Early Church History Lecture

Church History Lecture: 100 AD-400 AD

Why Study Church History?

· I get this question a lot, why do I like church history so much? Why study Church history?

· In order to answer that I have to start with a scripture, which means I am going to preach a little bit.

· In Matthew 16 When Jesus asks the disciples who people say He is, anyone remember that passage?

· The disciples tell Him that some say He is John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

· Then Jesus looks at the disciples, His closest friends, the ones who will become preachers, teachers and leaders. And he says, but what about you? Who do you say I am? I want to read that scripture.

· Matthew 16:15–19

15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

· Talk about Peter messing up, and denying Jesus. Then Jesus restores Him.

· Throughout all of History, Jesus has used us. Pastors, teachers, everyday people to build His church.

· He invites us to lead people, to teach people, to share the love of Jesus with them.

· And the gates of hell never has, nor will it ever overcome Christs Holy Church! Because we are His bride! He died for us!

· So when we study church history, we get to see pastors, and teacher, struggling with what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

· We get to see hoe they worked through hard Biblical truths.

· We get to see how they stood up to oppression and sin

· We get to see how they laid the foundation for what we call Christianity. And they did all of it while simply trying to bring people into a relationship with Jesus Christ!

· So that is why we study church history! And I think in Cuba, it is so relevant.

· The church is under attack, from outside ideas, from oppression, for anxiety, from Satan. So as we study how the early church worked through the same things, it will help us see that Jesus will never give up on His church, and that Satan will never win.

· Ok, I am done preaching for a little bit.

When we talk about early church history, we are talking about a period of about 300 years. From around 100 A.D. to 400 A.D.

As we begin, its important to talk about the dual context of the world when the church was being formed.

· There are two major influences in the ancient church world. The first was the influence of Judaism.

· If you notice I put in your handout the date the first temple was destroyed.

· The reason that is important is because of how it caused Judaism to spread after the temple was destroyed and the Jewish people were carried into exile.

· Jeremiah 29:4–7

4 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

· So after Jeremiah prophesies this, the Babylonian empire is conquered by the Persian Empire. King Cyrus was the king of Persia when Nehimiah, and Ezra rebuild the wall around Jerusalem, and the Temple.

· And then eventually the Roman Empire conquered the Persian empire, and most of the world.

· But because of the prophecy we just read in Jeremiah many Jewish people never moved by to Jerusalem, they stayed dispersed throughout the Roman empire.

· Some historians believe that as much as 25% of the Roman Empire was Jewish. So Judaism had a great influence on the formation of the early Christian Church.

· Then there was the influence of Roman culture on the world. The Paganism, the worship of many gods. The fact that the emperor was seen as a living god. The insistence that the entire empire conform to a “roman” way of life.

· Remember this is the world that Jesus grew up in.

· One of the interesting things about Rome, was for the most part the let the Jewish people do what they wanted, because they were pretty easy to get along with. The obeyed the rules, and didn’t cause a lot of trouble, and in return the Jewish people got to continue to worship Yahweh alone!

· This is one of the reasons the Pharisees and Sadducees disliked Jesus so much. They were afraid that His claims of being the Messiah would cause Rome to crack down on Jewish people.

And this is one of the things I think we forget as Christians. We have the Bible, we have the old and New Testament, we have the Gospels, but the earliest Christians, they didn’t have that. They had the Apostles teachings about Jesus.

So the church had this real struggle, how were they going to Be Christian in a Jewish world. Many of the early Christians would attend the Synagogue on Saturday night, and then attend Christian worship services on Sunday mornings.

And the thing is neither the Rabbis nor the Christian teachers like this.

This practice continued until around 130 A.D. When the 3rdJewish war happened. During the war, one of the leading Jewish Rabbi’s declared that one of the leaders of the rebellion against Rome, Simeon Barcosaba was the true Messiah.

And it was at this point that Christians said, we can no longer do this. We have to take a stand, because Jesus is the Son of God, He is the Christ. The Messiah.

It was also at this point that we start to see the Apologist emerging from the church.

Now what are apologist, well, they are Pastors first and foremost. Then they are theologians, who defend the faith against attacks.

Again this is one of the reasons that we study church history. You all are Pastors. I am a Pastor. Our first Job is to proclaim the Gospel, and lead people to Jesus.

But we are also Theologians, weather we like it or not. We study the Word of God. The Holy Spirit works through us, and we use education, and resources to help people understand what the Bible means, and work through hard theological issues.

And we are defenders of the faith. We explain why Christianity is the only true religions. Why Jesus is the only way to heaven. How God intended that all humans worship and serve Him. We explain to people the sin and worldly things will bring them death, while Jesus will bring them life.

And one of the reasons we are able to do that, is because of all the work that these early church apologist, these defenders of the faith did.

It is because of their work, that we have doctrines like:

The Trinity

The doctrine of Christ being fully man and fully God.

That we see Jesus from cover to cover in the Bible.

The doctrine of Grace, and salvation by faith.

The role of a pastor

The significance of sacraments like communion and baptism.

All of these things were worked out, are at least started to be worked out by these early church fathers, the apologist, these defenders of the faith.

And one of the reasons they started to wright, preach, and think about these issues is because the church was in a mess.

The Apostles are all dead at this point, and the early church was a mess. Think about Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth. Think about the book of James, and the instructions found there. Think about the book to the Hebrews. All of these churches and people were struggling with what it meant to be Christian.

Much like today…

And here is the thing, just because Paul, or James wrote a letter to the church doesn’t meant that things got better right away…

Just because you preach a great sermon, or lead a great Bible study doesn’t mean that your people become sinless, perfect Christians… Amen?

So, these early church Apologist did this on-going work of what it meant to really follow Jesus!

So the first one of these Apologist, and maybe one of the most famous was Justin Martyr…. He was born about 100 A.D. and died about 160 AD

He was a philosopher who, had been trained in Roman Philosophy, became a Christian and then dedicated his life to arguing that Christianity was better than the Roman Mythology, and other pagan mythology that went hand in hand with Roman Philosophy.

I think the best way to think of Justin is to think of him as a evangelist. So what does an evangelist do. Well they come to an area, and they teach on hot topic things. Salvation, sexual immorality, family issues and so on. Its up to the local preacher to do the everyday work of discipling people.

Well Justin was kind of the first Evangelist. He challenged the hot topic things in the Roman world.

Things like the out of control sexual immorality of the Roman world. And the thing is, if you read the mythology of the roman gods, you will see the stories of the gods are full of this same type of sexual immorality.

So Justin said, do you really think that this type of life is ok? Do you think this is these gods you worship are good examples. Look at Jesus, He is the prime example of living a Holy Life.

Justin also took on the idea of worshiping idols, and the multitude of gods in the roman world. See it was becoming more and more popular for people to only worship one local god. So Justin said, listen if these idols are really gods, why would they let you worship them, and some fake god at the same time.

But Jesus, He says the only way to Heaven is through me! He claimed to be God! And He claimed to be the fulfilment of the Jewish religion, which for thousands of years had taught that Yahweh was the only true God.

The last thing that Justin did. And one of the biggest things I think the church today, or at least in the United States needs to learn… is that truth is not subjective.

Truth is truth. So if Jesus is Lord, than Zues cannot be lord as well. If worshiping anything other than God, is idolatry than the emperor cannot be a god.

In the United States people have lost sight, and lost track of what is true. They have traded truth for feelings, and reality for a made-up world that they live in.

Again this is one of the reasons I think its so important for Pastor to study Church History. Because God tells us these types of things are going to happen. Paul warns us about this in 2 Timothy chapter 4: verse 1-5

2 Timothy 4:1–5

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

Now let’s move on to the next phase in Apologist. Because Justin spent most of his time taking on the Roman Philosophy and the Mythology of the day.

But the next group of Apologist, and remember apologist are pastors, they are teachers, they are preachers and defenders of the faith.

The next group of these men, they took on the ever-increasing rise of heresies, and heretical teachings.

The first heresy I want us to look at is Gnosticism. The word Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge.

The Gnostics claimed that they had more, and secret knowledge. They taught if you want the real Gospel of Jesus, if you want the real teaching of the Bible, if you want the real writings of the Apostles, and if you want the real leading of the Holy Spirit, than we are the only church that can teach you this.

Now, here is an important point for us to never forget as pastors today. When we allow society to influence the church, instead of the church influencing society than we as pastors and leaders have failed.

And that was the biggest issue with the Gnostics. They tried to bring the philosophies of people like Plato into the church and bend, and stretch Christianity to fit into the philosophical roman worldview.

But that simply wont work. Jesus warns us of this in John chapter 17 verse 11-17 when He is praying for His disciples.

John 17:11–17

11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

One of the greatest teachers and defenders of the faith, who preached and taught against Gnosticism was Irenaeus. He is probably best known for this huge writing he published called Against all Heresies.

He challenged the Gnostic by carefully teaching the Holy Scriptures. So every time the gnostics would make a claim, Irenaeus would counter their argument with Scripture. He would say, well hold on, that is not what the word of God says.

One of the largest debates Irenaeus dealt with the a Gnostic view that God did not create the world, and universe. But instead they taught that some lesser god, maybe one of the roman gods, did the work of creation.

Irenaeus said. Well hold on. If that is true, how do you explain the first 2 chapters of Genesis, or how about the first chapter of the Gospel of John? But then he took it a step forward and said. Not only did God create out of nothingness, what He created was good! And it was man, and their sinful nature that caused pain, death, and evil in the world.

So, Irenaeus challenged these Gnostic ideas by carefully, teaching and preaching the Word of God. That kind of sounds like what you and I as preachers should be doing right?

But Irenaeus also did one more thing, that was really important. He said, oh and by the way. If you are struggling who to trust. If you are struggling to decide if these Gnostic teachers are telling you the truth. It you are struggling to fully understand the Bible. The person you need to trust is your local Pastor.

Now this was huge for the development of the church. Because Irenaeus said, your local senior pastor has been first and full most called by God. He has been filled with the Holy Spirit. He has been trained to read, understand and teach the Bible. And He is has been approved by, and held accountable to the larger church.

Remember the first Scripture I shared as we started out together? In Matthew 16: 18? When Jesus said and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Irenaeus said that God has built his church on the teachings of the local, reliable pastor.

Now I would love to tell you that Irenaeus was able to completely stomp out and destroy the gnostic movement, but that didn’t happen. Actually Gnosticism is still live and active today.

And because Irenaeus could not fully defeat Gnosticism, another teacher emerged and his name was Montanus.

Montanus taught that the Holy Spirit had been promised by Jesus and that if we submit to God, then the Holy Spirit will lead us, guide us, give us gifts and bring about new prophecies through us.

Well that sounds good right? Well unfortunately they took it a bit to far. Montanus and his followers started to teach that the Holy Spirit only spoke to them. That they were the only true prophets. Then they started to make all kinds of public prophecies that never came true.

But out of this Montaneus movement came one of the most infulencial defenders of the faith of the early church. A man named Turtellian. Turtellian if fascinating because he wrote, and preached these short attacks on worldly things.

He wrote that people shouldn’t attend the roman games, because it caused gambling, and social sin.

He wrote and preached about how women should dress, stating their they were not dressed modest enough. And out of his teachings came this movement in the early church for Christians to look and act different from the rest of society.

Now think about that as a pastor. Do you want your people, your flock to act different? Sure you do. You want them to not sin, you want them to be generous, and loving, you want them to now be drunk, and sexually immoral.

It was really this early teaching by Turtellian that encouraged the church to start to think this way. To start to say, you know Jesus did say we are to be in the world, but not of it.

The crazy thing is Turtellian was actually a Heretic. So he dies outside of the church, He teaches things that are not biblical, and yet his teaching on how Christians should act, and dress are some of the most foundational teaching for forming the early church.

But here is the things. And we know this, humans are not perfect, and God will use broken messed up people to do His work in the world.

Which brings us to the next Preacher, Teacher, Defender of the faith I want to talk about. How many of you have ever heard of Origen?

I always feel weird when I am teaching church history, and I teach about Origen. On one hand He is one of the most influential Apologist and preachers in all of history. And on the other hand, 90 % of what he taught was wrong.

So its not so much the things he taught that were so influential, it was the questions that he asked. Questions that no teacher had asked before. But questions that people really needed to work through if they were going to be Christians.

The other things that Origen did very well as to articulate that Jesus died for everyone.

One of the early critics of the church was a guy named Celuis. He attacked Christians and said. You know there is nothing special about those Christians. Most of them are not very smart. They don’t have a lot of money, they are just kind of plain.

Now in the Roman world, the more educated you were, the more money you had, the better looking you were. The more important people thought you were…. Sounds a lot like today.. Amen?

So Origen replied to Celuis’ criticism of Christianity and said you know what. Celiuis it right. Christians are not anything special, and that is what makes Christianity different then every other religion. Because God loves us as we are, and changes us into who He wants us to be.

Christianity is for Americans, Cubans, women, men, children, old people, young people. People in prison, people who put them in prison. Its for everyone, because everyone needs Jesus.

So you can start to see how Origen viewed God, and what it meant to be a Christian.

Talk about Origen and his systematic theology.

Talk about his speculative theology. Explain it.

Talk about the danger of trying to explain things using stuff other than the Bible.

Transition into veneration of the saints.

Talk about how that formed into this veneration of Mary. Her role in Jesus life.

Talk about the story of about when Mary got to Heaven.

Why does this matter? Because this veneration of saints, and especially the veneration of Mary leads to a lot of significant theological questions. Which plays out through the next 100 years or so.

So we are going to jump forward to about 320 A.D. because that is when the next several important things happen.

Now the reason that 320 A.D. is such an important date, because up until that point, Christianity was an illegal religion. Which was a big deal… spend some time talking about this.

The romans looked at Christians as traitors. Because the Romans believed that religion held the Roman society together, part of that religion was the worship of the Emperor, and Christians refused to worship the Emperor.

So the Christian church lived under this kind of constant fear of oppression and persecution. And several times leading up to 320 A.D. there was some significant persecution of Christians and the Church.