, what do we do with this teaching?

We have church history.

Let's take a moment just to think through some of that.

We owe a significant cross-section of our faith heritage to people like Tertullian, who ended his life in significant heresy.

How do we what what warnings, what encouragement, what correction do we bring forward?

Let me put it another way.

I've I've written this as a discussion question two ways.

Um the early church and the early church writers, hugely important, foundational, both high church, I mean uh Catholics, Orthodoxy, or Eastern Orthodoxy, Coptic Christians, Anglicans in those categories, and low church, Protestants and other, all claim these same theologians.

They're great, we have something to learn here.

How do we balance that with the understanding that they're also not infallible?

Those early church writers are important, they're foundational, and they're not fallible.

So, how do we balance kind of fact-checking with historic humility?

That makes sense.

There's days I go, who would I, who, I don't know, it's Tertullian.

What I mean, maybe what do I know?

How are we balancing Christian thought around this was incredibly helpful, and this either action or this teaching we need to be mindful of.

It's rampant throughout the church history.

What what are some thoughts there?

Is there's grace and and humility to say you're human too.

And we measure it against scripture.

We we say scripture is the final arbiter of truth.

It's a very Protestant thought.

Uh I want to be cherry- I am not Catholic, I'm not well versed in Catholicism.

Anything I say, grain of salt.

Uh the the Catholic Church will will um is happy to and encourages a parallel authoritative reading both of Scripture and of church history and tradition.

And so the Catholic Church will say Tertullian was Catholic, um uh Irenaeus was Catholic, the the Peter was the bishop of Rome, and this is the succession, and they will tell it, they they affirm that from church history and tradition.

In respect to them, we have a different approach to to reading those histories and and uh saying, listen, we're we gotta be careful not to read systems back onto people who never thought of them in that way, regardless of if their thought process uh influenced it down the road.

But yeah, what do we do with um the the the modernly, right?

Modernly, we've got independent, and I don't we don't need to get specific, I'd rather not, frankly.

But the uh we've all probably unfortunately have someone in mind.

We go, man, I used to really like their teaching.

It's the crux of that.

Usually it means until they screwed up and and now their teaching is is unhelpful.

And certainly it's suspect.

I think there's a reason why the teachers or pastors in particular call to be above reproach, so that there's nothing that would call our teaching into question.

But we think about orthodoxy was in part developed and defended by individuals who ultimately fell into error, sometimes heresy.

What else do we have for that modernly?

Certainly.

I mean that that could be it.

But what about so I mean, yes, and w the Heartland Church is not inherently responsible for the discipline of uh an author you like who's a member of another church down the road.

But but say they um man, it's not uncommon for I I was assigned, uh I said I wasn't gonna name names, but we'll we'll uh I will reserve the privilege because I have the microphone.

When I was uh in Bible college at Union in 08, I was assigned some readings from a pastor named Rob Bell.

Rob Bell now, if he hasn't totally apostasized, is a uh a universalist and has written quite a few books about everyone goes to heaven.

Uh at the time, Union would have never assigned that had Rob Bell been teaching that at the moment.

Rob Bell uh was influential to me, and then I had to reconcile with, and now uh almost fully apostate.

How do I reckon with that?

Uh N.T.

Wright, another uh category there.

I was assigned a lot of N.T.

Wright books, and a lot of N.T.

Wright, he's a British Anglican theologian, brilliant man, voice of butter.

A distinctive teacher in my mind in thinking about what heaven is and what heaven will look like.

Um now is a as a as a vocal majority for women in ministry, now as a vocal majority for things like uh the new perspective on Paul, uh, arguing that uh the works are a part of what saves us is an oversimplification, but just in my own lifetime, I've got theologians who I go, you have shaped part of how I think about this, and I see it in scripture, and then your other body of work I have to be very, very careful of.

What what have you had that experience?

What do you do to reconcile those things?

Do you just close the book and move on and never read them again?

No.

Well, and we have some historical positions that we would rather have not held.

Uh it's a a regular discussion, the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Southern Baptist Convention uh was composed of slaveholders.

We've repented of that.

Uh we we've uh that there's some helpful resolutions from the convention, Southern Seminary put out some significant studies, we've dealt with that.

And does that mean we do we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater kind of thing?

So how do you we we we have a historical precedent for measured against scripture within reason?

We don't want to celebrate, uh uh, we don't want to celebrate worldliness or heretics or pressure, but what we can look for in the encouragement in the context of church history is how has the Lord sustained his church and sustained orthodoxy in spite of those things.

Tertullian ends up a heretic, but before he does that, the Lord uses him to develop what we would consider the right understanding of the relationship, or at least the beginnings of the right thought around what does it mean to be, like in 1 John, invited into the fellowship that is with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that we have seen, that we have tasted, that we have participated in.

That we have context and language and teaching around what is the Trinity is because of someone who also ascribed to heresy.

We're not celebrating that, but as we look through church history in these ways and how the church responded to challenges, we can praise God that the gates of hell have not prevailed, that we currently hold the torch, we are going to fail.

Lord keep us from heresy, uh, certainly.

Don't want to have an asterisk on my on my Orthodox legacy, so to speak.

Uh, but but we're trusting according to church history, the Lord will provide and the Lord will sustain the integrity of the gospel message until Jesus returns.

Let me pray for us.

Father, thank you.

Um thank you that uh you have throughout the history of your church um prompted people to record and to document things that were happening.

And thank you for and and with this promise from Jesus that the world will hate us because they hated him first.

And so we read of persecution and we read of wolves and and false teachings and all of these things you warned us of in your word.

And so as we study church history, even in broad strokes and quickly, may we be reminded and encouraged by the brothers and sisters who have historically held on to the faith once and for all delivered, uh, that Jesus died but and rose again in defeat of our sins and conquering of death, and in return, he offers us salvation through his righteousness.

Thank you that you have preserved that message through millennia across oceans and mountains and rivers and all kinds of fallible humans, and and that gospel made its way here to us.

Thank you.

And may we be faithful players of our parts in this timeline to continue to pass that gospel, that orthodox message of Jesus on to the next generation.

Uh, wherever we're going this evening, please carry us here safely.

May we honor you with our lives tomorrow.

We love you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

You are dismissed.