Succeeding the Apostles

Well, now that I have somewhat settled into my new schedule, let's pick up where we left off (and pretend there was no delay).  We were looking at the beginnings of the Christian church and characteristics defined it.  Moving away from familiar grounds in Acts, we delve into the mysterious world of the apostolic fathers, the early martyrs, and the infantile theology by which God sustained them during the time.

As we begin our attempt at understanding the church after the Apostles, we must first set the scene:  the Apostles are dead, the gospel has spread to many areas, especially in Asia Minor (map), and now a new generation must bear the good news - but who? According to Catholic tradition, the Apostles hand-picked successors and, in so doing, conferred upon them spiritual, ecclesiastical, and sacramental authority (7 in all, for Catholics).  This well-organized, directly linear succession from Christ to the Apostles to the church fathers and so on tells us much about the governing structure of the church, or church polity, as its called. One can easily look at the Roman Catholic Church today and see the immense order and structure its built upon.

This style of polity dominated the church until the Reformation (1500s), after which polity and ecclesiastical authority became very unpopular in many non-Catholic circles.  A note here:  Protestants (generally) don't believe in apostolic succession, as described above, with its direct pipeline of spiritual authority from one person to the next.  Instead, the Protestant emphasis is the teachings of the Apostles.  If one follows the apostolic teachings, he is in "succession" and does not need to physically trace back his spiritual pedigree to Jesus and the Apostles.

In either case, new leaders emerged to lead the church.  They are known to us as the Apostolic Fathers and include Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, and Clement of Rome, with others added to the list from time to time.  We know them because of their influential writings during the Early Church Age.  Because of the tremendous impact of each of these figures, we will look at them individually, along with a few other important early documents, in the posts to come.

A note before we leave:  For the early church, having a relationship with the Apostles meant orthodoxy (right belief).  They were dedicated to following the teachings of the Apostles and were warned constantly about straying from them, so naturally, the closer one was to the Apostles, the more correct / authoritative they were.  Ignatius knew John and Paul, Polycarp knew John, and Clement was in the line of Peter in Rome (again, very important for Catholics who believe in personal, direct succession).

Scripture had not yet been compiled into the New Testament as we know it, so having a leader who knew what the Apostles said was crucial to right belief. From this, many questions arise - when did Scripture come together as we know it now? What did these Christians believe? What about heresies? and so on.

Though I haven't said too much in this post, it's not hard to see that there is a LOT of huge issues that are about to happen... fast! So consider the first layer of this enormous onion peeled and check back throughout the week for more.

God of Clothing

Clothing is something we take for granted every day, something that Adam and Eve lived without until they disobeyed God.  Since then, clothing has become a multi-billion dollar industry, a part of life we couldn't imagine living without.  But could there be a higher purpose in clothing than simply to acclimate us to our climate or show off our fashion sense?  According to Scripture, yes!

Follow the narrative in Genesis 2:
⁷then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. ⁸And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 


¹⁸Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."


²⁵And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.


Then, as we all know, Adam and Eve sinned against God and ate the forbidden fruit.  Genesis 3 then records their shame:

^{(After eating the fruit)  7} Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.


However, the story doesn't end here.  After God confronts them and condemns them (justly) to die for their sin, he does something rather surprising:

²¹And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.


He clothed them!  What an odd thing.  They are banished from an earthly paradise, condemned to die, and clothed.  Seems more like a slap in the face than anything else, right?  If we remember correctly from Genesis 2, Adam and Eve already had made for themselves some clothing out of fig leaves.  What we should see here with God's own clothes-making is this:  He's saying, "You're clothes aren't good enough! I must clothe you."

Now let's look at another picture from Scripture -  Leviticus 8
This section deals with the Consecration and Ordination of the Levitical priesthood (these are the guys who would have the task of meeting with God and offering sacrifices on behalf of Israel until Christ).  What does clothing have to do with their priesthood? Well.... A LOT, actually.

⁵And Moses said to the congregation, "This is the thing that the LORD has commanded to be done." ⁶And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water. ⁷And he put the coat on him and tied the sash around his waist and clothed him with the robe and put the ephod on him and tied the skillfully woven band of the ephod around him, binding it to him with the band. ⁸And he placed the breastpiece on him, and in the breastpiece he put the Urim and the Thummim. ⁹And he set the turban on his head, and on the turban, in front, he set the golden plate, the holy crown, as the LORD commanded Moses.


Basically, the Lord made sure his priests were looking DANG good.  As my pastor in Tuscaloosa said, they were even beautiful.  This is significant because they represented Israel.  If your representative looks beautiful, then YOU are beautiful.  There are actually many other details with the requirements for the appearance of priests, but it all points to this:  You must look beautiful to stand before God... really, awesome-beautiful.  You must be righteous!

These two examples from Scripture lead us unquestionably to the Cross of Christ.  When Jesus lived an obedient life and died a perfect, sacrificial death, God was clothing us once again.  He is shouting to us:  YOU CAN'T CLOTHE YOURSELVES! and also:  YOU MUST BE BEAUTIFUL TO COME BEFORE ME!

Luckily for us, we have a beautiful, righteous High Priest.  He is our representative before God.  Just as God, in his unquenchable grace, clothed Adam and Eve and his Levitical preisthood, he is clothing us now in the most beautiful garment of all - his beloved Son.  He is beautiful - we are beautiful.  He is righteous - we are righteous.  He is accepted by God the Father.  We are accepted by God the Father.

So let's end with an excellent bow (if I do say so myself).  This is from Isaiah 61 and from this is what Jesus read in the synagogue, proclaiming that HE is the one this prophecy is about:

 ¹ The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
   because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
   he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
   and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
   to comfort all who mourn;
³to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
   the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
   the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.
⁴ They shall build up the ancient ruins;
   they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
   the devastations of many generations.

For This World (and the next)

This week we will take a break from the narrative of the church and look at some other topics, giving me time to gather more information and preventing those posts from becoming drab and dry.  Today I give you a segment from N.T. Wright's insightful book on the resurrection and heaven, Surprised by Hope. He writes of how our present actions matter in eternity:

God's recreation of his wonderful world, which began with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God's people live in the risen Christ and in the power of his Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted.  It will last all the way into God's new world.  In fact, it will be enhanced there.

I have no idea what precisely this will mean in practice.  I am putting up a  signpost, not offering a photograph of what we will find once we get to where the signpost is pointing.  I don't know what musical instruments we shall have to play Bach in God's new world, though I'm sure Bach's music will be there.... I do not know how the painting an artist paints today in prayer and wisdom will find a place in God's new world.  I don't know how our work for justice for the poor, for remission of global debts, will reappear in that new world.  But I know that God's new world of justice and joy, of hope for the whole earth, was launched when Jesus came out of the tomb on Easter morning, and I know that he calls his followers to live in him and by the power of his Spirit and so to be new-creation people here and now bringing signs and symbols of the kingdom to birth on earth as it is in heaven.   

The resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit mean that we are called to bring real and effective signs of God's renewed creation to birth even in the midst of the present age.  

Though I don't endorse (or know quite enough about) N.T. Wright's other works - some of which are theologically controversial right now - this book provides excellent perspective on living in the "already but not yet" reality that is the kingdom of God.

The Message of the Apostles

Well, I missed yesterday, so that's 1 strike against me, but no worries - I got a post in today.  This time we are looking at the original message of the Apostles and how, if at all, it changed when the audience changed.  The way we will do this is to look at the major sermons in Acts and put together the core of the message.  Below is the ESV Study Bible's chart of these major sermons:

Speaker	Text	Audience
Peter	2:14–36	Jews in Jerusalem
	3:11–26	Jews in Jerusalem
	10:34–43	Cornelius's household
Stephen	7:1–53	Jews in Jerusalem
Paul	13:16–47	Jews in Pisidian Antioch
	17:22–31	Greeks in Athens
	20:18–35	Church elders in Ephesus
	22:1–21	Jews in Jerusalem
	24:10–21	Felix and his court
	26:1–29	Agrippa and his court

So, what is the theme in these messages?  I encourage you to look at each one of them, and most of them aren't very long (except Stephen, but he was about to get stoned to death, so we can cut him some slack).

Here are the basics of the sermons to the Jews:

• Jesus, whom you delivered to death, has been raised by God the Father and sits at His right hand in glory.
• Salvation and the Holy Spirit have come in Christ's name for those who repent and believe.
• All of the Old Testament prophecies find their fulfillment in Christ, and he is the promised Messiah, the King of Israel.
• Indeed, the whole Old Testament was to point to the coming of Christ and his preeminence as ruler of all (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, etc.)
• Repent and confess Christ as Lord (see Matt. 16:16-20), and save yourselves from this wicked generation.

To the Gentiles:

• All people bear the image of God, and are therefore not excluded from salvation through Christ based on nationality.
• Less emphasis on the Hebrew Scriptures (the OT), but often the Apostles still explained them to some degree in order to show Christ as the long expected king.
• Christ is the coming judge of the world, and God has raised him from the dead to assure us of this.
• Now that all people (not just Jews) can hear of salvation through Christ, repent and confess him as Lord!

A bodily resurrection of both the just and unjust to be judged by this divine man, Jesus, was not popular with many Gentiles.  This is especially true since much of the pagan world had a rather negative view of the afterlife, and most would have probably wished to avoid it altogether.  However, Peter and Paul do not shy away from proclaiming Christ as ruler and rightful judge of the world - the God-man - who offers salvation for those who confess him as Lord.

Beginning next week, we are leaping from the familiar realms of Scripture into the intimidating world of the Early Church Fathers and life after the Apostles.  It will be exciting and challenging to see what form(s) Christianity takes in the following era, as the canon of Scripture closes, and Christ-followers must determine what to do with it.  What writings are divinely inspired? How did they handle FIERCE persecution? What was considered orthodoxy (right belief)?

Wait and see...