Makes a lot of sense. Thanks for that. All right, so now we have a couple of questions here in the context of unity. This seems to be a prevailing question in the context of the church today and the variety of groups, the large variety of groups out there doing similar and dissimilar things. I've been watching a lot of people going to what they consider to be ancient churches out of this very issue of unity and maybe not going far enough back as we would see on the historic faith.
But nonetheless, it's close to people's hearts and is an important issue. Let's start with a question from Colleen Barnhart here. Is there a precedent from early church writings for withholding communion from Christian visitors to your fellowship who don't believe and practice exactly the same as you do? Yeah, there is a precedent there certainly for the use of needing authentication from somebody else to validate someone's Christian walk so that you're not just participating in communion in too loose of a manner.
And so I'll give you some references there in a sec. You know We have to watch about being too strict in that, but certainly there's strong precedent there. Before I give you the early church evidence, let me just give the New Testament evidence first. In 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verses one to two, Paul specifically speaks about letters of recommendation.
Now he says that he himself as the church planter there doesn't require letters of recommendation, but he makes the side comment that implies that they're using those and that that's already in practice even in the first century. And we see something very similar in Acts chapter 9 verses 26 to 28 where Barnabas has to personally vouch for Paul. There's a suspicion about him and it's only on Barnabas ' credibility. Is Paul able to be received by the church there?
But I'll read to you because I got this question in advance. I actually pulled the quotes here. So one is from the Ante-Nicene Church Father set volume 5, page 292. And it's from Cyprian. Actually, it's a little bit long, but I'll just say that either speaks of these receiving a certificate there to be taken into communion there. The other one is volume six, page 171.
And this is from someone named Malchion, a document called Malchion, who says, we have communicated this back to you in order that you may write him and receive letters of communion from him. And then finally, the apostolic constitutions, which most people believe that Hippolytus had something to do with that, but it was at least compiled in the fourth century. This is in Volume 7, page 422.
He says, " If any brother, man or woman comes in from another parish and brings recommendatory letters or recommendation letters, let the deacon be the judge of that affair. " And so, again, you can see this carry into the practice of the early church. It wasn't just this totally open vouch for yourself type concept there. So yeah, I think it's something we need to watch for.
And our communions in general, we say should be close, but not closed in the sense that we at least believe that we can gladly take in people into our communion from other churches, but there should be some level of comfort with who they are based on other relationships. Thanks.
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