Hi, I'm David Bercot. And we're doing another session of questions and answers today. I say questions. I thought I would only address one question today. A lot have been sent in, and we will get to them. So don't give up on sending in questions or give up on your question being answered. I had knee surgery this last fall, and so I was laid up for a while, so we've gotten a little behind, but I'm going to be working to catch them up in the next several months.
But today, a question, it was not only submitted through the historic faith, but I get asked it personally all the time, and people send in to Scroll Publishing and ask about it. And that's concerning the regulative principle. And so I thought it might be good to just devote today's session just on that question so I can give a fairly thorough answer. I mean, perhaps a complete answer would require a book, but I think we can at least answer it in sufficient detail during the next hour. The question was this.
Conservative evangelicals love the idea of the regulative principle, which states, among other things, that if something is explicitly commanded in Scripture, it is law, and if it is left out, it is necessarily forbidden. Several groups have used this to claim that Christians should not celebrate Christmas and Easter, but this doesn't seem to be the attitude of the early church. What do you have to say about this? Should we pay attention to the regulative principle?
And I'm sure I've been asked this just in private by a lot of people. So I know it's on quite a few people's minds. Let me give you just a little bit of the history of the regulative principle because I think to address the subject, it's important to know what's behind it. As far as I know, now there might be something behind it, but generally, where this comes into play is at the beginning of the Reformation, and you had two views, Luther on one side and Zwingli on the other.
Now, Luther's view is sometimes called the normative principle. And it basically said that if something is not forbidden in Scripture, then it's permitted by God. Zwingli's view, called the regulative principle, was if it isn't specifically permitted in Scripture, that means it's forbidden. Okay, so those are the two views. Now, these two principles were primarily applied in matters pertaining to worship, to the church ordinances, various church practices, church buildings, and the manner of church government.
They usually weren't applied so much in the Christian life by at least Zwingli and Luther. It was mainly, like I say, on matters pertaining to worship and the order within the church. So I'm going to call these church matters just for simplicity's sake. Now, there have been godly Christians on both sides of this who you know stood for one principle, and there have been godly Christians who stood for the other principle. And I personally have friends on both sides of this issue.
So to me, it's not one of those things that this makes you a genuine Christian, or it doesn't, or it's going to make you my personal enemy or not, or anything like that. But let me begin by pointing out that these two views, the normative principle that Luther followed and the regulative principle that Zwingli and then later Calvin followed and the Anabaptist, that it presents a false dichotomy that, " Oh, okay. You've got to choose that if it's not specifically permitted, that means it's forbidden.
Or if it's not specifically forbidden, that means it's okay. " I think on so many matters, the truth is going to lie somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. And the early Christians would not have held to either one of those views, although I would say their view would be closer to the regulative principle, but it wasn't the same. So their view was this, that we follow the traditions handed down by the apostles. Now, that was easy for them to say, let's say in the second century.
If it was handed down to us from the first century church, that's what we do. If it's something innovative, then generally, they would have pushed against it. I'm not going to say as an absolute thing, but as a general principle, that if it was something new, not handed down by the apostles or from the first century, that they would have gone against it. Now, interestingly, this isn't just the early Christian view. It's also the view of the New Testament.
I'm going to give you just four scriptures here, but there were others I could have quoted. Paul says this, 1 Corinthians 11:2, " Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions as I delivered them to you. " Now, the word that's translated traditions means something that's handed down, often orally as well as in writing. So when he commands them for keeping traditions, he's commending them for keeping things that weren't necessarily written down.
In fact, 1 Corinthians was one of the early books written, so most of these things would not have been written down. All right. Philippians 4:9, Paul says, " The things which you learned and received now listen to this, and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. " So he says, you know all these things you've received. And he mentions not only he doesn't even mention writing, actually, but he specifically mentions that you heard them and that you saw them.
See, so these are things handed down not just in the Scriptures or not even in the Scriptures at all in some cases. Another example, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, he says, " Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or by our epistle. " So see, he's not limiting it to just what's in the written documents. He says, whether you've heard it from the apostles or you got it in an epistle or, I think, by logical extension in one of the other New Testament writings.
Finally, I'll give you one more, but I could have quoted some more. He tells Timothy. This is 2 Timothy. So this is written shortly before Paul was put to death. He tells Timothy, " The things that you have heard from me among many witnesses commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. " So this is interesting. Paul is about to be put to death. He knows it. He's in prison when he writes this. He's not going to be writing any letters. This was his last letter.
And instead of saying the things which I have written in my epistles, you know commit these to faithful men. Instead, he says, " The things that you have heard commit them to faithful men. " So we have to understand that the apostolic teaching, there was never this thought that, " Oh, here's the New Testament and just go by this New Testament. " Because there wasn't a New Testament in the First Century Church. It was things primarily being orally taught by the apostles.
So that's why the early Christians looked to what was handed down by the apostles. Now, by the second century, you had all of the apostolic writings complete. So they had the writings, and that would have been the best witness. But there were other things that were not in the sacred writings that they held to very specifically.
Now, I should say, since we're now in the 21st century, we have to be very careful with this principle because once you say, " Okay, anything the apostles taught, now people can go there and the Catholic church goes there and the Orthodox Church goes there and some other churches. " And they say, " Oh, this was handed down from the apostles. This was an apostolic tradition. " If people are going to start going there, then I'd say go back to the regulative principle.
I mean, if you're going to start opening the door to any and everything, then it's better to just say, if it's not in the Bible, don't do it. But I don't think we have to be that extreme. I think we can look at what did the church practice in the second century? This is the first 100 years after the apostle John died. We don't know the exact date of his death, but it was very close to the year 100 AD. Okay.
So I like to say, okay, if it's before 200 AD, the writing's before 200 AD, if we have practices that are specifically mentioned there, and they're mentioned in a number of writings so that we have a pretty good idea or evidence that this was universal throughout the church or near universal. Then I think we have strong evidence. This was something handed down by the apostles, and I think it's good to follow it.
Usually, it's just a matter of interpreting something that we're going to have to put an interpretation on anyway from the New Testament. And why not use an interpretation in practice that can be shown to have been followed within a generation or two after the apostles? Okay. So what are some of the things from the second century that are not specifically in the New Testament that we can learn and follow? All right. The very first one is the canon of the New Testament and the canon of the Old Testament.
So nowhere in the New Testament does it set forth what the canon of the Old Testament was. And guess what? The apostles never handed down a New Testament to the church after them. That greatly surprised me when I first started reading the early Christian writings. I just assumed the apostles had handed a book, you know the New Testament. They did no such thing.
It was up to the second, third century Christians to determine what books should be considered scripture, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Now you have the Jews, basically the Pharisees, who at the end of the first century, these were unbelieving Jews who were opposed to the Christians. The predecessors or I should say the ones who followed the Pharisees. These would be the rabbinical Jews who came after the Pharisees. They came up with a canon around the year 100, somewhere in there.
But as far as the Christians, what canon did they use? We have to look to the second-century church to see that ourselves. Okay? So that's the beginning of something that if you're going to say the regulatory principle, well, you're assuming there was a New Testament, a book handed down, and there wasn't one. So see, from day one or from point one, we're having to depend on the witness of the early Christians, whether we like to admit it or not. Okay. Number two is the Apostles ' Creed.
Now, everything in the Apostles ' Creed is clearly taught in the New Testament. If you don't hold to the Apostle's Creed, it's because you don't believe in the New Testament. But it gives us an idea of teachings, doctrinal teachings. The Apostles Creed doesn't go into lifestyle, but doctrinal teachings that they considered to be extremely important, that before you got baptized, you needed to understand these things. But boy, it's a short creed.
It tells us a lot that deep theology was not something of great concern to the early Christians. Okay, another one, fasting on Wednesday and Friday. Now, this is not a commandment in the New Testament, and I would never tell anyone, " Well, you should do this because the early church did it. " But it's mentioned so early. It's in the Didache, which maybe is as early as the last books of the New Testament. Certainly, it wasn't written very long after them. And it's very specific on fasting on Wednesday and Friday.
And then you see it in so many places in early Christian writings that it seems to have been a universal practice, which is strong evidence. It was handed down by the apostles. But again, personally, I take the position if it's not a commandment given in the New Testament, then it is not a binding commandment on us, but it's a good practice. It's something that no doubt came from the apostles. Also, not just that they fasted on Wednesday and Friday, but how long did they fast?
And their writings reveal that they ended the fast at 3:00 p.m. during the day. So they didn't go without food you know until bedtime, that they did eat at some point. And that enabled them to even though they were doing manual labor, to be able to have some nourishment, and yet it was genuinely a fast. Okay, the method of baptism. Wow, this has been a source of argument to this very day. Christians argue it should be immersion. No, it should be pouring.
It should be sprinkling or it should be any of those are okay. And that goes back and forth. Well, again, the Didache says immersion is the normal method, but pouring is perfectly okay. So there you have a strong witness so early to the apostles, and it makes perfect sense. What were some other ones? Oh, so now this is something new. You do not see in the New Testament. If you follow the regulatory principle, then I would say you shouldn't do this. But that is instruction classes before baptism.
You see, certainly by the end of the first, rather the second century, by the year 200, this is an established practice that before baptism, they had the new converts go through instruction called catechism you know from the Greek so that the brothers and sisters knew that these new converts understood the basics of the Christian faith. Now, you don't see that in the book of Acts. I mean, they heard a sermon or maybe they got an hour's worth of instruction like the Philippian jailer.
We don't know how long Paul talked to him, but boom, they baptized him right there just after a very brief introduction. But did they keep doing that? Did that present problems? Did they find a lot of those people dropped out? Well, in the second century, you see that it seems to be fairly universal that there's some kind of instruction that goes before baptism more than just an hour sermon. All right? So that's a practice that's not in the New Testament, but seems to be an apostolic practice. Okay.
How were church services conducted? Nowhere in the New Testament does it lay it out? Or if it does, you have several examples. So some people look at 1 Corinthians and say, " Oh, we should just get together and one person should stand up and share, " and then somebody else should get up and share. And if the Spirit speaks to someone else, they should get up and share. That seems to be describing a service in the time of when 1 Corinthians was written. But maybe it was describing a love feast.
Maybe it wasn't describing an ordinary Sunday morning service. Not clear, or maybe a mid-week prayer meeting. See, it's not clear, and it's not clear if that's what they kept doing. Now, when you get to Justin Martyr, this is about the year 160 at the latest. He lays out. This is what we do on Sunday morning. We meet. There's somebody who presides. We pray. We read from the Scriptures. Whoever's presiding then preaches from what had just been read. We have communion. A collection is taken.
So we have a full description of what they were doing in the second century. That is, like I say, we're talking 50 or 60 years after the apostle John died. So unless you want to believe they just threw everything out, we have a much fuller description than anywhere you see in the New Testament of what they were doing. Okay. What are some other things from the second century? Oh, what day of the week did they meet? There's a little evidence in the New Testament that Sunday was the day.
There's you know the scripture that on the first day of the meat week when they met to break bread. But does that mean they met every first day of the week, or was that just that particular congregation, that particular thing? There's another one about storing up money so that Paul wouldn't have to take collection to store it up on the first day of the week. Does that mean they were meeting then or that that's what they should be doing in their homes? It's not totally clear. And that's it.
But when you get to the second century, it makes it totally clear they were meeting on Sunday, no question about it. And then you have the term the Lord's Day in the New Testament, but it doesn't explain what the Lord's Day is. The second century makes it very clear. The Lord's Day is one and the same as Sunday. Okay. What time of day did they meet? Well, we see in the second century, they met in the morning. And that's why nearly all churches still meet in the morning. But again, it's not crystal clear.
The first meeting we really see is Acts, the Day of Pentecost, and that was in the morning. You know Peter says, " It's not yet 9 o'clock or it's only 9 o'clock, so these people aren't drunk. " So we do know that's when they were meeting. Did they always meet in the morning? Like I said, you don't just have a really clear mandate, " Okay, it's got to be on Sunday and it's got to be in the morning. " But you see in the second century, it's very clear that's when they were all meeting. All right.
What else did we learn from the second century? The love feast. The New Testament may be the only reference is in Jude where he talks about the ungodly people who were there at their agape. Agape normally means love. So what does it mean at your agape?
Well, when we get to the second century, it's very clear that they had what we call now a love feast, that they had a feast generally in the evening from the descriptions we have where they got together, they ate, they shared testimonies, or shared a psalm, or something like that. We know there's a second meeting besides the Sunday meeting, Sunday morning meeting that Justin Martyr describes. Were they doing all of this in the New Testament time? We don't really know. I mean, they may have been combined.
It maybe sounds like that in 1 Corinthians 11, but again, people are having to guess. It's not crystal clear. What kind of church government? We know from Titus and Timothy that they were to ordain deacons, elders, bishops. But exactly how does that work? I mean, it's funny. We all have the New Testament and so many churches that would say we follow the regulative principle. They've come up with different styles of church government. I mean, the Presbyterians would have said that.
The congregationalists would have said that, that we followed the regulative principle. The Anabaptists would have said that. The Church of Christ, the Restoration Movement from the 1800s, they say that. And all of those have different forms of church government. And they all say, " Well, we just get it from the New Testament. " Obviously, the New Testament isn't crystal clear or you wouldn't have so many different styles. And I've just named four from some of the larger movements.
Little individual churches, they've got often even different ones than that. Finally, the celebration of Easter, no mention in the New Testament of that, the most important day of the year for Christians when Christ died on the cross and brought about our salvation, the door for our salvation, the shedding of his blood by which we're saved. It would make sense that Christians would commemorate such an important day. Certainly in the Old Testament, they commemorated the key days like the Passover and all that.
Did commemorating key days just stop when Christ came? Is there God commanded it in the Old Testament? Why would they suddenly stop? It wasn't something evil. So it's not surprising that you see in the second century that from the testimonies we have, it appears to have been universal throughout the church. The only issue was what day of the year do you celebrate it on?
Do you follow the Jewish calendar so that you're corresponding to Nisan the 14th, which was the day of the Passover, do you correlate it to the day of the Passover? Or do you make sure it always follows on a Sunday since Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday? So you find that there were two different practices in the second century. It didn't get resolved until the Council of Nicaea. But the fact that Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John, he says this is what was handed down to him by John.
So we have a direct testimony that John celebrated Easter and that Polycarp learned it from John. And the ones in Rome said, well, a different tradition was handed down to us. So that would indicate this is a widespread across the world tradition, but that they didn't always do it exactly the same way in each congregation. And they decided, hey, we can live with those differences. So that's the problem.
If you have just the regulative principle, all these evidences from the second century, you have to say, " Well, we can't use that. We just have to figure out from the Scriptures alone, " which, yeah, people come to different conclusions. So what about me personally? And that was part of the question, what do I think? As I said, the early Christians, their practice was this handed down by the apostles, and let's not go to any innovations. Let's do what the apostles handed down.
So I think it would make perfect sense for a church to say, " Let's only do what we see in the second century. " That's not my personal view, but I could certainly support that as being a very valid view. I would say that if something isn't specifically mandated in the New Testament, or if it's not expressly listed among those things that I just gave you from the Second Century Church, I'm going to say we need to be very cautious about it, but I don't feel it's wrong to do it.
If the New Testament doesn't forbid it, if there's nothing that indicates it's sin, then I don't know that it's wrong to do something that doesn't well, and here's the things. So what you have to look at, first of all, does it violate a New Testament principle? So in other words, it's not forbidden, nor is it specifically mentioned. All right? Then does it violate a principle? Maybe it could even be an Old Testament, but I think primarily would want to look at New Testament principles. Okay?
I'll give you an example. So what about building these giant cathedrals that they did in the Middle Ages? Enormous amount of money went into those. Is that wrong? I think we can safely say they did not have those in the first century. Certainly, no ruins have been found. There have been no mention of anything like that in the first century church or in the second century. It's definitely a later practice. Came in with the state church.
Once you had money from the state, then you start having these elaborate churches beginning with Constantine and continuing on. So there you have a principle. Should we be using money from the state? Should there be a separation between Caesar and the Church, or is it okay to combine the two kingdoms? Well, those of us who believe in the doctrine of the two kingdoms would say, " No, you don't want to combine those two. It's going to cause corruption.
" So if we have to depend on the state to get the money to build our church, then I would say, " No, don't do it. " Another principle would be Jesus ' teachings about living simply and using extra money we have to help the poor. So if we put it into a magnificent building, is that in accord with Jesus ' principle about storing up treasure in heaven, meaning you're storing it up by helping the poor, not by building a giant building.
Now, that alone doesn't mean it's a sin, particularly if it is a wealthy person who donates the money or if the general people wanted to put money towards it, I'm not going to say that it was a sin. It's something I couldn't support. I know our church wouldn't support it. But like you say, it's not forbidden. But there's some principles there that I think, particularly if it's state money, that we would say, " No, we shouldn't do that.
" Or what about that you see this in the Catholic Church, in the Orthodox Church, and some of the others? The priest or bishop will have these when they're celebrating communion or other events, they have these ornate vestments on that would cost quite a bit of money. Is there any principle involved there? Well, the New Testament tells us that we should avoid costly clothing. We shouldn't clothe ourselves with costly garments.
So if we as members of the congregation shouldn't do that, how much more should the minister not be putting on garments that would cost an enormous amount of money, sometimes with silver or gold you know threads in the garments, et cetera, more than what the average common person would ever be able to afford to wear. It would go against a direct commandment of Scripture. Plus, you have the testimony of the early Christians that this was something they didn't do, but the pagans did that.
So now you're directly following a pagan practice and not an early Christian one, something they didn't do. Okay. So that would be another principle. You know The first one is is there a scriptural principle? The second one, yeah, did the early Christians teach against it or directly you know shed information that this was a pagan practice. The pagans did this, but we don't do it. Or the Gnostics do this, but we don't do it.
So if it's from the Gnostics, they mentioned the Gnostics had images in contrast to the church. So yeah, do we want to put images in our church? Obviously, if we're worshiping them, then there's a scriptural commandment you know that idolatry is wrong, worshiping idols. If it's just a picture you're not worshiping, no direct commandment, but it was the Gnostics who had images in their church, not the early Christians. Okay. What about if it's something brought over from the pagans? I mentioned the vestments.
They talk about the pagan priests had these ornate vestments. That is something that came into the church from the pagans. Well, I think that's a good reason not to do it, even if the New Testament didn't have a principle. In this case, there is a New Testament principle. But even if there wasn't one, I think that would be a fairly good reason not to do it if it's something the Christians didn't do, but the pagans did. Now, having said that, you have to be very careful.
Do you have a primary source that this is from the pagans and definitely not something Christians did? Now, I grew up in a sect that in the 1930s, they got hold of the book called The Two Babylons. The book is still in print, and I still see people quoting from it today. And it purports it looks very authoritative. I mean, you read it and you think, " Man, this guy did a lot of research. " Well, he did do a lot of research, but it's all from secondary and tertiary sources.
I don't think hardly anything he has in there are from primary sources. But he quotes all these books, and it looks like, " Wow, this is so well researched. " And I don't know if anything in there is accurate because it's all just from tertiary sources for the most part. And so he says like the cross is a pagan symbol, something that came into the church from the pagans. He says, " Church steeples are something pagan. " And of course, Christmas is pagan. Easter is pagan. I mean, you know everything is pagan.
Well, if you're going to label something as pagan, you need a good primary source. In other words, something from that time period when it supposedly came into the church to prove that, not some book that just makes that wild claim that this was pagan. So that's why Easter and there's a lot of Christians who based on that book primarily or sometimes from other pamphlets will say, " Oh, this is a pagan holiday.
" When you can go back in church history and see this was clearly something the early Christians practiced long before Constantine, long before the church did start imbibing a lot from the world. Okay. So after going through those principles, is there a New Testament principle involved? Is there something in the early Christian writings against this practice? Or do we know for sure this came from the pagans?
If there's none of those things that are involved, then my personal feeling is we have liberty there to follow our conscience or the culture of the church we belong to. Like in the Anabaptist world, there's a definite Anabaptist culture. Okay? So certain things, even though they're not forbidden in the New Testament, they would clash with our culture. They would be something that, as a people, we have generally stood against.
And I think there's a lot of value in maintaining the culture that has helped keep the teachings, most of which are teachings from the New Testament, most of which are the historic faith, that the Anabaptist culture has helped to preserve these. So yeah, I think that's something to weigh, not just to throw out if it's going to violate our culture, but it doesn't mean we have to do something just because it's part of Anabaptist culture. It depends on the decision of a given church. Okay.
So the one that comes up, the question asked about Easter, and that I say absolute green light. This is something certainly not from the pagans, something Christians were doing so early. And direct testimony that John handed this down to Polycarp. And Christians everywhere have done this. And again, the most important day of the year for any Christian, it makes total sense.
No violation of any scriptural principles and, in fact, follows the principle that we see in the Old Testament of commemorating important dates. Now, what about Christmas? Now, I grew up believing Christmas was a pagan holiday, and that has affected me for most of my life. And then after I left I grew up a Jehovah's Witness. So after I left Jehovah's Witnesses, then the churches I attended all celebrated Christmas. And I had seen there were a lot of good things connected with Christmas. It was a happy time of year.
It was a time of year families got together. Certainly, when I was a child, it's a good bit different today, but it hasn't totally disappeared. But certainly, like in the 1950s, it was a time when you really thought about the poor. And it should be something we should do every day as Christians, every time of the year. But even people who were not Christians, made it a point to really think about their fellow man and how they could help people. There were a lot of generous things done at Christmas time.
Like you say, I could see there was a lot of good connected with it. But if it was a pagan holiday, then you don't want to celebrate it. So yeah, I kind of went back and forth on that one and have for a long time. I have no problem with any Christian who says, " I'm not going to celebrate Christmas. " It's not something from the New Testament, and it's not even something from the second century or the pre-Nicene church. From what I can tell, and the evidence is very, very strong.
It came into the church maybe midway of the third century or what am I trying to say? The fourth century, the 300s. So around 350 to 375, it really caught on in the churches. Maybe the first actual celebration would have maybe been in the early 300s. But when it really caught on and church after church adopted it on December 25th, it's in the mid 300s. Now, the earliest reference to December 25th being the birthday of Jesus is in the writings of Hippolytus. And this is the early 200s.
So that date goes back pretty far. But now to be fair, I should say that it is a disputed writing. There is a lot of evidence that that is a genuine writing of Hippolytus, but it's not absolute. Some people dispute that, okay? So the date I've always been told was pagan that this was the day of the Saturnalia. Well, it doesn't really stand up. There's no direct evidence that this was something borrowed from the Saturnalia or from the celebration of the winter solstice.
Just because two events fall at the same time, just like Easter, it's in the springtime on purpose. God wanted the resurrection of Jesus, bringing life to the world to come in the springtime when everything else was coming to life after being dead so long. I don't think there's any coincidence there. I think that was directly planned by God. And yet, the pagans had all kinds of springtime celebrations. That doesn't mean that Christians copied that. The Passover was in the spring.
Are you going to say that was copied from the pagans? It's the same way with Christmas. Hanukkah is you know right around that same time as the Saturnalia and the winter solstice. It's not exactly on the solstice, but it's in that time of year. But I don't know of anyone accusing Hanukkah of being a pagan holiday. We know the origin. It was to celebrate when the Maccabees cleanse the temple and were able to restore worship in the temple again after the pagan Greeks had defiled it.
So we know it's not a pagan holiday. So just because the date of Christ's birth, the calculation of December 25th, falls near the winter solstice or the Saturnalia or any other pagan feast doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean that just because this happened this time and this happened this time, that this borrowed from that. That's a false form of argumentation. It's one of the fallacies that because something follows something, it means it was caused by the other thing.
So I have not I've dug into this because, like I say, I've been on both sides of the issue. I have seen no primary evidence at all that Christmas came from a pagan holiday, or that December 25th was chosen because of coinciding with pagan holidays. Now, again, this was not a pre-Nicene Church celebration. The date is mentioned before Nicaea is mentioned fairly early, but it wasn't universally accepted as the day of Jesus ' birth. And there's no command to commemorate His birthday.
But again, boy, people commemorate the birthdays of famous people, you know presidents and things like that. Wow, the second most important day of the year, the day that our Savior was born, it makes perfect sense to commemorate the day of His birth. I mean, the New Testament commemorates it. I mean, it was, boy, a big festivity. The angels you know appearing in the sky and singing and the star bringing the wise men and all of that. So God made a big production about the birth of his son here on the earth.
And so there's certainly nothing in the New Testament that would suggest, " Oh, it's wrong to commemorate that, " but it's not commanded. And Christians didn't start doing it on a wide scale, at least, until the middle of the fourth century. So I feel that's a gray area. Christians can do what they want. Follow your conscience. Some of the secular things that have become associated with it, I think most Christians don't want any connection with that. It's been cheapened and all that.
But that doesn't mean we can't commemorate the day that Jesus was born. And if you're going to do it, I mean, it doesn't work to try to fix some other date. It's been settled too long on December 25th. Whether that's the accurate date or not, Christians have been using that date you know for like 1,800 years. So that's the only day that works. Okay. Now, before finishing this question on the regulative principle, I do want to mention some shortcomings of it.
The first one is that it assumes that every worship practice, every church practice was written down in the New Testament, that nothing was done unless it was written down in the New Testament. But we've already looked at the teaching where Paul told him, " Hey, follow what you've seen me do. Follow what you've heard from me. " He doesn't say, " Just follow the New Testament. Don't do anything unless it's in the New Testament. " So I think that's a wrong assumption.
The second thing, it assumes there was no development during the New Testament period. So there are churches who, like I say, go back to 1 Corinthians and say, " We have to do it just like in 1 Corinthians. " Well, maybe what they did in the time of 1 Corinthians, let's say that's about AD 50, maybe that's not how they did things in AD 95. When you still had the apostle John around and maybe some of the other apostles, we don't know for certain. See, it makes an assumption that we don't know.
In fact, it would seem like going through the New Testament that there was development because bishops and deacons are not mentioned until you get to Titus and Timothy. I don't think that's when they were instituted with those two letters, but they certainly weren't in practice on the day of Pentecost. So there was, it seems to me, a pretty clear development of things. So the regulatory principle then, okay, so which one are you going to go with?
What do you see in 1 Corinthians or what you see in Timothy and Titus? Because to me, they're not one in the same thing. The same with gifts of the Spirit. So a lot of churches say, " Well, if we're going to do it the New Testament way, then we should have prophets who are prophesying. We should have miraculous healing. We should have people speaking in other languages and all of that. " Well, do we know for certain that those gifts continued on for 2,000 years? Or were they just for a specific time?
And people who follow the regulative principle, they fall in both camps. In fact, you know Zwingli, Calvin, the Restoration Movement, the Anabaptists would have all said that those gifts ended way back at the end of the apostolic era. And so, yeah, you can follow the regulative principle and yet have two different ideas on whether we should follow the gifts of the Spirit or whether we should have them today. All right.
Number three, another shortcoming is, as good as it sounds, it does not create a truly objective standard. It's still subject to interpretations of humans who are far removed from the apostles. If it was truly an objective standard, then everyone who's followed it, like I say, the Calvinists, Zwingli, the Anabaptists, the Church of Christ, all of these various smaller groups that have followed it. They'd all be doing things exactly the same way.
No, they've all gone different directions, all claiming, " Well, this is what we see in the New Testament. " I mean, I'll give you an example from day one. So Zwingli reads the New Testament, and it talks there about Ephesians 5:19, " Sing about singing and making music in your heart to the Lord. " Okay? He interprets that as singing and making music in your heart. I mean, that's what it says. In other words, the singing is in your heart and the making music is in your heart. So you don't sing out loud in church.
So he forbids singing in his churches, let alone having musical instruments. And Conrad Grebel, who would have been his disciple, who was one of the founders of the Anabaptist movement, we have a letter from him to Thomas Müntzer. And there he criticizes Thomas Müntzer for having singing in his church. Now, I realize today a lot of Anabaptists try to get around that and they say, " Well, he meant that they were chanting the liturgy. " But he doesn't say that.
And there's no evidence that Thomas Müntzer had a liturgy in his worship services. And like I say, we know from Zwingli's writings that he did forbid singing, and Conrad Grebel was his personal disciple. So that's the most natural explanation. Now, nobody else since that time, both among the Anabaptists and among the Reformed churches, have interpreted Ephesians 5:19 that way. Now, some have said we can sing and make music, instrumental music.
Others have said the singing is out loud, but the making music is in your heart. Okay, so that's three different interpretations of the same verse. So see, the regulative principle is still dependent on human interpretation. You're not going to get around that. You're still going to have the subjective element in it. Church government, again, all the churches who have followed the regulative principles have come up, as I mentioned, with all kinds of forms of church government.
It's not so clear in the New Testament to be able to say, " Oh, just follow this principle, and you've got everything nailed down. " It doesn't work quite that easily. Like I say, the regulatory principle, yeah, I wish we could come up with something and say, " Oh, this solves everything. " We don't. Another problem, the regulative principle creates inconsistencies with regard to technological innovations. Okay, so if you're going to say, if it's not permitted in the New Testament, then it's wrong. All right.
So what about microphones? What about loudspeakers in the church? What about chalkboards? What about whiteboards? What about overhead projectors? What about PowerPoint presentation? See, they're not permitted in the New Testament. Does that mean they're wrong? Those innovations, those are technological innovations that weren't around in the first century. So of course they didn't have them. Does that mean we can't follow technology? Most of us would feel, yes, we can.
But some would say, well, this technology is okay, but this one isn't. You get a wide range of practices even among churches who claim to follow the regulative principle. The other question is, okay, so why should it be limited to worship or church buildings, what we can do in a church building? Why wouldn't it cover every area of life? And if we apply it that way, does that mean we're not allowed to do something unless the New Testament specifically says we can do it?
Most people have been very hesitant to follow the regulative principle in how we should live as Christians, which is the most important thing, is how we live as Christians. They follow it, like I say, or try to follow it with regards to worship, or how we do our church services, or our church buildings, what they should be like.
Now, having said all of that, I would definitely and I would say the early church definitely leaned closer to the regulative principle than they would have to Luther's view, which was if it's not forbidden, then it's okay to do that. I think clinging as close as we can to the New Testament, but I think supplementing it with the historical evidence that fills in so many of the gaps that we have in the New Testament concerning worship in church buildings and all of that.
If we look at the evidence of the second century, then I think it gives us a fairly good pattern to follow. Now, when it comes to theology, then I would say if it's not in the New Testament, then don't follow it. Use the early Christians as the best commentary on Scripture, but never use them or the later Christians as a source of authority in themselves. I would definitely follow the regulative principle with regard to theology and commandments.
If it's not commanded in the New Testament, then I don't feel we have a binding commandment on ourselves. We might have some good things. Like the early Christians, most of them, I think most of them, talk very favorably about a man should wear a beard. God created us that way. And so in the congregation I attend, I would say probably 80% of the men have beards. I think that's commendable. But it's not a commandment in the New Testament.
And so, again, fasting on Wednesday and Friday, excellent practice and something that probably came from the apostles, but it's not commanded in the New Testament. So I would take the position if it's not commanded in the New Testament, let's not impose additional burdens on people, but we can use them as recommendations. So I have no problem with the regulatory principle as a preference. Again, it's going to be inconsistent how you apply it.
But to use it as a preference, okay, if the New Testament doesn't say they did this, let's not do it. Okay. I think that's fine. You'll have inconsistencies. I mean, there always are. But it's when people use it as an absolute and they start calling things sin because the New Testament didn't say you could do this. That means it's sinned to do it. Then I think it actually becomes a bad thing because now we're judging people based on human thought, not based on what the Scripture requires.
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