Canon, Creed, and Bishops (Lecture 6) Luke's Assessment

Summery:

Irenaeus said, "the authority of the church rests on three things. It rest on the Canon of the Bible. Secondly it rests on the Apostolic Creed. And thirdly, it rests on the episcopate." I love the structure of this lecture. I won't lie. I skipped ahead to lesson 7 as well. Both are very good lectures with a lot of information, one could organize into flow charts and graphs--exciting. 

For our purposes and similar education, it may be important to point out a few things. I believe what were eventually called Church Fathers and Bishops (geographic Pastors who graduated to a bigger sphere) are actually equivalent to what we refer to in our church as "Apostles of the Church". We do believe that though the Apostles of Christ have all passed away, Apostles of the Church are still given as gifts from God to the churches in different geographic areas. So when we hear bishop or church father, we ought to think "apostle of the church". 

Also David Calhoun mentions in either lecture 6 or 7 that we ought give grace to some of the church fathers who sometimes seem to teach heresy since orthodoxy wasn't established yet. I want to caution here. God's word cautions teachers of His word, again and again to be careful what they teach. Because a teacher is judged by what he teaches. Some of the these church fathers are so in error that I would not recommend a Christian read their writings. Origin for instance is not a guy I particularly like--though he was a very intelligent scholar and wrote and worked on many biblical translations. 

Q1: Can a true Apostle of the Church (given by God for the equipping of the Church) be also a Heretic, or are some of these heretical church leaders actually a judgement or powerful delusion of God?

Q2: Tertullian led the church faithfully for a while. His judgement on culture and heresy seemed in the beginning to be spot on. But eventually he fell into the sad heresy of Montanism. Does his later fall negate his earlier judgments? 

Q3: What would your reaction be if Brent, one Sunday morning, instituted a creed he and the elders wrote?

Lecture 5- The Rule of Faith: Orthodoxy & Heresy

Summary:
In the early church many problems started to arise and become evedent. These problems were in church doctrines and what it ment to be a Christian. Eventually the named them heresy. The church fathers did say that as the heresys arose, it helped clearify what Christians really believe.
Three main heresy's at the time of the earlly church were, Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Montanism. These beliefs are very similar to what we have today. I can see that the ideas are not completly different but they have a new name for everything. This is what made the church form the Christian orthodoxy, our right belief. The heresys did in help form and cleaify what christians believe cause it made them sit down and defend the christian faith. God used even things like destructive heresys to help build His Church!

Questions:

1. When someone thinks that they have a "higher understanding of something" how do you correct them? When is the point you have to do church disciple because someone belive outside the bible?

2. Montanism was said to have been very hard to spot the error in. It seems very similar to what we have today? How would you spot this kind of thinking and how would you refute it in a biblical way? it seems the hardest out of them because it appeals to and sounds like Christianity.

3. The task of orthodoxy is to: A) Stating the Faith
B) Maintianing the Mystery
In doing these things do we need to study both the bible and the heresy? It sounds like the heresy just makes us focus on certain truths of the bible!

Session 3 The Persecution

Summary:
The persecution of the early church was started by the Jews but then moved to Rome. Rome eventually became the source of persection. The dates of the persecution in Rome are 60 A.D- 320A.D. They are not constent years of persection or always constent but there was some intense times and some times of peace. I really like how how the Mr. Calhoun goes into all the reasons for the persection and then he states that the christians who did give into persection are apostate. They denied Christ and that is a major deal even in times of extreme hardship.

Questions:
It was said that christians began to want to be persecuted, where is the balance between wanting to stand up for your faith but not out to try and be killed for it? how do your correct someone who wants to just go die for Christ?

What benefits do you think that persecution would have in America today? Would it help christianity or would it extiguish it here?

One of the charges against christians was the "hatred of human race," how do we show we love people outside but keep fellowship in the church the priority? Today it is seen that peoples best friends aren't even Christians. How do we get people to hold the Christian brothers to a family like relationship?