survey of church history lesson · 2019-09-13 · commandments to men—things such as: “let the...

Transcript - CH505 Survey of Church History© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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LESSON 05 of 24CH505

The Young Church in Action

Survey of Church History

Greetings once again in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we begin our class today, let’s join together in prayer. Let us pray. Eternal God, You know us so completely, even the most intimate parts of our lives, and yet often like fools we clutch our rags about us pretending to be more than we actually are. On the surface we often appear so serene and respectable, yet underneath we know there is often great turmoil. So we ask that by your Spirit, You might meet our needs today and free our minds and hearts so that we can turn our attention to Your great work through the church and help to prepare us in this way for the ministry that You’ve called us to do, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We were talking in the last session, you may recall, about some of the tremendous changes which took place in the Christian church between its founding at Pentecost and the time of Constantine in the early fourth century. We tried to highlight, especially, the development of its organizational structures and some of its leadership patterns. And you may recall that the church, which was very fluid in its organizational structure in the earliest years, became very hierarchically organized by the time of the early fourth century, with its church offices well recognized and well defined.

I want to continue to explore some of these themes as we view the young churches in action. I want to focus, first of all, today upon the development of church manuals. These are kind of “How to Handbooks” for the running of local congregational life. I suspect that if you think back to those eras, you can easily understand how those missionaries, which went out from Jerusalem planting churches in the countryside and little rural areas as well as cities, would have needed help in how to structure their congregational life, how to run their churches. And in fact, a series of these manuals telling them how to do it began to emerge in the early centuries. And I want to identify two of these for you as examples. One of them comes from our collection of readings from the Cyril Richardson book. It’s called The Didache, “The Teaching of the

Garth M. Rosell, Ph.D. Professor of Church History and Director

Emeritus of the Ockenga Institute at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

in South Hamilton, Massachusetts

Transcript - CH505 Survey of Church History © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.


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Twelve,” and reflects most likely the church life in rural Syria. This is a manual probably for small congregations that were emerging in rural countryside areas in the Syrian part of the world. And if you look at these manuals, particularly in our volume on page 174, you get some flavor of the kind of help which congregations would have drawn from them.

Let me give you an example around baptism and the Lord’s Supper. On page 174 in chapter 7 of The Didache, we have this interesting series of paragraphs:

And now about baptism, this is how to baptize—give public instruction on all these points (the ones that have come before in the manual) and then baptize in running water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. If you don’t have running water, baptize in some other. If you cannot in cold water, then in warm. If you have neither, then pour water on the head three times in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Before the baptism, moreover, the one who baptizes and the one being baptized must fast and any others who can. And you must tell the one being baptized to fast for one or two days beforehand [you can see the specific nature of some of these instructions]. Moreover, your fast must not be identical with those of the hypocrites. They fast on Mondays and Thursdays, but you should fast on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Then it talks about prayer: “Do not pray like the hypocrites either, but pray as follows, as the Lord bid us in the Gospel.” And then The Didache picks up that familiar section of the Scriptures:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our bread for the morrow, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but save us from the evil one. For Yours is the power and the glory forever (Matthew 6:9-13).

Then it says, “You should pray this way three times a day.”

You capture some of the flavor of what these manuals were about—very specific instructions on important elements of church life and congregational living. Let me go on a little further and you may follow this in our text, page 175 at the top: “Now about the Eucharist [that comes from eucharistiae, “thanksgiving”—this is the Lord’s Supper, of course], this is how to give thanks.” First in



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connection with the cup—and it’s interesting that most of us in our practice in the church begin with the bread and then move to the cup. Here in The Didache, we start with the cup, and then move to the bread.

“We thank You, our Father, for the holy vine of David Your child, which You have revealed through Jesus Your child, to You be glory forever.”

Then in connection with the piece broken off the loaf:

We thank You, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You have revealed through Jesus Your Child, to You be glory forever. As this piece of bread was scattered over the hills and then was brought together and made one, so let Your church be brought together from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom, for Yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever. You must not let anyone eat or drink of your Eucharist except those who are baptized in the Lord’s name.

You see here continuing the kinds of instructions: Who can take the Lord’s Supper? Only those that have been baptized. How do you baptize? You’ve just heard the description of how that ought to be performed.

Then there are continuing instructions as to: (1) how to worship, (2) how to organize your service, (3) how to elect officers for your church, (4) how to test and evaluate people who come before you (if prophets come to your community, there are special instructions as to how this should be handled). At the bottom of page 176, we see this interesting paragraph: “Welcome every apostle on arriving as if he were the Lord. But he must not stay beyond one day; in case of necessity, however, the next day, too. If he stays three days, he’s a false prophet. On departing, an apostle must not accept anything save sufficient food to carry to the next lodging. If he asks for money, he’s a false prophet.”

You can see the very practical help that a church would have gotten from these kinds of manuals, where in both organizing their worship services as well as dealing with normal day-to-day affairs, they would have received some kind of guidance and help.

Let me give you an example of perhaps an even more famous, certainly more often used, manual, which is called The Apostolical Constitutions. The Didache comes from the late first century or early second century, probably rural Syria. The Apostolical



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Constitutions are actually a series of eight books, which were collected and put together in the late third century, about AD 250-300. And these books are filled with all kinds of helpful hints as to how to organize congregational life and how to live out the faith. The first of these books, for example, talks about laypeople and how they ought to conduct their lives. The first section are commandments to men—things such as: “Let the husband not be insolent nor arrogant toward his wife, but compassionate, bountiful, willing to please his own wife alone and treat her honorably and obligingly, endeavoring to be agreeable to her.” Then it goes on to talk about how men ought not to wear over-fine garments: “Neither should they wear over-fine stockings or shoes on their feet. Neither should they put gold rings upon their finger, for all these ornaments are signs of lasciviousness.” These are fascinating words from this early document.

Then it tells men what books they ought to read, they ought to read the Law and the Kings and the Prophets and the Hymns of David and peruse diligently the Gospel. We’ll talk a bit later in our series about the development of the Gospels and of the writings of Paul and others which began to circulate and were then gathered together as part of our Holy Scriptures. It also instructs men to abstain from “heathen books,” as it is labeled. These are writings which do not edify, but which point one in wrong directions. Then it goes through a whole series of commandments to women. Just like the men, they ought not to wear fine broidering or garments or shoes that are over-fancy. They should not paint their face, which is God’s workmanship. They ought to avoid the disorderly practice of bathing in the same place with men. And it goes on with all kinds of very practical instructions for women in the church.

Now if I have whetted your appetite, you may want to read in more detail. And you can find these in a wonderful collection of writings, called The Ante-Nicene Fathers. These are writings which come prior to the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 and are collected for us in a reprinted edition by William Eerdmans Publishing Company, which they put out in the early 1980s. This is volume 7, and you’ll find the section that we have been reading on pages 391 and following, if you want to discover that in the library and read it more thoroughly.

The Apostolical Constitutions go on to talk about the three offices of the church in Book II, of bishops, presbyters, and deacons. And you’ll remember in our last class, we talked about the emergence and definition of those three major offices in the life of the



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church. It talks about the kind of education that a bishop ought to have, how he ought to be examined before being ordained. It tells the bishop that he should not be given to filthy lucre. That is, he should be overly concerned about making money. He ought to avoid hankering after worldly things. He ought not to receive bribes. And you have very practical instructions given not only to the bishop, but also to deacons and presbyters as well in this second book of the series. We read in section 4:

Let the bishop esteem such food and raiment as suits necessity and decency. Let him not make use of the Lord’s goods as another’s, but moderately, for the laborer is worthy of his reward. Let him not be luxurious in diet or fond of idle furniture, but contented with only that which is necessary for his sustenance.

You can see very practical instructions as to how these church officers ought to conduct themselves.

Then we find later in The Constitutions, instructions regarding baptism:

Thou, therefore, O bishop, according to that type, shall anoint the head of those that are to be baptized, whether they be men or women, with holy oil for a type of the spiritual baptism. After that, either thou O bishop or a presbyter that is under thee, shall in the solemn form name the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and dip them in the water. And let a deacon receive the man and a deaconess the woman, so that the conferring of this inviolable seal may take place with a becoming decency. And after that, let the bishop anoint those that are baptized with ointment. This baptism, therefore, is given unto the death of Jesus, the water is instead of the burial and the oil instead of the Holy Ghost, the seal instead of the cross. The ointment is the confirmation of the confession, the mention of the Father as of the Author and Sender, the joint mention of the Holy Ghost as the witness. The descent into the water is the dying together with Christ. The ascent out of the water is rising again with Him.

Then there are instructions for those who are baptized; that they ought to free themselves of iniquity and confess their sins. Then there are very practical instructions for the life in the community. There are instructions in Book IV about those who have no parents: “If in the Christian community there is an orphan, those parents who have no children ought to take them



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in and raise them as their own.” Fathers are instructed to educate their children in the Lord, bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of Christ, teaching them such trades as are agreeable and suitable in the word, lest they, by such opportunity, become extravagant and continue without punishment from their parents and so get relaxation before their time and go astray from that which is good. Parents are instructed:

Wherefore do not be afraid to reprove your children and to teach them wisdom with severity, for your corrections will not kill them, but will preserve them. He, therefore, that neglects to admonish and instruct his own son, hates his own child. Do you, therefore, teach your children the word of the Lord? For if the offending children get into the company of debauched persons by the negligence of those who begot them, they will not be punished alone by themselves, but their parents will also be condemned on their account.

So you have very practical instructions here for parents, telling them to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and to discipline their children properly.

Then you have further instructions regarding how to ordain offices in the church, and even listings of prayers to be used for the ordination of bishops and of deacons and of presbyters and of subdeacons (those offices which are to be ordained offices). Many other things can be found in The Apostolical Constitutions. But perhaps this is enough to give you a sense of the kind of instruction which was circulated in these documents for the help of the organization of the church and the management of the ministry.

Now these documents also reflect the great interest that the early church had in discipline. This, I think, is a particularly important point for us to highlight—where strict discipline was a central feature of the ancient churches, and you probably can pick that flavor up from my readings from these manuals. There were two aspects of this discipline: it was not only (1) to preserve the purity of the church (the emphasis which we often place at center stage today), but it was also (2) for the spiritual welfare of the offender. It was to restore the one that had fallen back to spiritual purity and life and vitality. It was to preserve the church then from impurity, but it was also to restore the one who had fallen.



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The early church used a variety of sanctions against those who were the offenders. The most severe of these, of course, was excommunication, which was the exclusion from all the rights and privileges of the faithful of those who had fallen—be it through heresy or schism or some gross crime like murder or adultery or blasphemy or denial of Christ under persecution and the like. By the time of Tertullian, these gross sins came to be called “Mortal Sins,” as distinguished from “Venial Sins” such as gluttony. Those who were excommunicated, however, could come back into the church fellowship. But increasingly they were to do this through a system which was established and came to be known as “penance.” Through almsgiving, fasting, good works, the kinds of things that were established as means of restoration. Not until the late third century was a rigorous and fixed system of penitential discipline set up in the church. Prior to that, it tended to be at the discretion of ministers and churches, and varied from place to place.

By the late third century, however, we have a series which is fairly well fixed of processes, which ultimately lead one to restoration. There came to be four classes recognized of penitence, reflecting various stages in the process. And normally it took a person about three or four years to go through these processes: beginning as weepers (those who prostrated themselves at the church door in mourning garments, asking for restoration and forgiveness); then they became hearers (they were allowed to hear the Scripture lessons and the sermons in the worship of God); then they became kneelers (attending public prayers, but only while kneeling); and then finally, what were called standers (they could take part in the whole service while standing, except for communion). Some churches even appointed special officers, presbyters in most cases, to oversee penitential discipline. And the purpose of all of this was restoration of those who had fallen into full fellowship again with the church.

At the end of penitence came this “Service of Reconciliation” where the person made public confession of their sin. They were offered forgiveness by the laying on of the hands by the minister, a benediction was offered, then they were greeted by the congregation with brotherly kiss, and then communion was joined in together.

Now this whole elaborate system of penance, of course, becomes a major point of contention at the time of the Protestant Reformation. And in fact, it was the system which Martin Luther attempted to use to deal with his sensitive conscience. And ultimately it proved insufficient to deal with that deep perplexing



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problem of sin which Luther struggled with. And you’ll remember that part of the meaning of that 16th-century reformation is a dismantling of this enormous superstructure of penance, which had been established over the centuries, and which had become used again and again by the church. And we’ll come to that part of the story later in our course.

But one needs to look back at the emergence of this pattern, this structured way of dealing with sin, to understand the seriousness with which discipline was exercised in the life of the church. And it seems to me that in our churches today we need to learn a lesson of the seriousness of sin and the importance of discipline, not only to preserve the purity of our churches, but also to help restore those who have fallen to full fellowship. The pattern in our day is to neglect discipline almost all together. And the result, I think, is that many who fall and are restored all too easily with a kind of simple forgiveness, never themselves are able to shake the struggle that they have with their own sinfulness.

My father is a minister of the Gospel, and in one of his sermons a number of years ago now, he preached on forgiveness—the wonderful message that God forgives sin. And an older gentleman came up to him at the end of the service and he said, “I’d like to talk with you.” And they found a quiet place, and he told my father one of the most fascinating stories I’ve ever heard. He said, “When I was a young man (and he was then perhaps in his 70s) in my 20s, automobiles were first coming onto the market, and I wanted to be one of the first in our neighborhood to have one. So I bought a car, and I was the toast of my friends. It was wonderful for several weeks until I discovered that I couldn’t make all of the payments on the car. And rather than losing face, I decided on a course of action, and that was to take out an insurance policy for what I owed on the car. And then I drove the car in the garage and burned both of them to the ground. I collected the money, paid back the debt, and I thought I was free. But every time I opened my Bible to read, all I could see on the pages was a burning car. And when I’d close my eyes to pray, all I could see was a burning car. And that has haunted me all of these years, so that I have not been able to minister. I’ve not been able to fulfill that which I feel God wants me to do.”

Dad not only assured him that God’s forgiveness could cover that sin, but as they prayed together, as he confessed that sin and discovered the great forgiveness which God offers through the blood of Jesus Christ, he came to see also that his response would have to be a repayment of the debt which he owed. So at



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some great pains, he tracked down the insurance company, he told them about his action and paid back every cent that he owed them. And when my father saw him later on, with a smile on his face he said, “For the first time in my life, I can read my Bible and I see the words rather than a burning car. And I can close my eyes and pray, and I see nothing of the burning car.”

Our churches are filled with people who have struggles with sin. And we often forget the enormous importance of offering to them the forgiveness which has been purchased for us in the blood of Jesus Christ. We need to take sin more seriously today, and we need to take discipline in the life of the church more seriously than we do. And it’s an important lesson, I think, that we can learn from the early church.

Two parties emerged in the church that are much like the parties we find in our own congregations today. There were those who wanted to exclude folk who had sinned (at least in terms of major sins) from returning to the church. And we’re going to see these emerging in the movements of Montanists and Novatians and others—the Donatists of North Africa.

There were also the moderists, who opened up the door through a process for restoration of people into the church. And it seems to me that that is the path that is set out for us. That when we fall into sin, when our brothers and sisters fall into sin, we should not wink at it or turn our backs upon it, but find ways in our congregations to offer the forgiveness, which is in Christ, and then to restore them through a process of discipline in the life of the church, to full life and vitality in the congregation.

Let me turn our attention then for a few moments to worship in the life of the church. Until the close of the second century, the Christians usually met in private homes. As Justin Martyr phrased it, “The Christians assemble wherever it is convenient, because their God is not like the god of the heathen enclosed in space, but is invisibly present everywhere.” Usually the people met in the triclinium, as it was called—this oblong dining hall in the architectural structures of that day. An elevated seat was used for the reading of Scriptures, for preaching, and a simple table was used for communion. The first traces of special houses of worship, special buildings, which are set aside for that purpose, can be found in Tertullian in the late second or early third century. He’s the first one who speaks of actually going to church. After the middle of the third century, the building of churches began in great earnest, and we find a surge of church building between AD



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260 and AD 300. And then, of course, after Constantine and the openness to Christianity, enormous church building takes place in the fourth century.

All churches, without exception, met on Sunday mornings in celebration of the resurrection of Christ. This was the time for regular worship. Wednesdays and Fridays were often devoted to commemoration of the sufferings and death of Christ. Often they included times of fasting. One of the most interesting discussions of the movement from the Sabbath to the Lord’s Day—this whole interesting question of why the church came to worship on Sundays—is detailed for us in D. A. Carson’s collection of essays, titled From Sabbath to Lord’s Day, A Biblical, Historical and Theological Investigation, published by Zondervan in 1982. This is a book for those of you who may want to explore more fully some of the elements of Sunday worship and some of the reasons why it came to be the regular day of worship.

We have many interesting accounts of how that worship took place. One of the oldest comes from Pliny the Younger in AD 109. He was a non-Christian governor of Bithynia, and in his now famous Letter to Trajan he comments that, “Christians assemble on Sunday at sunrise, they sing responsively a song to Christ as God. They pledge themselves by oath not to do any evil work or to commit theft or robbery or adultery to break their word. Then in the evening they assemble again for communion.” There’s an account that I read to you in an earlier class from our collection of writings in Richardson from Justin Martyr, and you may want to go back in that section and read that account again, beginning on page 287 of that text.

These and other accounts point to the central aspects of Christian worship as it developed in the early centuries. It always included the reading of Scripture from the Old Testament, of course, in the earliest years, and then as they came to be circulated from the Gospels (the memoirs of the apostles, as they were called) and the Epistles. Acts was always read, especially during the Pentecost season. No set readings that we know of were set up until the fourth century. But increasingly after that time, you have special readings that follow the church year.

These early worship services also always included a sermon. This was almost always an exposition of the Scripture reading, and it included exhortations to repentance and to holy living. Preaching at first was open to any member who had the gift of public speaking. Gradually, however, it tended to become the



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special responsibility of the clergy, especially the bishop. One of the earliest sermons that we have is in our little collection in Richardson; it’s called Clement II. It was preached likely in Rome about AD 140, and if you want to read that, it’s on page 193 and following. He addresses the hearers as “brothers and sisters,” and we have this language of brother and sister very early in the life of the church. It was read usually from a manuscript, as this one was; it’s a kind of classic Christian homily. We don’t know who the author actually was. It’s ascribed to Clement, but it’s not very likely that it actually was Clement’s. But it’s an interesting example of one of the early sermons of the church.

Those of you who may want to explore this further may even want to read some of the sermons of Chrysostom, or later on of Saint Augustine. A number of these are available to us in collections of early writings of the church and are fascinating reading.

In addition to the reading of Scripture and the sermon (the exposition of that reading), early worship always included prayer. The usual posture for Christian prayer was standing up, often with outstretched arms. The service also included music. The church, of course, inherited the great Psalter from the Old Testament, which was used in the worship at the synagogue. They also added to that the hymns of the New Testament, particularly those which related to Christ’s birth: The Magnificat of Mary, The Benedictus of Zechariah, Gloria in Excelsis Deo of the heavenly host in Luke 2, the Nunc Dimmitis of Simeon, and so on. The oldest Christian poem, which was used as a hymn that we know of, was written by Clement of Alexandria about AD 202, and the first stanza of this poem reads: “Bridle of untamed colts, wing of unwandering birds, sure helm of babes, shepherd of royal lambs, assemble they simple children to praise holily to Him guilelessly, with innocent mouths. Christ, the guide of children.”

As we’ve earlier suggested, Christian worship was a mixture of those two dominant elements of synagogue worship from the Jewish heritage and the upper room. And just to draw those together again, let me suggest that from the Jewish synagogue worship came: (1) the reading of Scripture, (2) the exposition of Scripture, (3) the singing of psalms, (4) the use of common prayers, (5) the confession of faith, and (6) the collection of money for the needy.

And from the upper room came: (1) The Lord’s Supper, (2) prayers of intercession, (3) the singing of New Testament hymns, (4) the kiss of peace, and (5) the practice of baptism as Christ had



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commanded. Although these have been arranged and structured in many ways across the history of the church, these remain the central elements in true worship of the church. So that one might say that worship takes place where the Word is preached faithfully and where the sacraments or the ordinances are administered appropriately.

From the middle of the second century until about AD 500, public worship tended to be divided between the worship of the catechumens, as it was called, and the worship of the faithful. The first section was open to all of the baptized, unbaptized, and people who were under penance. It involved the Scripture reading, preaching, prayer, and singing. Then the unbaptized and people under penance were asked to leave the service, and the second part of the service (that of communion) was available only to members in full standing. These were held one after the other with a section in between in which the unbaptized and folk under penance requirements were asked to leave, and the doors were then shut and guarded. In fact, the term missa, “mass,” reflects this practice. The term itself means “dismission” at the end of the first service. And it came increasingly to mean communion at which only full members can remain.

There follows also a distinction between carnal and spiritual believers, or those who are able to “take milk for babes” and those who are able to “take strong meat for the mature.” So that you have that in visual form in terms of the division of the service into two parts, which became adopted early on in the life of the church. With the almost universal adoption of infant baptism in the fifth century, leaving very few adult learners, the practice of separate services was largely abandoned. So that you have that practice less and less characteristic of the church as it enters the Middle Ages. We’ll come back to some of those themes a bit later.

Let me talk just a bit with you about the Lord’s Supper and baptism. Communion was always a regular, and perhaps the most solemn part of Christian worship in those early years. Only the baptized could participate (remember our reading the requirements of that reflected in the manuals). It was celebrated each Sunday, and in some places daily. The service often began with a kiss of peace, given by men to men and women to women, as a token of Christian fellowship and love. Then there were the two parts of the service: (1) the first was the offering to pay for the elements, to support the ministry, and to help the poor; and (2) then the communion itself, the taking of the elements—bread, wine and water mixed. The elements were placed in the



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communicants hands by the clergy amid the singing of psalms by the congregation, often psalms like Psalm 34. Everyone stood. We don’t find them kneeling until about the 12th century. The spirit was one of joy and festivity. They received the elements, not in pews, but at the front of the congregation. And in fact, the first evidence we have of folk receiving the elements in pews doesn’t come until post-reformation Scotland, with the Church of Scotland initiating that practice, which is so common to us today. A thanksgiving and a benediction ended the service, and then the deacons were assigned to take the elements to all of the sick, the imprisoned, and those who couldn’t attend the service.

Often the earliest communions were held in the evenings, joined along with the “love feast,” the Agape, as a reenactment of the Lord’s Last Supper. Because of abuses and practical purposes, by the early second century this practice was largely abandoned. But evening love feasts continued. And in fact, “church suppers,” if we can call them that, have been part of church life from the very earliest years right down to our own day.

Along with the Lord’s Supper, a regular feature of early worship was baptism. The candidate usually received instructions for perhaps two or three years, although some were admitted immediately. The candidate was then at the service, asked to renounce all sin, all service to Satan, and to give himself or herself up to Christ. He or she then confessed the faith, and most of our early doctrinal confessions, as we’ll see later on, grew out of these baptismal confessions. This is probably the foundation of, what we call, The Apostles’ Creed today, which is very often used in our churches. There was a prayer by the clergy. Baptism took place often three times—in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—single immersion was introduced around the fourth century. Pouring of water over the head was also used if necessary (remember that interesting section from The Didache), and then came thanksgiving, benediction, and the brotherly kiss.

Baptisms often were done at Easter or Pentecost or one of the great feast days of the church. And the baptized often came to wear white as a symbol of their purity, of their abandonment of service to Satan, and of their introduction into the life of holiness within the church. We don’t find baptisteries, which are so common in so many of our churches today, until the fourth century, and these emerged in the southern part of Europe.

So here we have in the early centuries of the church, a developing pattern of worship, which starts as house-churches in small

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The Young Church in ActionLesson 05 of 24

communities of simple Christians—who gather together for prayer and Bible reading, for exposition of the text, for the Lord’s Supper, and for the practice of baptisms—gradually emerging into a much more structured and organized and orderly practice of worship in the life of the congregations as we know them today. These practices coming not only from what Christ had taught in the upper room, but of course, from the old practice of the synagogues, out of which many of the early Christians came.

The church then, as it gathered together, organized itself around particular leadership models, particular organizational structures, particular practices, worship conditions, and the like. And then as it gathered together, it was always conscious that it should spread itself out and scatter for service in the world. And that’s the story I’d like to turn to next, as the church not only gathering together for worship and fellowship and encouragement and training, but now scattered out in evangelism, in witness in the community, in its secular work, in its family life, and in its social involvements. And that fascinating story is the one that we’ll look at next.

survey of church history lesson · 2019-09-13 · commandments to men—things such as: “let the...

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