Didache, Discipleship, and Disjunction

Readers of my blog will have noticed my recent references to Thomas O'Loughlin's book, The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians.  The book is a "mixed bag."  The author accepts that the Gospel accounts, save Mark, were late first to early second century works while the "deutero-Pauline" epistles (Pastorals, et al) were second to third century.  As such, the Didache is thought to inform or be consistent with material that informed the writing of those works.  This calls into question much of his reasoning as he attempts to bring Didache together with the New Testament.  A straightforward reading of N.T. and Didache would demonstrate that the Church Fathers were correct in holding the former group as primary both in chronology and authority.

The benefit of this book is O'Loughlin's thesis that Didache was a training manual for the Christian community: it is a catechetical work for discipleship.  He notes the process from one phase to another in logical steps: basic presentation concerning the ways of life and death, taking in the moral teachings of Christ, understanding the character and identifying marks of the church, and looking for the promised return of the Lord.  He questions why the church has largely dismissed the need for thorough instruction of what comprised the relationship with God and His people.  To that end he has identified a weak spot in the life of the church.

What formerly had been a progression that occurred in any given person—proclamation of judgment and gospel, repentance, belief on Christ with accompanying baptism for the forgiveness of sins, assembling with others, instruction in God's word, nurture by an older believer—has now become truncated and compartmentalized.  Christians develop characteristics more akin to Deism or Gnosticism than being true followers in the Way.  What God had joined together man has torn asunder: evangelism from discipleship, baptism from belief, person of Christ from his Supper, sound doctrine from instruction, admonition and correction from training in righteousness.  Priority has shifted from the care of souls to care of the corporate entity.  The mindset driving this is, "How do we touch the most lives with limited resources?  How do we keep the organization together, moving strong and growing?"  That is a practical outlook, but it has little to do with the local church.  The correct questions should be, "What has God revealed in his word that needs to be done, and are we doing it according to his pattern?"

We would do well to evaluate both content and methodology of the local church against what the Lord has told us and be willing to look at what those early Christians did after the apostles died.  We do not want to directly imitate what as done, nor do we dare romanticize the purity of those first few centuries.  Instead, make a critical examination of their teaching and practice to better ground what we do in Christ's name.

Test the Prophets

And any prophet who teaches the truth, but does not live according to his teaching is to be considered a false prophet.  (Didache 11.10)

The final note is interesting in that it sets the actual walking of the Way as a test for anyone who acts as a prophet.  The correct teaching is not enough in itself, it must be backed up by the correct form of life.  The Didache has a bald statement intended as a test for the community to use to distinguish visitors in two groups: false and genuine. *

Visitors are not the only people who need to be examined: wolves, goatherds, and other self-promoters are a "dime-a-dozen."  Fellow believers, do the hard work of discernment.  Elders, do the hard work of guarding the flock.


* Thomas O'Laughlin, The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 118

Jesus Suffered Injustice for the Unjust—You

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.  By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

He says not in the likeness of flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh, for he certainly received the human nature, but human sin he did not received—hence that which He thus assumed he calls not the likeness of flesh, but the likeness of sinful flesh, because though He had the same nature with ourselves, He yet did not have the same character or disposition.  He means, then, that the law having been unable to bring to effect its own design—by reason of the weakness of those beneath its covenant, possessing as they did a mortal nature, and one answerable to infirmities and passions—the only-begotten Word of God, becoming incarnate, by that human flesh overthrew sin, fulfilling all righteousness and admitting no taint of sin; and by enduring the death of sinners, as though Himself a sinner, manifested the injustice of sin, in that it delivered up to death a body over which death had no just claim.  And this then both overthrew and put an end to death: for in thus submitting to death through the unjust sentence of sin (while not at all answerable to it, in that He never committed sin) He became the price of redemption of those justly subjected to death, as one free among the dead.

Theodoret of Cyrus, "The Letter to the Romans" on Romans 8:3-4

Happy or Holy: What Does God Want for Us?

Will Weedon has written a post that makes an important point.  I give it here in entirety:

I've been hammering home at St. Paul's of late: the Lord doesn't want you to be happy; He wants you to be holy.  "For this is the will of God, your sanctification."  Last night Judy asked: does He want us to be both?  I thought about it and replied: He wants us to be holy so that we may be truly blessed; and blessedness is even better than happiness.  I'd stand by that: blessedness doesn't ride on the ups and downs of our emotions.  It rises above them.  And since God often uses adversity and trials to give us growth in holiness (yes, holiness is given you whole and entire in your Baptism, but I refer to growing up into the salvation that is yours), there are times of sadness that come our way on this path toward the fuller inner appropriation of that holiness which results in blessedness.  Anywho, the big point is that our deceitful hearts way too often tell us that "God wants us to be happy" and take that to mean: "God can't mean that I shouldn't engage in this sin - because I am finding happiness in doing so!"  Wrong.  Just wrong.

In spite of what culture or others have taught, happiness is not the antithesis of holiness.  Only walking in fellowship with the Father, as it is made available through the redemptive work of the son in the power of the Holy Spirit, can men and women be fully content, resulting in happiness as we see the Lord work in and through both us and others.

Doubly Free in Christ Jesus

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

As [Paul] had just before called sin "the law of sin," so now he calls the life-giving Spirit, the law of the Spirit of life.  His grace, says he, by faith in Christ has bestowed on you a double freedom: not only has it overthrown the power of sin, but also put an end to the tyranny of death.

Theodoret of Cyrus, "The Letter to the Romans" on Romans 8:2

The Main Thing!

I regularly read biblical offerings from Bruce Collins, an evangelist here in Eastern Iowa.  In this week's meditation, he begins:

Galatians 1:8  But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

Preaching an accurate faithful Gospel is important to the Lord and it needs to be important to us.  When we preach the Gospel we are dealing with the destinies of people for eternity.  Who would want to mislead anyone on that that important matter?  When we talk about the Gospel, we know we are talking about Good News.  Sometimes we use the word to include all or most of the doctrines of the Bible and sometimes we limit the term to the need to trust in the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus to be saved for eternity.  Whether we use the term in a broad sense or in a narrow sense, the end result is the same—we are preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ.  But if those who are preaching the Gospel are all preaching the same Gospel, why does what I hear today often seem so strange to me?

This is a good question.  Why do "Gospel" preachers have different messages?  Are they not all working from the same basic text?  If not, why not?  They claim to be preaching the same message from the same text, but what comes forth is something entirely different.

There are various reasons why the message is not consistent, but I would dare say they are all rooted in pride and promotion of a local church, a ministry within the church, corporate vision of the church, the preacher himself/herself, or some combination thereof. The point is that the message is not Christ.

But even when relating the gospel one-to-one, we can fall into this trap—of speaking more about me or my church than what Christ has done for me. In the e-mail Bruce goes on to relate the result of an encounter in a Chinese restaurant:

She invited herself and her daughter to sit with me while she ate, and we had a nice discussion.  I found out that this stranger that I had decided to help had been baptized by my own brother—she was friends with a lot of people that I knew though I didn't know her.  It sounded like she had had a rather hard life, but she couldn't forget what the Lord had done for her.  She didn't tell me about what she had done for the Lord, she told me about what the Lord had done for her.

Now that's what I'm talking about—not dwelling on me or what I have done but showing forth the Lord Jesus in simple conversation.

Rejoicing in Deliverance

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

[Paul] calls it a body of death, as being born subject to death—that is, mortal, for the soul is immortal.  Christ alone, he says, has freed us from this bitter bondage by putting an end to death, and promising us immortality, and that life which is without either labor or pain and apart from warfare or sin.  The full enjoyment we shall receive in the existence to come, while in the present we are blessed with the grace of the thrice-holy Spirit, and thereby not only do we set ourselves against the passions but by the possession of such an Helper are enabled to triumph over them.

Theodoret of Cyrus, "The Letter to the Romans" on Romans 7:24-25

The Law Shows Us Our True Selves; Christ Is the Remedy

Therefore God added the commandment that man might thereby learn to understand his own nature and to fear his Lawgiver.  And we may certainly perceive the lovingkindness of that Lawgiver, for He did not add some Law which was difficult to heed but one which could have been easily kept.  He allowed to [Adam] the enjoyment of all the trees, of one alone He forbade him the use; not that He envied him that one (for how could He do so, who had already given him power over all?) but in order to teach him the terms of submission and to render him well-disposed towards his Creator and provide a means for the exercise of his rational faculties.  And if then, by not keeping the commandment he came under sentence of death, this can be no cause for blame to the Lawgiver but to him who transgressed the law.… But indeed the Lord God has treated with every possible consideration and kindness both Adam himself and all his race, and—to pass by all other and come at once to the heart of the matter—for him and his race the only-begotten Word became incarnate and put an end to the power of death, which from him had received its beginning, and promised the resurrection, and prepared the kingdom of heaven, and so He both foreknew his transgression and made ready beforehand the means of remedy to follow.

Theodoret of Cyrus, "The Letter to the Romans" on Romans 7:11-12

Death to the Law and New Life in the Spirit

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead.  It would have been indeed in strict consistency with the example adduced to have said, "the law is dead," that is, has ceased, but in consideration of the spiritual weakness of the Jews, for they greatly exalted the law, and from a desire not to afford an opportunity of finding fault with it to the heretics who denounced the Old Testament, he avoids saying that the law has ceased, but declares that we have died to the law by baptism which saves us, and then rising again have been united to Him who has Himself risen from the dead, that is Christ.  And as he had called the faith which is in the Lord a marriage and union, in keeping with this image he shows the fruit also arising from marriage, in order that we may bear fruit for God.  What then is this fruit-bearing?  That our members become the instruments of righteousness.  And most aptly does he show that the law itself leads us to be joined to Christ, for it did not forbid a woman to be married to a second husband after the death of the first.  And then he goes on to point out the difference.

For while we were living in the flesh, that is, according to the law (for the legal ordinances concerning the flesh, as of foods and drinks, of leprosy, and such like, are what he here calls the flesh), our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members.  He says not "in" the law but by the law.  For the law, which is good, does not itself bring about sin, but sin uses [it] for evil.  Neither indeed do our members themselves bring about sin, but the inclination of the soul to the worse has brought its operations to effect by our members.  And what then springs from this?  To bear fruit for death.
 
In these words he has taught us that before the coming of [the covenant of] grace, while we were living according to the law, the attacks of sin to which we were subjected were the most powerful, in that the law showed indeed what ought to be done, but offered no help to do it.  But now we are released from the law.  He still continues in the same cautious mode of expression, and says not, "the law is made to cease," but we are released from the law, that is, it is inoperative as regards ourselves, we are no longer under its polity.  And how are we released from it?  Having died to that which held us captive.  For when we were subjects of the law we came to baptism, and dying with Christ, and with Him rising again, we were united to our Lawgiver, and no longer need the polity of the law, for we have received the very grace itself of the Spirit, as what follows proves, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

Theodoret of Cyrus, "The Letter to the Romans" on Romans 5:4-7

Being Subordinate

Subordination gets a bad reputation because people imply the meaning of submission with someone else exercising authority over me.  Western civilization bristles at this notion because it appears to run counter to a decidedly egalitarian philosophy.  In actuality, subordination is necessary for any civil society.  Its basis is understanding and practicing the particular role I have in order to benefit others.  We see this in everyday life: goods and services are bought and sold; laws are enacted and enforced; knowledge is transferred from instructor to student, etc.  We place ourselves in a position so that needs are met, whether yours or mine or both.  The apostle Paul explains the importance of this concept nicely in Ephesians 5:18-21.

Be filled with the Spirit
He begins by commanding believers to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  This is an odd request since the verb is passive.  The requirement is only to receive, but how is that done?  Backing up just a bit in chapter 5 we see:

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.… Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.… Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.  (4:17; 5:1-2, 15-16)

And all this is lived out based on what has been given us freely in the Beloved upon our belief and confession of Christ (chapters 1-3).

Manifestation of filling
What are the manifestations of the Spirit-filled life?  The apostle mentions four characteristics common to every assembly:

Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,

Singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart,

Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Be Subordinate
All these are important, but the last Paul expands by giving practical application in the family setting (5:22-6:9).  All of these were common as families and communities turned to Christ from their false idols.

Wives

submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands

love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.  In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.  “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.  However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Children

obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.  “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

Fathers

do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Slaves

obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.

Masters

do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

The emphasis here is to fulfill your place in the family in a godly way regardless of which role you are playing in the immediate relationship addressed.  Being mutually subordinate in this way edifies the body of Christ and serves as a powerful witness of Christ's redemptive work.