Welcome to everybody. We will wait just a little bit of time while we're having everybody join the meeting. If you can, let me know. Give me a thumbs up if you can hear, if you can see us and hear us right now. Okay, we got it. If this is your first time to the historic faith, we don't have a whole lot of introductions because we have a busy night. Hope you enjoy. David has a board meeting tonight at nine and we have 16 questions more than we've ever tried to answer in one time.
We may do one or two follow-up questions. I'm not really sure about that. Send them to Daniel Willis and my brother will let me know. And we're going to jump right into the meat of things. And it's going to be a really exciting night. The first question, let me pull it up here, is from Micah Nolt. What is a good reason to leave a conservative Anabaptist Church for a more kingdom-focused church group that tries to follow all biblical principles and teachings of Jesus? What is a bad reason?
Okay, well, you've just stated an excellent reason. Someone leaves because they want to be in a church that tries to follow all the biblical principles and teachings of Jesus. A bad reason would be that that's really not somebody's primary motive. They're fleeing maybe from church discipline or spiritual issues that need to be first addressed before they think about moving to another church. Great. Okay, next question is, do you think the recognitions of Clement is an authentic work from Clement of Rome?
I personally always have, and read it regularly. I know some scholars say it is spurious, but then again, they're the same people who believe the gospels were written after 70 AD. Okay, for our listeners who aren't familiar with the recognitions of Clement, it's an early Christian work that's contained in volume 8 of the ante-Nicene Fathers. It purports to be a letter written by Clement of Rome and addressed to James, the brother of Jesus. It relates events that, if true, took place in the early years of Acts.
Most of the work concerns the debate between Peter and Simon Magus. So do I believe it was written by Clement of Rome? Actually, I don't. The reason is this. If this work were actually written by Clement, then we should all regard it as Scripture. I mean, if it's an authentic work, it's a priceless addition to the Book of Acts. But if everything in it were true, then we would find that the recognitions of Clement was being treated as scripture by the early Christians.
At a minimum, it would have been listed among the disputed books when they were considering which books of the New Testament should go into the canon. But the recognition of Clement never even enters into any of the debates. It's not on the list of disputed books. It's not there anywhere. So in the end, all we have is one brief quotation from the recognitions by Origen. And that's it from the ante-Nicene writers.
And Origen quotes from a wide range of works in his writings other than Scripture, so the fact he quotes it doesn't prove anything. Now, like you, I pay little attention to what the liberal German scholars say. Rather, what convinces me about it is the fact that this work is not widely quoted by the early Christians. In fact, like I say, we have just one quote. If it had truly been written by Clement of Rome, it would have been widely circulated because he was really well respected in the early church.
Now, having said that, this work is obviously an authentic writing of the early church, probably from the second century. This is established not only because Origen quoted from it, but also from the theology in it. For example, in it, we see a discussion of the Father and the Son. And what it says is the standard pre-Nicene doctrine of the Trinity.
Now, Rufinus, who lived at the end of the fourth century, he translated this work into Latin, and he purposefully distances himself from what it says about the Trinity, because it doesn't fit the post-Nicene teachings of Rufinus' Day. So it's definitely a pre-Nicene work, we can tell from that. And since Origen quotes from it, we know it was written before the year 250 AD.
Now, what we don't know, of course, is who wrote it, and whether the unknown author was trying to represent it or pass it off as an authentic work of Clement, or whether he was writing it as historical fiction and intended that his audience would receive it just as a work of historical fiction. And I'm going to be charitable and assume it's the latter.
So what we have in this work is a discussion of many of the early Christian doctrines, particularly refutations of Gnostic teachings, that are fictitiously placed in the setting of the first year or two of Acts, with Clement being there along with Barnabas and Peter and others. Now, the only teaching I caught in this writing that's not typical early Christian doctrine is the representation in it that Peter and the other early Christians wouldn't eat a meal with an unbaptized person.
Now, that's definitely not a New Testament teaching, nor is it a teaching we find in the pre-Nicene writings. But other than that, unless I miss something, everything else seems to square up with early Christian doctrine. So, yeah, it's an interesting work to read. So a quick question. Is that work in the Ante-Nicene Fathers? Yeah, volume eight of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, yeah. And next time we need to ask the question, what's wrong with volume 8? We'll have to do that another time. Okay, so next question.
Quentin Martin, he says," I remember hearing some quotations from Ignatius seeming to support the authority of congregational leaders. In our day, what would you say about this?" There's more. A certain Christian organization, leaders, and teachers proclaim that if all the members want to retain their salvation they receive through Christ, they must remain loyal to members of their organization and accept all the teachings of the leaders.
Would this count as presenting an altered gospel instead of the original gospel of salvation? Would Paul's words at Galatians 1:8 apply here? Thanks. I really appreciate your insight. Now, Quentin later contacted us and explained that his question particularly pertained to Jehovah's Witnesses who make that claim. Now, unfortunately, there are a lot of other groups that either claim to be the one true church or else they'll shun you if you leave them.
Now, when Ignatius wrote his words about obeying the bishop and the elders of the church, he was writing at a time when there was only one undivided church. He was talking about obeying the leaders appointed by the apostles or by the disciples of the apostles versus listening to the Gnostic teachers who, you know, wandered about from congregation to congregation and tried to subvert God's people. But we're living in an entirely different situation today.
I mean, we still should be obedient to the leaders of the church we belong to, but no church today has any right to claim to be the one true church. If a church is following Scripture, it can certainly claim to be a legitimate church and a part of the body of Christ, but it doesn't have the right to claim to be the only church or to say," We're the only Christians," something like that.
Every individual Christian is free to judge for himself or herself based on Scripture, based on the historic faith, as to what church they choose to attend. I mean, it's a terrible sectarian spirit for a church to claim that those who leave it are going to lose their salvation. Now, rather than going to Galatians that you asked about, and yes, I think it would apply to this, I want to mention 1 Corinthians, because there, Paul talks a lot about a sectarian spirit.
Now, what he was condemning was persons saying," I'm of Peter, I'm of Paul." They were still staying in the same church. They weren't starting, you know, separate churches and condemning everyone else. And yet, just staying in the same church and having you know this kind of loose sectarian spirit, he denounces as being carnal. And then in Galatians 5, when Paul lists the works of the flesh, he includes heresies, at least that's the way our Bibles usually translate it.
But the Greek word there, which is actually it's a transliteration, the word heresy, it doesn't mean holding to doctrinal errors. It means forming a sect or a faction. So anyone who proclaims that their particular church or group is the one true church, or that if you leave them, then you've lost you're not going to be saved. Well, they're guilty of forming a sect or a faction.
And Paul ends that passage in Galatians 5 by saying," I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." That's pretty serious. He's saying," If you start a faction, you're not going to inherit the kingdom of God." So I personally would not be part of any church today that claims to be the one true church or that claims that those who leave it will lose their salvation as a result. Very good. That was the case with the Jehovah's Witnesses? Yes. Definitely.
We're gonna go to ZTJ. He asked, well, he said," I'm an undergrad student who has been accepted into JD law program for this fall. I've been an exposed Christian since childhood, but recently I felt convicted by the teachings about involvement with politics and non-resistance. I'm committed to the faith, and I want to follow the words of Jesus. So I understandably now question my desire to take the path into a legal profession. I am new to the historic faith, but I understand Mr. Bercot is a retired attorney.
Would you be able to offer advice to a young man who is trying to figure this out? As a side note, so much of your content on this site has been very helpful and eye-opening. Thank you very much. Well, brother, I really have to apologize for you for not answering your question last time. We just ran out of time because I can see there's a deadline on it, so I apologize for that. Well, let me begin by saying that there is a great need for attorneys who fully embrace the teachings of Jesus.
I mean, kingdom Christians need to have contracts and wills and deeds drawn up. They form nonprofit organizations. They're sometimes sued, and they need legal advice from a fellow kingdom Christian. Now, a lot of things, a kingdom Christian can go to a regular attorney who doesn't embrace the teachings of Jesus, and I don't think it'll be a problem, but it is nice to be able to consult with someone who holds to the same convictions.
The problem is that unless you live in a community where there are a lot of kingdom Christians, and this would normally mean an area where there's a lot of Anabaptists, let's say Lancaster, Pennsylvania, or Holmes County, Ohio, an area like that, it's going to be very hard to make a living as an attorney without violating the teachings of Jesus.
I mean, I was a practicing Christian attorney when I came to my kingdom convictions, and I'd already eliminated most areas of law from my practice, such as divorce and most lawsuits. Yet even then, I realized when I came to my convictions that much of what I was practicing was not fully consistent with Jesus' teachings. I mean, I did send some pretty strong letters to people and things like that that I would have been ashamed of if they had shown up at church or something like that the next Sunday.
I mean, the truth is that nobody goes to an attorney and wants the attorney to say," Well, why don't you just simply forgive this person?" You know, they're going to be pretty upset if you did that. They want their vengeance. On the other side of the docket, insurance companies aren't nice guys either. The only way to get fair compensation from them is to sue them and then play hardball in your negotiations. So, you know, either side of the spectrum, you're going to be in the wrong camp for a follower of Jesus.
And then when it comes to writing up contracts, most people don't want to practice the Golden Rule. They want a contract drawn up that is totally in their favor. And I don't think a Christian can be part of any of those kind of doings. Now, there still are areas of law that a kingdom Christian can practice. Wills, deeds, contracts, estate planning, title examination, immigration law. Those would be some examples.
However, I'll tell you that it'll be very difficult to make a living just doing, say, wills and deeds and contracts. When I looked at my own law practice, I had realized that the only way I could make a living, once I dropped everything that conflicted with Jesus' teachings, the only way I could make a living was by doing title work, because in that, you're just telling people the truth. This is who owns a tract of land.
These are the issues with the title, and then you tell them what they need to do to fix the issues. Now, fortunately, I was living in a part of Texas where there was a lot of oil and gas operations and also a lot of mining. So the company doing these operations needed an attorney to examine the title to the land that they were either leasing or purchasing. So there was plenty of work for me. But title work is tedious and not very exciting, and most attorneys don't want to do it.
And unless, like I say, you're in Texas or another oil-producing state, or you're connected with a title company, in most parts of the United States, you're not going to be able to make a living just doing title work. Now, as I said, there are some other areas of law that you might be able to practice as a kingdom Christian, such as immigration law and estate planning, nonprofit law. There are a few areas. However, you would probably need to live in a large city to have enough work in those areas of law.
Or in the case of immigration law, you need to live in an area where there are many immigrants. So yes, it is possible to be a kingdom Christian and an attorney, but it won't be easy, particularly in a small town. And the temptation to get into areas of law that are more lucrative, but which violate the teachings of Jesus is going to be strong. So with that advice, I'm going to let you make your own decision. Thanks for asking the question. Okay, on to Calvin Yoder.
He asked, he says," Years ago, your message about the Atonement totally rocked my world. I had unwittingly been indoctrinated with penal substitution, and your sermons helped me to see the subject differently through the eyes of the early Christians. I found your talks very helpful, and it definitely changed my worldview." However, recently, Dean Taylor also spoke about the Atonement on Strength to Strength, and I was surprised.
It seemed that he was saying both views penal substitution and Christus Victor are supported in the writings of the early church. What was surprising to me in Dean's talk was his argument that both views are supported by the early Christians and by scripture, and to settle into one camp causes a kingdom reductionism. What really is the correct view the early Christians held about the Atonement? Was there uniformity around Christus victor or not?
If penal substitution is right after all, then is the Protestant view on imputed righteousness right also? Okay, Calvin, this is a great question. In fact, a number of other people have asked it to me in private. Now, because we have so many questions tonight, and because this is an important question, what we've decided to do is we're going to devote the next Q&A, the one in June, entirely to your question, because I think it's a question that deserves a full hour of discussion. It's an important question.
And like I say, a lot of other people are asking the same question. So stay tuned. And next month, we'll be talking about the Atonement. Yeah, I can't wait for that one. I know it might not be as fun for you, but it will be for us.
Michael Martin, sorry, does the church as a body and do Christians individuals bear the responsibility for seeking, dialoguing on, agreeing, and communicating truth regarding events, issues, and the world around us, and actively combating misinformation, disinformation, and lies, especially when ours and other physical well-being is at stake? Okay, you've asked a very good question. Let me ask you back, Michael. What did Jesus and his apostles do?
Did they get involved in the disputes of their day about medical care? And I can guarantee you there were plenty of them about physical well-being, about healthy eating, or about governmental policies? No, they didn't. They focused on preaching the gospel of the kingdom and making disciples of people of all the nations. They concentrated on governing and building up the worldwide body of Christ, but they stayed away from disputes that would be divisive and would take attention away from the gospel.
Now, looking at the situation today, concerning, for example, the issues you've raised, you would find that there's no uniform view among kingdom Christians about them. Some kingdom Christians embrace alternative medicine and are suspicious of the medical profession. On the other hand, you have other kingdom Christians who are medical doctors or who are nurses, and they would embrace standard medical practice. Likewise, some kingdom Christians have advocated taking ivermectin, et cetera, for COVID.
And, you know, they wouldn't take a vaccine under any circumstance. And on the other hand, you have other kingdom Christians who have been vaccinated against COVID. So there's no uniform opinion on those matters. Furthermore, Christians who get wrapped up in side issues so often get caught up in conspiracy theories. They often imagine they're experts on various matters, but their knowledge is usually based entirely on secondary or tertiary sources, stuff they've read on the internet.
I mean, how many Christians can honestly claim that they are authorities on COVID, that they've done the necessary medical and scientific research to really know what they're talking about when they address these issues? I would have to say extremely few. So what we all end up doing is relying on the opinion of others, and we tend to selectively listen to the opinions that fit our particular framework, our way of thinking. So, yeah, these things can be very divisive.
I appreciate your concern about it, but the answer is, no, we need to focus on getting the good news of the kingdom preached, not on these side issues. He has one more question. Part two, do kingdom churches do this? And if not, why not? If kingdom churches do, but one's current church does not and will not after much prayer and effort, should we move to a kingdom church? And if so, how can one find a suitable kingdom church?
Okay, I do not personally know of any kingdom churches that get involved in these issues on an official level. Now, in many kingdom churches and many Anabaptist churches, you're going to find a lot of people who would share your point of view about ivermectin and things like that.
But for the reasons I've just given, the fact that these issues are divisive, you will not find many of, as far as I know, you may not find any kingdom churches that would make those kind of issues their focus or officially get involved in them, because they know that other kingdom Christians share a totally different view and that these matters are going to divide the body of Christ. That's the very thing Satan wants is to divide us on issues that are not central to the gospel of Jesus.
And so what we want are things that bring us together as brothers and sisters, not as things that divide us. But as individuals, we're free to have our point of view on these things. And I guess if a person wants to put up a website or something and talk about them without causing division, I think they're free to do that. Amen. That's why I'm excited to hear what you're going to say next week, because you're so gracious whenever there's maybe a disagreement. The next one, Samuel Steiner.
Did the early Christians retire in the modern sense? How did they handle end-of-life issues such as saving for retirement, medical issues, working until you die versus retiring from their vocation because they were too feeble to work anymore, et cetera. I assume widows were taken care of, according to 1 Timothy 5, but what about older men? Okay, Daniel or Samuel, rather, I assume your question is based on Jesus' words at Matthew 6:19 and 20, and maybe we can read those together.
Jesus said," Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal." Now, most Christians through the centuries have totally ignored this teaching of Jesus, and so it's very commendable that today there has been a movement, particularly among kingdom Christians, to take this teaching of Jesus more seriously.
However, where the modern movement differs from the early Christians is that the modern movement tends to focus on the first part of Jesus' words, which is" Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth." Now, in contrast, the early Christians focused primarily on the second part of Jesus' words," Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." Well, how do we lay up treasures in heaven? Well, it's primarily by giving alms to the poor.
So the early Christians don't have anything to say about whether you should work until you're too weak to work any longer or whether you should set aside funds to be able to live on when you get too old to be able to work. Instead, what they have to say a lot about is selling our possessions and giving the money to the poor. And in Luke 12:33, Jesus makes it abundantly clear that this was His meaning. And I'll read that scripture to you. He said," Sell your possessions and give to the poor.
Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old with a storehouse in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys." So as you can tell, the passage in Luke is very similar to the one in Matthew, but here Jesus explains that he's talking about, as he says it," Sell your possessions and give to the poor." That's what he's talking about. That's how the early Christians understood it. So they don't talk about, like I say, setting aside money for old age. That's not the issue.
It's are you giving to the poor? Now, part of the misunderstanding of this verse comes from the fact that the English word" treasure" is actually not a good translation for the Greek word" thesauros," which is what is used here. Treasure conveys the thought of simply gold, silver, jewels, and money, but thesauros primarily meant a storehouse or granary. Jesus isn't talking just about gold and silver. He's talking about all our possessions. That's why he first mentions moth. He's speaking about clothes there.
And then he next mentions rust, speaking about our tools, equipment, implements. Finally, he mentions thieves, speaking about any other valuables we have. So Jesus is saying not to store up any of these things, which is really radical teaching. In other words, get rid of your possessions, sell them, give the money to the poor, and come be His disciple, like He told the rich young ruler. Now, I personally have never met a Christian who completely obeys that.
I don't know that Jesus makes that a requirement to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But actually, there were thousands of early Christians who did that very thing, who sold all they had, gave it to the poor, and devoted their life to the kingdom of God, and then they were supported by the church. Because when we leave this earth, the only possessions that we're going to have left is what we've stored up in heaven.
That is, what we've given to the poor and for other kingdom work, what we've done with our own lives for the kingdom. That's what we're storing up now. All this other stuff will be gone the minute we die. So in other words, it doesn't make any difference whether you live from paycheck to paycheck and never save a penny towards old age. If you're not generously giving away your money and possessions to the poor, then you haven't stored up anything in heaven. And you certainly haven't obeyed the words of Jesus.
Now, you asked about what about the widows and widowers? Now, in Timothy, he's actually talking about the people who should go on the list of widows. They were like an order. They were the precursor of the modern-day nuns. And only women who were particularly spiritual and met a number of requirements could be on that list. But as far as taking care of the poor in the church and the needy of the church, whether they were male or female, you know Christians always did that.
So yeah, no one was left out just because," Oh, you're a widower instead of a widow, so we're not going to feed you." It didn't work that way. Now, I'm going to read to you. How are you doing on time? I was going to read to you some quotes. It's 7:30. What question are we on? Does anyone know? We might ought to skip the quotes. I've got a feeling that we probably should move through this. So why don't you go ahead to the next question? I think I've answered that.
Okay, question two is, how can the early Christians claim that the head covering is for modesty because of the angels? If 1 Corinthians 11:10 is usually translated as the head covering is a symbol of authority, it would seem that being a symbol or sign of authority is different reason than for modesty in that verse. Yeah, that is a bit confusing. And yeah, we have to talk here a little bit about Greek. I'm no Greek scholar, but I don't think it would make a difference in this case.
The Greek word that our Bibles translate as symbol of authority is exousia, and it's usually translated as power or authority. Actually, the word symbol of is not in there. But what does exousia mean the way it's used in this particular passage? Well, the early Christians understood it in some manner to be referring to modesty. So, obviously, they were understanding the Greek of this passage a bit differently than we're able to grasp it today. And I see that situation all the time in the early Christian writings.
Our Bibles will translate a word or a passage a certain way, but it's obvious that the early Christians were reading the passage quite differently. And that's the difference between native speakers reading something in their own language and in their own period of history, and a non-native speaker try to interpret that same passage 2,000 years later. I mean, we do the best we can, but obviously we're not able to always grasp the nuances that the native speakers saw.
I mean, to appreciate this just by way of illustration. Imagine a scholar living 2,000 years from now trying to translate a newspaper article written by an American today. Now, that scholar might know a lot about the English language, but he or she is not going to be able to grasp the nuances and idiomatic expressions that an American speaker of today would immediately recognize. I mean, just for example, let's say the newspaper article might be talking about a college having a woke culture.
Well, a scholar would perhaps, 2,000 years from now, would perhaps know that woke is the past tense of wake, but they wouldn't recognize the special use that that word has in the year 2022, because it didn't mean that in, say, the year 2012. And by the year 2032, maybe that meaning will have totally disappeared. And it's like that way with Koine Greek. The little idiomatic expressions, yeah, they get lost through the century.
So someone in the 21st century to see a connection between the Greek word exousia and modesty, modesty is obviously pretty hard. We're not quite getting it. But the native speakers who were reading this same passage, they saw a connection. So all I can say is, me personally, I'm willing to defer to them. Very good. Very interesting. So this is maybe one of our favorite subscribers. How do you pronounce his name? I'll go on. Sorry about that. I have not met their dear brother. I'll have to say, so.
Can we say we're the one united church, if we live the commands of Christ like the early church did? Is this what Cyprian, for example, says, or do we need this connection back from bishop to bishop, like the Roman Catholic Church teaches? If the bishop or pope does not live the commands anymore. You know, this is a question I wrestled with for years. The issue arose in my mind because of a series of quotations from Irenaeus. And I'm going to read to you just two of them, but there's a whole series in his writings.
So he said," When we refer them to that tradition, which originates from the apostles, which is preserved by means of the succession of elders in the churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser, not merely than the elders, but then even the apostles." And I'll read a second one. It's on the next page in that writing. He says," In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles and the preaching of the truth have come down to us.
And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same life-giving faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now and handed down in truth. Now, churches like the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox would claim that what is important is that succession of elders or bishops, and that you need to be in a church that has that succession. And earlier in my spiritual journey, I gave serious consideration to their claims.
However, Irenaeus primarily focuses on the tradition or teaching, the apostolic faith that was handed down from the days of the apostles through those elders. Now, it doesn't take a lot of examination to realize that what is taught today in the Catholic and Orthodox churches differs in many respects from the historic faith that was taught in the days of Irenaeus. So the question becomes, what is the more important of the two? The apostolic faith that was passed down, or the line of succession of elders and bishops?
Well, to me, it's obvious it's the apostolic faith. Irenaeus is contrasting the elders in the worldwide church with those in the heretical churches, particularly the Gnostic churches. The Gnostics claimed that they were teaching the original Christian faith, yet they had no connection with the apostles. They had just sprung out of nowhere.
In contrast, the true Christians were holding the faith that had been handed down from the apostles, and they could name the different elders or bishops in the churches that had handed it down from the days of the apostles. But yeah, after 2,000 years, that same chain kind of loses its significance, because now we can go back and read for ourselves. Not only we have the inspired scriptures, but we can see how those scriptures were understood by the early Christians. Very good.
We have one more by our favorite subscriber. And this is one I'm passionate about too. What can we do to help churches realize how important the early church writings are to unite us back to one family of God? Yeah, amen. The early Christian writings, as you say, can help us to check our modern interpretations against how the Scriptures were understood during the first few generations after the apostles.
And that can enable Christians today to be united, at least on the basic doctrines of the faith and on the lifestyle that Christ expects of His people. The problem is it requires humility for churches to surrender their pet doctrines to the voice of the undivided church of the first two centuries. And most churches today, unfortunately, don't have that humility. If the early Christians taught differently than today's church, my experience has been, it's always the early Christians who are wrong.
It's never that particular church. And so it's that attitude that needs to change. Nevertheless, as individual Christians, we can help spread the word about the historic faith both in our individual churches and in the body of Christ at large. I mean, there's a number of people doing podcasts and have put out web pages and things like that that have been enormously helpful. And so today, a whole lot of people are learning the historic faith. Say it's just a marked contrast to just 20 or 30 years ago.
Definitely more and more Christians today are embracing the historic faith and spreading the message to others. It's a growing movement, and so we can all do our part to get the word out, whether we do it just by individual witnessing or passing out literature, sending people to websites, et cetera. And of course, it's all going to depend upon the power of the Holy Spirit to ignite this into hopefully a movement that will really catch attention throughout the entire church.
To Alan Bennett's question, what are your thoughts on dealing with what Christians call secondary issues, like the head covering, as one example? Okay, there are two principles that are involved here. First, Jesus tells us that not all His commandments are on the same level. You talk about secondary issues, and He says, yes, some of them are secondary. He said the two great commandments are loving God with our whole heart, soul, and mind, and the second is loving our neighbor as ourselves.
If we fail in those two areas, it doesn't matter whether we've kept all of the rest of Jesus' commandments. It's all for nothing. Now, in Matthew 23:23, Jesus said this to the scribes and Pharisees. He said, yeah," Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay the tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.
These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone." So he shows there that certain things are weightier matters, and that's what we should take care of first. And he mentioned several things there. Well, in looking at both of those ones, commandments pertaining to love, to justice, to mercy, faith, those are the big ones.
But Jesus also said in that same verse, He said," We should not leave the other things undone." So if we truly embrace Jesus as our Lord, we're not going to take a pick and choose approach when it comes to His commandments. We're going to obey them all or at least do our best to obey them all. Now, concerning the head covering, the weightier commandment is for a wife to submit to her husband as her head. I mean, it is really Pharisaic for a woman to wear a head covering, but then not submit to her husband.
And on many occasions, I've seen women who wear head coverings, but do not submit to their husbands. In fact, often they actually dominate and control their husbands, but they wear a head covering telling the world," Oh, I'm submissive to my husband." And that's utter hypocrisy. So we should first follow the greater principle, and then follow the outward symbol. In other words, Christ commands us to do both, but let's make sure we get the big thing done first.
And likewise, we've all seen husbands who uncover their heads when they pray, they take their hats off, et cetera, but then they don't treat their wives in a loving fashion. And that's the same kind of hypocrisy. Very good. So we have Michael Weaver. Do all Jesus' commands apply to us today?
Even when Jesus was speaking specifically to the 11, Mark, as in Mark 16:15 through 17, for example, if we are to go to all the world as the apostles were commanded to do, then why don't the signs accompany us as they did the apostles? And why don't we have the power they did, such as speaking in other tongues and healing, et cetera? You've raised a good point. When reading Jesus' words, it is important to pay attention to whether He's talking to all of His followers or just to the faithful 11.
And to be sure, what He says to the 11 or to the 12 often applies to all of us, but we have to weigh the context of his statements. For example, I often hear Christians quote John 16:13 as though Jesus were speaking to all Christians.
That's where Jesus said," When He, the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide you into all truth." Now, many Christians today claim that," Oh, we don't need the early Christian writings or any Bible study aids, because the Spirit will guide us each of us into all truth." But Jesus didn't speak those words to the crowds. He spoke that just to the twelve.
And obviously, it hasn't been fulfilled in Christians in general, or else we would all be teaching and practicing the same thing if the Spirit revealed all truth to each one of us personally. No, rather he revealed it to the apostles, and the apostles then taught the complete faith, all that had been revealed to them, to the rest of the church.
But now, I think as you point out, the passage in Mark 16 is a little different, because there Jesus is not just telling the apostles that these things will apply to them, but he said," These signs will follow those who believe." And then he mentions various things, what kind of signs, and among them are drinking poison and not being harmed, and taking up serpents and not being harmed by them.
So the issue is, do those words apply to Christians in every age, or were these special signs only during the apostolic age when the kingdom was first being established? Well, that was a question on my mind. I was real curious what we would see in the next century. Did these signs continue on in the next century after the apostles? Well, the early Christians talk about it, and they frankly say that the miraculous signs had not been discontinued, but they had been greatly diminished in their time.
So, in other words, what we can see from the record of history is that the signs were apparently given to announce the birth of the kingdom to help jumpstart this new kingdom of God, to demonstrate to everyone that God was finished with the fleshly nation of Israel. He was establishing this nation of spiritual Israel. He was introducing the new covenant, things like that. So he needed a lot of miracles to demonstrate that.
Now, modern charismatics want to claim," Oh, these miracles are still with us," and so often they're guilty of just sham practices of pretended miracles and that kind of thing. And they say," Well, they diminished in the early church because the early Christians weren't faithful." Really? I mean, when we read their writings, we can see that the early Christians were teaching and obeying all of Christ's commandments in a very literal fashion.
In contrast, modern charismatics who claim to be performing all of these miracles, well, they trample on the majority of Jesus' commandments and the commandments of the apostles. So, no, they didn't disappear because the Second Century Church wasn't faithful. So, I'm personally inclined to conclude that Jesus' prophecy in Mark 16 about these signs doesn't apply in every century, at least not to the same degree as it was fulfilled in the first century.
And yet, I also believe that God performs miracles in every century. I mean, even today, the sick are still being healed and demons are still being cast out, maybe not in the same degree as the first century, but they're still being done. But, you know, I'm not so sure about drinking poison or handling deadly snakes. I tend to personally believe that that ended with the apostles. The Second Century Church says nothing about those miracles still being around. Very good. Very interesting.
Matthew Gerber, how quickly should new believers be baptized? And should they demonstrate fruits of repentance, conversion before baptism? This is a hard one, Matthew, because there's a difference between what we see practiced in Acts and what we see in the early Church. Now, normally, I would say, okay, if there's a difference between what we see in the Book of Acts and what we see in the early Church, well, of course we're going to go with the Book of Acts.
But I don't know that that's necessarily the right choice in this instance. I mean, I'll leave that up to my listeners. In Acts, we see that the apostles and others baptized believers immediately. I mean, this was true on the day of Pentecost, Peter preached to them, whatever it was, a one-hour sermon, boom, immediately baptized the people who repented. Philip goes and speaks to the Ethiopian eunuch. Who knows? Maybe it was an hour conversation. He baptizes them.
The Philippian jailer right there in the middle of the night, the people who heard Paul on Mars Hill, he baptized them immediately, and so on. We see that all throughout the book of Acts. It was very similar in Acts to the modern practice of the altar call, where people are immediately received as being saved without waiting for a period of repentance. Just come up invite Jesus in your heart and you're being saved. Now, I said that it's like the apostles. Now, the apostles didn't give altar calls.
They invited people to come and be baptized. But it was that instant, right-on-the-spot sort of thing. The problem, like we see what the altar call, is lots of people go up and get saved, and they're not the least bit saved. I mean, two days later, they're back in their same practices. And so when we get to the second century, we see that the Church usually had believers go through a period of instruction and discipleship before they were baptized.
Perhaps this represents a change in the apostolic practice that was made in the first century, after the period of Acts and before John died. In other words, the apostles may have introduced this, but we just don't know. But we do know in the second century, they weren't normally just baptizing people instantly. Now, I can only speak personally on this issue as to what we should do today.
I myself would not be comfortable baptizing someone immediately upon their profession of faith and their profession of repentance. I would want to feel certain that they understand both the doctrines of the faith and the commandments of Christ, that they're committed to living by those commandments.
I also want to see some fruits that their repentance is real, because I've seen too many quick baptisms in which the baptized person walks with Christ for only a short time after their baptism, and then they abandon the faith. So I personally say wait until you see the fruits of repentance, but other Christians could have a different opinion, and they can, you know, accurately point to the book of Acts for a different example. Very good.
I have questions myself, but I'm going to leave them because we have so many here. Does Revelations 20:5 say that only the saints killed during the reign of the Antichrist will resurrect at the first resurrection, while all other people prior to saints and all sinners will wait to be resurrected on the final, the final day. Dave, you know I went back and reread that verse, and I would say that is what it seems to say.
Now, the issue for me is I don't know how to harmonize that passage with what we read in Matthew 25 and other New Testament verses, which seem to indicate there's going to be one judgment day for everyone. Now, I'm sure there is a way to harmonize that, but unfortunately, the early Christian writings shed no light. No one discusses that. So in the end, I simply have to say, I don't really know the answer, Dave.
I mean, you've pointed out how that verse seems to literally read, but I guess for me, I'm going to have to wait until the time comes to find out what happens. Jordan Kid. So I'm in a very strict version of the word of faith-minded church, which has a very different foundation than either Baptist or Anabaptist. So many beliefs in the group are founded on God spoke to me, the leader, or God has taught us. I clearly see that there is no limit to the extreme outcomes possible under this basis for doctrine.
However, the leader has done a decent job moderating extremes so as to appear righteous on balance. My question is, what are the biblical and/or early church foundations for the sufficiency and inerrancy of Scripture as the sole founding principles for the church doctrine? What would you answer to someone who claims the Holy Spirit has revealed to them the majority of what they believe and operate by?
To be clear, many things are explainable by a Scripture, but not by the Bible as a whole, or even the New Testament as a whole. Okay, so this question ties in with the answer I gave a while ago about the Holy Spirit revealing all truth. Jesus spoke those words only to the apostles, and I think that all truth regarding the foundational teachings of Christianity were revealed to the apostles. So what I would probably say to someone, are you one of the 12 apostles?
I mean, Jesus was only speaking to them when he said that. And I also believe what Jude 3 says, that the faith was once for all delivered to the saints. And I would probably ask someone that who's in the Word of Faith. Do you believe the faith was once for all handed to the saints? Well, if so, then we can check and see what that faith was back in the beginning. And that's what this whole channel is about, the historic faith.
We can see what that historic faith was that was delivered to the saints, and it was delivered once for all time. It doesn't keep changing. So the Scriptures, we have them as our only infallible testimony of the faith. We can't rely as individual Christians that the Holy Spirit is going to reveal the faith. We have the Scriptures as the infallible testimony.
And then we have the writings of the early Christians as the best commentary on the Scriptures to help us see how people who lived right after the apostles, how they understood the New Testament and the various teachings there. So the Holy Spirit is not going to reveal one thing to the faithful Christians who were living in the second century, and then reveal something completely different today.
So if someone says the Holy Spirit has revealed this to them, I'd have to ask," Well, why didn't He reveal that same thing to the disciples of the apostles?" And if they say," Well, you know, they went apostate as soon as the apostles died." Well, yeah, I guess I would ask, have you ever read their writings?' Cause if you do, you see that they walk closely in the teachings of the apostles, closely in the teachings of Jesus Christ.
And the other thing I notice about so-called Spirit-centered churches of today is that they preach incredibly different gospels. I mean, among them, you have the entire gamut of theological doctrines. For example, you'll have Trinitarian churches versus non-Trinitarian churches, both claiming the Holy Spirit has revealed the truth to them. You'll have churches that teach salvation by faith alone and churches that teach the need for obedience.
There's all kinds of teachings on end times among churches that are supposed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. And you have a wide range of lifestyle practices concerning obedience to Christ's commands. So these churches obviously are not all being led by the Spirit, because if they were, they'd all be teaching the same thing. Instead, you see a spirit of disunity among them. Now, to be sure, the Spirit gives us personal direction as to issue and decisions in our individual lives.
He gives churches directions, but he doesn't give us individual revelation as to the apostolic faith, not as a normal thing. It was once for all handed down to the saints, and we have a clear historical record of what that faith was. Those last ones were really amazing, very key. I've always wondered what the early Christians thought about miracles and if they saw them happening, like we see in Acts. And also this, you see it everywhere, all these different prophecies and things coming out.
And you just, thank you so much for that. It's very good. We have not a follow-up question, but we have this right here. Casey said," I'm an attorney and seeking to carry out this occupation as a kingdom Christian. I practice solely in the area of estate planning, and I'm able to make a living doing so. I'm glad to visit with the questioner about being an attorney and a kingdom Christian." Casey was kind enough to post her email in the Zoom chat. We hope you two are able to get connected.
If you can't find it later, you can email someone at the Historic Faith and we'll try to get that from the Zoom chat and pass it on to you. Thank you, Casey, for your gracious offer. And again, thank you for joining us tonight. I know it's been question after question after question, and I hope you are edified as much as I was. And next week is going to be next month. I want it to be next week. It will be an exciting question and answer. So don't worry about entering any more questions for next month.
We have a few that we may answer on top of Dean Taylor's, but we may not get to it. Not Dean Taylor's, but the person that was talking about the strength to strength from Dean Taylor. And knowing David, he'll be extremely gracious and David and Dean's friendship will last for eternity. And God bless you all, and we'll see you next time.
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