Blog Archives
Why I Read the Early Church Fathers and You Should Too!
“Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.”
Or so the saying goes. In essence it means that those who don’t consider the past, when making choices in the present, will likely arrive at similarly bad conclusions. This phrase strikes a chord with many. Perhaps it is because we tend to always look forward, seldom pausing to consider the past. Part of our DNA seems to include the belief that the next best thing is just up on the horizon. Who can blame us? Isn’t it often true? At least with technology it is. The next generation computer, or Iphone or IPad is going to be better than the previous one. Things we build seem to improve over time, as we discover new ways of making them faster, smaller, bigger, cheaper, and more reliable.
Many within the evangelical Christian community seem to adopt this same belief when it comes to understanding Christianity and how that applies to our corporate lives. We are often looking for the next thing, God’s next move, a “new and improved, better than the old” way of Read the rest of this entry
Want To Be Challenged By The Early Church? Read This…
Do you ever grow weary of all the new fads and techniques the modern church creates? I do! What is important to us, may not have been important to those who were personally discipled by Jesus Christ and those whom they disicpled.
I am continually challenged when I read the history and the writings of the early church. I am drawn to them over and over again because of how close they were in time to the Apostles. There writings are not scripture, but neither are the writings of Luther, Calvin or John Stott. These writings shed tremendous light on how the Apostles and the early church viewed the Christ event and the implications of it. Anyone who wants to follow Jesus Christ faithfully owes it to themselves to read the writings of these Godly men.
Today, I have included the entire “Didache”, also known as “The Teaching of The Twelve Apostles.” It is one of the most fascinating documents to emerge from the early church. It was probably in circulation somewhere close to the end of the first century… Read the rest of this entry
Not For Itching Ears 