Next subheading: "Spiritual Truths from the Law." One of the first early Christian writings that I read was the Letter of Barnabas. Here I was treated to a detailed discussion of the spiritual truths that lay behind the Mosaic Law.
For example, Barnabas wrote that God's prohibition to the Jews against eating pork had this spiritual message to Christians: "You are not to consort with a class of people who are like swine, inasmuch as they forget all about the Lord while they are living in affluence, but remember him when they are in want; just as a swine, so long as it is eating, ignores its master, but starts to squeal the moment it feels hungry, and then falls silent again when it is given food." End quote.
When I first read this, I scoffed at this absurd spiritual lesson that Barnabas derived from the Jewish dietary law against pork. I stopped scoffing, however, the next time I read Paul's words to the Corinthians about his right to receive material support. I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the law also say these things? For it is written in the Law of Moses: "You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing." God is not concerned about oxen, is he?
Or is he speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written. 1 Corinthians 9:8-10. I thought to myself, why did I never notice the significance of that passage before? Paul is pulling a spiritual principle out of the Mosaic Law that I would never have seen. And he says that passages like this in the Law were actually written for our sake. So why should I find it strange that Paul's disciples see similar principles in the Law?
Let's be honest: if we found this application of the Law about oxen in the Letter of Barnabas instead of in the writings of Paul, we would scoff at it, wouldn't we? And please don't say that it was all right for Paul to do this only because he was inspired. Paul was presenting an argument in order to persuade his readers. He was trying to reason with them. A person doesn't reason with somebody by throwing out an argument that makes no logical sense to them.
No, Paul's argument made logical sense to his Corinthian readers. It was not dependent solely on inspiration. Next subheading: "Real People in a Real World." Please don't misunderstand me. I'm neither denying nor minimizing the inspiration of Scripture. What I am saying is that the New Testament writers were real people writing to other real people, all of whom lived in a real historic world. It wasn't a sanitized, Westernized modern world. It was an ancient Eastern Hellenistic world with its own thought patterns.
The other day I saw a bumper sticker on a car that read, "If God seems far off, guess who has moved." An equally valid question would be if the Christianity that existed around AD 100 seems distant and strange to us, guess who's moved away from first-century Christianity. If it weren't for reading it through sanitized filters, the New Testament would seem strange to us too.
Instead, we have so modernized, Westernized, and sanitized the apostolic writers that we delude ourselves into thinking that John could step right from the first century into our Western 21st-century churches and feel quite at home. In contrast, we think that he would find the second-century church to be strange and foreign. Now, who's kidding whom? In short, the early Christian writings did more for me than to merely provide historic evidence of how the primitive church understood Scripture.
They also removed the blinders from my eyes so I could truly see the New Testament itself. They can do the same thing for you. Next subheading: "How to Read the Early Writings." However, before those writings can open your eyes, you will have to approach them with an open mind. As I was finally forced to do, you too will have to first temporarily set aside everything you believe. Just listen to what they have to say. Nobody is going to force you to believe anything they say.
When you are through, you may choose to take back all of your own beliefs. I never did, but perhaps you will. Either way, you owe it to yourself to at least take an honest look at the historical evidence. But be prepared for a journey back into time. Their culture is the same as that of the New Testament. The only difference is that nobody has sanitized their writings for you yet. Don't expect them to be living in a modern Western culture.
Since their writings are not inspired, they reflect all the scientific notions of their age, except where those notions expressly conflict with Scripture. Where there was a conflict, the early Christians believed the Scriptures rather than the scientific theories of their day. One man has written a paper disparaging the early Christians because a few of the writers made reference to the Phoenix bird. This was a bird that was supposed to have lived in the Arabian Desert.
According to legend, it lived for five or six hundred years and then consumed itself in fire. However, it would arise anew from the ashes to begin another long life. This was not a fable invented by Christians. Rather, it was a legend that was widely believed in the ancient world. Since few people ever traveled into the Arabian Desert, this legend was not easily refuted. Naturally, the early Christians saw in the Phoenix bird a representation of the resurrection from the dead.
Why should we expect anything different? Again, these were real people living in a real world. Because they were Christians, it doesn't mean that they were somehow endowed with the 21st-century zoological knowledge. Neither were the apostles. The only difference is that the Holy Spirit kept scientific errors out of the New Testament.
Also, as you read the early Christian writings, remember that you should not form any definite conclusions about what the whole church believed until you have read all of their writings. You can't take just one writer's perspective as being the whole embodiment of early Christian beliefs. You have to look at what they all say. But again, that is no different than the New Testament writings.
If a person read only one of the New Testament books and assumed that such was the entire message of apostolic Christianity, he would obviously be in error, wouldn't he? What if a person read nothing but the Book of James? Would he have a complete understanding of the New Testament teaching on salvation? If my only interest were to entice you to read the historic writings, I would have omitted these last three chapters.
I don't doubt that these things expressed in these chapters have probably made you feel a bit uneasy. In fact, you may be saying to yourself, "I don't need the early Christian writings. All I need is my Bible." But the truth is that you are presently using more than just your Bible. Let me explain.