 Okay, let's pray and then we'll get started. Okay. Father, we just want to thank you, Lord, for this day. We thank you for this week, a new week that you've given us. This Lord, as your word declares, that this is the day that you've made and we will rejoice and we glad in it. Father God, we thank you for the opportunity that you've given us, the privileges that you give us, Lord. And we thank you, God, for every new day, every new beginning, Father God, we thank you for this week that lies ahead. And we thank you, God, that your word says that you've called us to walk circumspectly, redeeming the time. And so we will do that, Lord, each and every day and each and every week, Father God. Yes, Father God, we just want to thank you. We come at today, we come at this time into your mighty hands. We pray that you would speak, that you would speak to our hearts, that you would purify us, that you would renew, O God, things to our minds, Father God, we thank you. We give you all the praise. We give you all the glory at this time. In Jesus' precious name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Okay. Yeah. Last class, we looked at the ministry of the teacher and we were studying some of the practical things of doing the ministry of the teacher. Practical keys of doing the ministry of the teacher and we finished by saying that we ourselves, we need to do what we teach, practice what we teach, and also remain in that place of being teachable. That's what we saw. One section that we said we'll handle later was the restoration of the ministry of the teacher and one of the things that, so we look at that today and also look at a couple of, maybe go through a couple of videos if we have the time, which talks about the teachers, the early teachers and also have a look at the apostolic fathers whom we call as the apostolic fathers who were right after the apostles that they were there. Right up to, I think even 380, they were there and kind of reiterating, teaching the church, nurturing the church and writing down, recording and making some of these things practical, some of these teachings practical for the life of the church. We did a couple of videos also. But when we look at the restoration of the teaching ministry, we see that as we look at the, what we've studied in the Holy Spirit, the restorative moves of God. We see right from 1500 onwards, we see some specific moves of God and we have looked at it over and over again, I think starting from the Holy Spirit class and we looked at how God, after this, starting with the Reformation movement, we see that God restoring things, restoring the doctrines, the teachings of the church back to the body of Christ and we see that for doing or in doing so and for bringing that restoration, we see God raising up people who teach this, raising up people, raising up men and women who taught faithfully, irrespective of the consequences. Starting from Reformation, even before the Reformation, 200 years or 300 years before the Reformation, I'm sure you would have studied in the last class, Church history, we see that people, like Jan Hoos and Peter Waldo and all these people, John Wycliffe, they taught Salvation, which is only in the name of Jesus and it is not by works, but by faith, it is only through grace, only by grace and through faith in the name of the Lord Jesus. So we see that they taught even before what we actually recognize as the Reformation starting with Martin Luther nailing those 95 theses on the door of the Cathedral of Wittenberg and starting that spark and that fire of Reformation spreading and we see that 1500 and we see right from that time, we see the Puritan move, the separation of church from the state and we see the teaching of baptism, teaching of baptism being something that is as a sign after someone... Oh, I'm sorry, I think I kind of lost. Can you hear me now? Yes, first. Yeah, it's okay. Okay, I kind of lost the connection. I'm sorry, I'm in a different location and I think that's kind of caused that. Okay. Okay, so we were talking... Excuse me. So we're looking at the Anna Baptist who were literally re-baptizing the people and based on the genuineness of their belief and so on. So we see the Puritan move, we see the holiness move where we see the separation of the church from the world from the ways of the world, from the influence of the world, from the culture of the world. So we see that. So in all these moves, we see people being raised up who taught fearlessly, the divine healing movement and the Pentecostal or the Charismatic movement. We see people teaching. We see people teaching these important core doctrines of the church and it was in the face of a lot of persecution, a lot of challenges because everybody was not so inviting of these teachings even though they were scriptural and based on the word. So we see that people persecuted these teachers and people resisted these movements. And the sad thing is that these were people who were part of the earlier move like we see that they were part of an earlier restorative move but they persecuted the current move of God and right down to the move of the Holy Spirit restoring the truth of the 5-fold ministry and the movement of the saints that the believer is not to just come and attend church and just be there as an audience to just hear passively and go but really to the believers there to do the work of ministry like we read in Ephesians 4 and verses 11 and 12 that the saints are equipped for the work of ministry. Now they could be having a formal or a full-time work they might be involved in some vocation they might be in business they might be in a corporate setting but every believer is a saint who is to be equipped for the work of ministry which means that the ministry is for every believer so teachers played an important role that God would raise up these teachers and when the Holy Spirit brought about these moves the restorative moves the teachers taught fearlessly so we see that right through post the reformation we see that and even before that now when we look at the time after the apostles soon after the apostles in the early church itself we see that there were teachers there were men of God whom the church historians call as the apostolic fathers so they established certain things and even at those times even in those days the attack or in a constant threat of either people well people not receiving the truth that was one thing the other thing was people who were teaching heretical things there were all kinds of influences so there were a lot of heresies being taught as well that the truth was mixed with a lot of legends and folklore and we see all that also so here were these what we call as the apostolic fathers who were teaching the truth who were reiterating the truth and some of them interestingly we see that they had they had contact or they had been mentored or they knew personally the apostles who walked with Jesus Peter and John so for example we read about we read about someone called Clement of Rome who was actually who said that he knew Peter personally and he said to be prayed over and also consecrated for ministry by Peter himself and so on so we see people like that Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch who was called the bishop of the church at Antioch and who stood for the faith who were martyred for their faith but who also were learned people and they wrote letters and they established teaching in all these letters for example Ignatius of Antioch who said to have written at least seven of those two places like Ephesus and Philadelphia the church in Smyrna and so on so to establish these teachings and also some of the practical things and the earliest of these works which were actually which was actually a compilation of these practical teachings was called what was called didache it was spelt like this which was pronounced did or it is also pronounced didache so which was a compilation of teachings to the church and it was about various topics like one was about fasting about prayer about teachers, apostles, prophets the kind of support and also some of the things about communion and so on so which was read in the church, early church which was not part of the canon people knew that this was not inspired scripture but something that was going to help them because it had had a lot of references to scripture and people knew that it was but with regards to the authors probably it was like we don't know the author was unknown but it was a compilation and it was again used in the church in the early church and it was discovered in the 1800s so there were things like this there were writings like this which were used and which were very helpful for the church so let's I just want us to watch a couple of videos and which throw a lot of light on these apostolic fathers and also that time before the the Nicene Creed the what is called the pre-Nicene period and how these writings actually helped the church and how these teachers who were somewhere from secular backgrounds who had accepted the Lord some were very very intellectual, some were learned and a lot of them really wrote a lot of like Justin Marta and UCBS church historian Justin Marta was an apologist much like Apollos we see that he was an apologist defending the faith and so on so let's watch a couple of videos I will turn off the camera so that the bandwidth is ok now who were the apostolic fathers put simply the apostolic fathers were a group of figures who live roughly from 75 on up until about 150 to 200 AD now that last number obviously is a bit of a wide berth 50 years is a bit of a stretch in really going on up to the year 200 is a bit far to still be talking about the apostolic fathers but give or take this is roughly the time of the apostolic fathers age and all we mean by apostolic fathers is this history has accorded the earliest writers in the earliest figures and pastors of the earliest church with the name the fathers now it depends on how you ask if you ask a Roman Catholic the patristic age as it's called the age of the fathers go quite some time it can go all the way up until the 5th century or even beyond if you talk to others they don't really like this term at all certain Anabaptist groups tend not to prefer to give an honorific to one age of the church and those who see the early church is somewhat corrupt anyway tend not to glory in the writings from this period anyway but both Protestants and Catholics are agreed that there was this patristic age this age of the earliest centuries of the church the church fathers and so all kinds of folks in the first at least four or five centuries of the church can be called the fathers the fathers of orthodox you might say or the fathers of the church and so Augustine and Jerome and all of these earliest figures can be considered fathers when we refer to the apostolic fathers we're only referring to this earliest century of the church those who are the bridge between themselves and the patristic age and the figures that we're talking about are not all that numerous and the writings from these folks are not all that significant they're either short epistles or short little tracks and treatises but we can list them here just so that you're aware of them there's Clement of Rome who we already mentioned there's Ignatius of Antioch Polycarp and Papias there are a couple of books that are given the name of an author entirely sure of its authenticity in terms of the name of the person who wrote it and there are other books that simply have no author at all the Shabbat of Hermos for example has no author listed with it it's a prophetic utterance two of these texts in particular though we're going to separate and isolate and sort of study just briefly one is the Epistle of Diagnetus which we're actually going to look at in our next lecture on early heretics and Christian orthodoxy now we're going to look at the didache now the didache is a very important book from this earliest time and in fact it is actually the earliest surviving catechism from the early church the didache now the name the didache just simply means the teaching or sometimes the teaching of the twelve now this text had for a long time been lost to us in the west it was actually in 1873 that someone rediscovered the text even ever since then it's been studied as one of the earliest if not the earliest texts that we have from the first and second century dating it is next to impossible but it is certainly extraordinarily early either late first century or the early second century and this text is a catechism it's designed to instruct new Christians on the order and the structure of the faith and the way to live the Christian life in this period of time and for that reason alone it is extraordinary because it says so many things about the early church pattern of life that we're always interested in now the teaching of the didache is vital for understanding its impact in the earliest centuries and it actually brings together all we've talked about so far in this lecture which is the early Christian desire to distinguish itself as the culmination and the fulfillment of the Jewish Scriptures while yet also saying that the Christian way is different and on the other hand distinguishing the Christian faith from the pagan world around it and so if you go into the didache and you read it the earliest move that the text makes is it lays out what it calls the two ways and it says that there is one way which is the way into death and the other way which is the way onto life and it opens in a very strikingly different way it opens with the Shema the call and Deuteronomy and elsewhere in the Old Testament that hero Israel the Lord our God is one it opens with this and then it goes on to list the greatest commandment that we should love our neighbors ourselves and it goes on down a list of programmatic comments really about the ways that Christians are to live their lives and then next transitions to a number of prohibitions against activities or engagements with the world around it the Christians were supposed to take care and distance themselves from they were for example to avoid things like murder and adultery sexual promiscuity theft very sort of earthy ethical things then there were other things that were listed that are clearly coming from the Roman pagan world things like magic sorcery infanticide abortion perjury coveting all these things that are part and parcel to some of the Roman ethos it even speaks about not bearing false testimony about not holding grudges not being double minded acting as though our yes is our yes and our no is our no in other words the did I K is calling for Christians to be upstanding citizens in the context of the ancient world that they do not participate in the things they consider to be idolatrous but on the other hand they will not be vindictive oppressive back biting kinds of folks who are after their own gain and against that of their neighbors so the text lays out all of these things that the Christian is supposed to do as he conducts himself in the world the other half of the document though deals with the rituals and the formation of the church's worship and it's this section that always draws the attention of students and scholars and experts and novices and everyone in between because in this section the did I K actually lays out some instructions for baptism and the Eucharist and for fasting in the early church that are unrivaled in their explicit design baptism for example for all the debates that a lot of modern post reformational people have over baptism particularly in the mode of baptism do you sprinkle or do you dunk well very infallible enough the did I K doesn't really seem to care at all in fact it doesn't mention anything to do with sprinkling or dunking it does seem to have a preference for immersion some level however it makes the case that sometimes immersion is impossible because you don't have enough water the one thing that the did I K does care about though is that there is at least some pains taken to try to find what it calls living water which is to mean a running river that if possible that baptism was to be done in living water that is to say stream now the did I K does not cast anathemas on those who are unable to do this it just says if you're able to do this that's fine he also says that those who do the baptizing and those who are to be baptized should fast for at least a day or two beforehand to prepare their hearts and minds for what they're about to undertake he says if immersion is impossible in living water that's fine just pour the water three times over the head and I do believe once and for all that should put to rest the mode of baptism problem those who think that the practice is so clear one way the other should take a little bit of the pragmatism of this document into their hearts and realize that if you're into immersion that's fine but if you can't immerse pouring over the head three times is just as sufficient for the baptism secondly the did I K is very clear on some of the language used in the Eucharist in fact you might even say that this is liturgical language now I don't think that's formalistic liturgically but just simply that just as we see in the book of Corinthians where Paul is giving some comments about what is said during the Eucharistic service the dedicate repeats many of these lines almost verbatim though not entirely so it says that concerning the cup we say we thank thee our father for the holy vine of David thy servant which thou made us known to us through Jesus thy servant to thee be the glory forever and there is a similar refrain for the bread when it is offered as well clearly in other words the early church is Eucharistic so in other words if you are of the opinion that the Lord supper is a lot of gobbledygook that was sort of invented and a lot of liturgy that was sort of trumped up over three centuries the early part of the church you need to really wrestle with the dedicate from the beginning it is saying that the Eucharist matters and here is the form and the language and the vocabulary we use during this part of the service another thing that the dedicate cites as part of the practice of the early church is the practice of fasting very interesting enough this is one of the points when the early church does take a real sort of cultural stand against Judaism though not in practice it was the practice of the Jews to fast two days a week and the Jewish practice was to fast on Monday and Thursday that is to say from sun up to sun down on Monday and Thursday Jews would abstain from food they would perhaps give that money away that they would have bought food with maybe they would give the food itself away to the poor but on Mondays and on Thursdays the Jews would fast well the dedicate says in no uncertain terms that the Christians do not fast quote with the hypocrites but instead the Christians fast on Wednesdays and Fridays and so the practice is still the same they just chose two alternative days in the week they would fast he also says that the Christians pray the Lord's prayer three times a day and he says very explicitly that by this point Christians are increasingly choosing not to pray with their Jewish brethren that at some point their difference in their understanding of the Messiah was causing them to be unable to pray together because they were praying to different ends and for different means and frankly to different ways at least in terms of different understandings of what God had wrought in the person of Christ and he says that at this point the Christians and the Jews had begun to pray separately and that the Christians pray the Lord's prayer three times a day in the end what we know about the Apostolic Fathers is really only piecemeal we always wish we knew more we always wish we had smoking guns about early church worship literities that were still sort of left we wish that the practices of the early church were more obvious to us at times frankly one of the most important questions is how did this untethering of the Jewish and the Christian world go about because from the very beginning we see some movements away from Judaism very self-conscious movements away not just animosity either not just simply Christians rejecting Jews through anti-Semitism but real structural liturgical problems when one is worshiping Messiah as Lord and one is not and the church having to reckon with that and deal with its own identity as the followers of Christ we also wish we knew more about to simply day-to-day life in the early church unfortunately those pieces are hard to come by what we have though in the early church right in the dawn of the post-apostolic age is some real broad sketches of a faithful church that is following Christ that is attempting to distinguish itself from paganism on the one hand and having a bit of a difficult time understanding its relationship culturally in day-in-day-out life with the Jewish synagogue that was on the other side of the Christian church the Christians obviously knew where they stood Christ was Lord Christians also had to reckon with the fact that a number of them in the earliest decades were Jewish converts and they were so wrapped up in the traditions and the rituals of things not all of which were bad and pharisaical that they had to understand how is the Christian going to find its own way and its own pattern of life in this world and we see some of this in the did okay now the next thing to come up is as the world begins to take its eye and looks at the church and begins to say things about the church as the pagans look at the church and begin to cast dispersions and make fun of it for being sort of poor and weak and foolish and as the Jews begin to attack Christianity as being a porrent and a bastardization of the Jewish faith the next step in the apostolic father's age is a transition from simply maintaining its own ethos and developing its own ministry internally to a new move of what we call apologetics and apologetics is the explanation and the defense of the Christian faith to the outside world and that transition is a vital one because what we begin to see with the rise of the apologists is a full scale defense of why the Christian faith is the truth and the life and why the scriptures are fulfilled in Christ and when we get to that age we will start researching of Christian writings and we will look at that subject in our next lecture okay so a little bit of what was there in the diddak the diddaki but we also need to understand that just want to apologize about the typos in that video somewhat in proofread but we also need to understand that some of the some of the practices of the church some of the things that which were not really helpful, not really scriptural so we need to understand that as well especially about some of these things about fasting and also about the baptism I think it was just a practical thing that if there was no water but we also know that the word baptism means to immerse completely so yeah just a couple of things that I thought we should clarify there but we see that this was so writings like these which were there which which were really helping the early church believer to and pointing the early believer back to scripture and if there was confusion because of the various teachings that were doing the rounds agnosticism and Arianism and all that these were keeping them grounded pointing them back to scripture so yeah there's another video probably I'll share the link maybe you can watch that so we see several other names like Clement of Rome Ignatius Irenaeus, Eusebius and also Thertullian Montanus who later it became a heresy heretical kind of teaching and extreme teaching and we also read about origin and so on these are the people who were there who were nailing down doctrine pointing to the truth but at the same time we also see that yes there were people who were fallible and maybe in practice and also in their in wanting to wanting to do certain things in their sincerity probably they laid down some legalistic things as well like what we heard about okay you need to fast and pray in order to prepare for baptism and also you need to fast on these days so that was also some of the things which had crept in so we need to understand that as we read about them and also read about their teachings okay any questions here or anything that you might have read or that you want to share none whatsoever okay okay then let's move on to the next chapter which is chapter 10 and we're looking at the ministry gift of the pastor right we looked at the evangelist and we studied about the teacher and now we move on to look at the ministry gift of the pastor now let's look at a few scripture which point to the fact that the Lord Jesus himself referred to himself as a pastor or in other words the word used there is a shepherd from which we get the English translation of pastor actually the shepherd so we know that the Lord Jesus referred to himself as the shepherd the good shepherd right so let's look at a few scriptures here okay Matthew 26 and verse 31 if you're following in the notes it's on page 25 Matthew 26 and verse 31 then Jesus said to them all of you would be made to stumble because of me this night so he's referring to the fact that he's going to the cross the disciples themselves will be persecuted so he's saying you will be made to stumble because of me for it is written I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered so here it's a reference that he is referring to himself as the shepherd and because of what happens to the shepherd that the sheep will be scattered Hebrews 13 and verse 20 now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant and so on so again the writer of Hebrews referring to Jesus as the great shepherd of the sheep and we know that the Lord himself in John chapter 10 said I am so and so I am the good shepherd came first Peter chapter 2 and Peter says he's referring to the people he's referring to the believers and he says you were like sheep going astray but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls the verse before that refers to the Lord Jesus who himself bore sins in his own body on the tree and we having died to sins might live for righteousness so here is talking about us he's talking to the believer as a sheep going astray he says now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls obviously the Lord Jesus reference to the Lord Jesus first Peter 5 again he talks about the shepherd first Peter 5 and verse 2 in giving instructions to the leaders in places of positions of spiritual leadership first Peter 5 verse 2 shepherd the flock of God which is among you serving as overseers not by compulsion but willingly not for dishonest gain but eagerly nor as being lords over those entrusted to you but being examples to the flock and when the chief shepherd appears you will receive the crown of glory which does not fade away that does not fade away so here referring to the Lord Jesus as the chief shepherd when the chief shepherd appears you will receive the crown of glory several things that we learn about the shepherd here so he in verse 2 he says shepherd the flock of God which is among you serving as an overseer shepherd is an overseer and how does an overseer you know does the function of shepherding or overseeing not by compulsion but willingly not for dishonest gain but eagerly not as being lords over those entrusted to you so he lists down a few things here that a shepherd should not do which means the Lord Jesus as the chief shepherd does not do these things and so as the as the overseer is a shepherd the flock of God you know first thing that we see here just making a digression here but then we learn quite a bit about the relationship between the sheep and the shepherd the pastor and the flock so he says shepherd the flock of God so the first reference here I mean the first thing that we can learn here is that Peter saying that this flock are leading as the shepherd it is the flock of God okay so it's flock of God meaning this flock or the people whom he's referring to as flock and sheep and so on they belong to God so they belong to God he's saying this is the flock of God so it's not like the shepherd owns or shepherd is anyway entitled for certain things none of that right so we see it's the flock of God so something that is of God which God entrusts to the overseer in order to oversee, in order to shepherd but really the owner of God himself, the chief shepherd himself right so we see that shepherd the flock of God which is among you serving as an overseer serving as a steward as a manager as an overseer knowing that which again has several implications meaning that you will have to give you are accountable right you carry out your shepherding or you carry out your overseeing that you are accountable right you are an overseer you are a steward therefore you are accountable right serving as overseers and he also qualifies how should one serve okay so not by compulsion but willingly so not by compulsion this is anyway it's the call of God it's the invitation of God it is the flock of God so it is to be carried out willingly and not by compulsion not for this honest gain but eagerly okay so that's the thing if there's any intention that it is going to be something that is going to be of gain or in terms of fame in terms of however else that one might think says not for dishonest gain but eagerly you serve as an overseer willingly you serve as an overseer eagerly and again the third one is not as lords over those entrusted but as being examples to the flock not as lords not as people who are bossy not as ones who are dictating terms well we know that there is spiritual authority to whom you know the the leaders to whom the Lord gives that authority spiritual authority to carry out the task and like Paul writes it is for edification and not for destroying the person or the people it is for edification not as being lords over those entrusted but being examples so you shepherd or you do carry out the task of overseeing being an example yourself being examples to the flock and whatever you oversee and whatever you instruct example to the flock and when the chief shepherd appears you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away okay so the chief shepherd he is the one who is ultimately so which means that he is going to review things you are going to be accountable to him he is going to review certain things and the reward comes from him the reward is not something that I take for myself the reward comes from the chief shepherd so some very important things that we see listed here when Peter writes about the shepherd his reference to Jesus being the chief shepherd and and also about the relationship between the shepherd and the sheep overseer and the sheep another place where we all know is John chapter 10 where the Lord refers to himself as the good shepherd and he contrasts between the shepherd and the hireling someone who is there on hire and he contrasts between their intentions he contrasts between the the quality of their work and the motive of their heart their attitude with which they carry out the task etc so he talks about that as well so let's turn to John John chapter 10 and let's read through okay first 29 verses so let's read through and then we will we will review a few verses and talk about that okay John chapter 10 verse 1 most assuredly I say to you he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs up some other way the same is a thief and a robber but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep to him the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leaves them out and when he brings out his own sheep he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his name, his voice yet they will by no means follow a stranger but will flee from him for they do not know the voice of strangers Jesus used this illustration but they did not understand the things to them so let's look at these first 6 verses he says I say to you he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs up some other way the same is a thief and a robber and he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep and we are going to read further when he says he refers to himself as the door and refers to himself as the shepherd also right so this is how he does the sheep hear his voice he calls the sheep by name leaves them out and when he brings his own sheep he goes before them and the sheep follow him and they know his voice let's read from verse 7 onwards then Jesus said to them again most assuredly I say to you I am the door of the sheep all who ever came before me are thieves and robbers but the sheep did not hear them I am the door if anyone enters by me he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture verse 10 the thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly I am the good shepherd good shepherd gives his life for the sheep but a higherling he who is not the shepherd one who does not own the sheep sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them so he talks about the good shepherd he talks about the higherling and he also refers to himself as a door through which the sheep enter the sheepfold but we are just going to focus on him being the shepherd so he says I am the good shepherd and he also says this is the opposite of what the thief does the thief comes to steal to kill to destroy but I have come that they may have life and they may have it more abundantly very reassuring that he comes as the shepherd that he is the good shepherd he has come that we might have life and life more abundantly so we will take a quick break and then we will come back after the break and continue