 How much should we listen to the early church fathers? Should we listen to the early church fathers? Well, it really depends. One, why are you listening to them? What are you going to them for now? Is there a value that you can get from listening to them? Can we glean something from them? Well, sure. But to what degree it depends, it's true that they were close to the situation, but is that always reliable? Remember, even today we can find witnesses, even eyewitnesses, who were there and got facts wrong, who misunderstood the situation. And the same thing happened there. As a matter of fact, if we're going to give validity to the early church fathers, we're gonna have to do a couple of things. One, figure out which early church father to listen to because when we started looking at certain key doctrines and theological statements, there doesn't seem to be always a lot of consensus. This person might believe this. This person might believe that. And if we're gonna listen to the early church fathers, what then should we also listen to the early Jewish leaders who preceded the church, what do they think? Should we go and give a lot of validity to, let's say the Talmud? Well, there's always something that you can glean from there. You can get an idea of what some of the people were thinking, what some of the ideas might have been. But remember, we're not told to look at them. We're told to look at scripture. We're told that all scripture has been inspired. Breathe out. Well, whatever the early church fathers have said, be it an Irenaeus, be it a Polycarp, be it a Justin Martyr, you name it, Oregon, Tertullian, you name it, they all differ in some ways. How could it be that these men who were closer to the situation than we were, how is it that they differ on so many different things? Well, because they're human beings. First of all, we would also have to assume that they were all believers. Now, there's no reason to doubt they weren't believers, but there's also no proof that they were simply because they had made a profession of faith. Not that they're not, but the point is, their words carry no more weight than anyone else's, especially in comparison to the scriptures. God gave us the scriptures, and for us as second guests of scriptures, and then began to supplant what someone else says, that can be a problem. Now, if you wanna take what the scripture said, and then see what the early church thought or how they applied, that's fine, but we also have to remember something else. The writings that we do have, the few, and I mean the few that we do have, we don't know of all the other writings that may have existed. We don't know how completely the thought is presented when we listen to this writer or these few writers, because again, everyone did not have their writings to survive. We have people attest to what someone may or may not have said, but I would be careful in listening to the writings of dead men. There can be some value in those, even those who have written in the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th century, even 18th century, even now. You can always gain some wisdom or some extra information from the benefit of what others think, what they thought, how they felt, understanding also the early church fathers in relation to what the culture was like at that time, kind of gives us a little bit of understanding. But the problem is sometimes as we end up taking our denominations and our doctrinal views, we take our cues and keys from them and then read them into what the Bible says, and that is not what we're supposed to do, as though God didn't have enough foresight to think that these other men are gonna come behind and then give extra clarity. That was never a guide. There was never something that God wanted us to do. Listen to someone who was not inspired to give you God's words can be a problem. And even when listening to the people who were inspired to give God's words, there were times where we see accounts where they were confused, where they went off on their own beliefs. Jesus is telling them that he's getting ready to die. What do they do? They begin to argue about who is going to be the greatest. In Acts one, their mind is thinking of when will he return? Won't the kingdom of heaven be restored to Israel? Jesus says it's not for you to know, but instead be prepared to be my witnesses once the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Sometimes our minds are in different places that God didn't. Why? Because they're not God. They're not the Holy Spirit. And so there can be a difference of opinion, a difference of belief. Remember Paul and Barnabas had a difference on John Mark. And so it's possible that even godly men can differ on different things, on how things ought to go, how things look. Because again, they're not God. What we do have that God made sure that we would have is his word. Let's use that and be careful not to use so much of what these other men have stated. They can be helpful, but I can promise you, there are people that have gotten so far off because they have read the works of this person. They've read the writings of that person. They've listened to this older church father. They can be helpful, but there should not be the guide for how we look at the scriptures. Amen.