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We’re starting a new adult elective tomorrow morning at 9:15am at New Minas Baptist Church!  “Defending Your Faith” will attempt to cover a broad range of Christian theology & apologetics to both understand them better, and offer a reasoned reply to objections.  We’re looking for as many people as possible to be in on this course, since we learn just as much (if not more) from hearing YOUR experiences and views.  The more people involved, the better equipped we’ll all be.

“Defending Your Faith” isn’t about loading up on ammo to win a debate.  It’s about being equipped to maintain the best possible dialogue with the men, women & children you encounter every day.  Senior High and University students are MORE than welcome – you guys will have more use this info than most.  We’ll kick of tomorrow with an intro, and a quick look at our theme verse we’ll be using to guide our studies & discussions, 1 Peter 3:15

In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…

You don’t have to be a member of NMBC, you don’t even have to be a church attendee at all!  You might be just a friend of mine who wants to come check out what I do.  Whatever your reason, come check it out.  Here’s a map if you don’t know where it is.  Just ask for my class at the welcome centre when you walk in the door.

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If I’d had my choice of who I wanted to be the instigator of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther would not have been my first choice.  If it were up to me, I would have chosen the Englishman, John Wycliffe.  He had a keen mind, a pastor’s heart, and above all, a deep conviction to be conformed to God’s word.  We discussed Wycliffe and Jan Hus (aka John Huss) this past Sunday, but next Sunday we’ll begin watching the first of a few films highlighting the life and work of several key reformers.

If you can’t make it this coming Sunday (9:15am, New Minas Baptist Church), you can still watch the first film online for a limited time.  Click here to watch the 1984 film “John Wycliffe: The Morning Star.”

What were the early Protestants actually protesting?  The answer is a little more complicated than you might think.  The mighty empire of Rome may have fallen, but the church in Rome continued on, and the resultant political, educational and moral issues that arose during the Roman church’s height of power became hard to ignore for the early reformers.  We’ll be discussing the rise of Rome this Sunday at 9:15am at New Minas Baptist Church in room B5, and we need your input.  Don’t worry if you miss some weeks – we want you there as often as you can make it!

What does it mean to be a “Protestant?” Where did it come from?  Does it have any relevance today?  Starting Sunday, Jan 10 at 9:15am we’re going to take a look at the history, theology and relevance of the Protestant Reformation.  We’re also going to watch a couple awesome movies, ask some tough questions, but ultimately the reason we study these things is so that you can come to your own informed opinion on the issues.  So, if you’re ready to dig in, meet us at New Minas Baptist Church at 9:15am (usually don’t start until 9:30ish), in the first classroom in the “common room” (where all the books are).  Don’t worry if you’re late, or if you can’t make it every Sunday, we want you there!  The classes are so much more awesome when there’s some fresh minds to bring new points of view to the discussion.

Paul wrote two letters to the church at Corinth that we have preserved in the New Testament, and both contained sharp rebukes for some of the situations going on at that church.  Corinth was already city of some infamy, being a centre of commerce, so problems were bound to arise even in the Christian fellowship there.  Thankfully, Paul sorted them all out, right?  Wrong!  The church at Corinth continued to be a vexing source of controversy such that Clement, who was one of the church leaders in Rome, wrote the Corinthians yet another letter rebuking them, this time for chasing much of their their clergy out of the church!  In the midst of his letter, there’s one particular chapter where Clement lays on the sarcasm (a frequent device of Paul) in identifying where persecution is supposed to be coming from, rather than from your fellow Christians…

Ye are fond of contention, brethren, and full of zeal about things which do not pertain to salvation. Look carefully into the Scriptures, which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit. Observe that nothing of an unjust or counterfeit character is written in them. There you will not find that the righteous were cast off by men who themselves were holy. The righteous were indeed persecuted, but only by the wicked. They were cast into prison, but only by the unholy; they were stoned, but only by transgressors; they were slain, but only by the accursed, and such as had conceived an unrighteous envy against them. Exposed to such sufferings, they endured them gloriously. For what shall we say, brethren? Was Daniel cast into the den of lions by such as feared God? Were Ananias, and Azarias, and Mishael shut up in a furnace of fire by those who observed the great and glorious worship of the Most High? Far from us be such a thought! Who, then, were they that did such things? The hateful, and those full of all wickedness, were roused to such a pitch of fury, that they inflicted torture on those who served God with a holy and blameless purpose [of heart], not knowing that the Most High is the Defender and Protector of all such as with a pure conscience venerate His all-excellent name; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. But they who with confidence endured [these things] are now heirs of glory and honour, and have been exalted and made illustrious by God in their memorial for ever and ever. Amen.   (Clement to the Corinthians, Ch.44)

Tune in next week, 9:15 at New Minas Baptist Church!  I said we’d be covering Polycarp, but I jumped the gun a bit.  We still might get to introducing him, though.  In the meantime, you can peruse the rest of Clement’s letter here.

This morning we’ll be looking at our first piece of extra-biblical Christian writings from the early church.  The Didache (pronounced did-a-kay) is dated somewhere around 70 AD in the aftermath of the Jewish Rebellion and contains both moral teachings and local church polity.  You can download an MSWord document of the Didache here. Here’s a highlight from the document – one way to identify a false prophet:

Let every apostle who cometh unto you be received as the Lord.  And let the apostle when departing take nothing but bread until he arrive at his resting-place; but if he ask for money, he is a false prophet. (Didache 11:4,6)

I guess certain forms of televangelism probably wouldn’t have been too successful in the first century.

Here’s a teaser about some of the things we’ll be talking about in the first couple of weeks:  In 70 AD, in order to quell a Jewish rebellion, Jerusalem was sacked and the temple destroyed.  Josephus, the Jewish historian, writes about one of the most gruesome calamities that befell the conquered when it was discovered that some of the deserters had swallowed their gold:

Hereupon some of the deserters, having no other way, leaped down from the wall immediately, while others of them went out of the city with stones, as if they would fight them; but thereupon, they fled away to the Romans:—but here a worse fate accompanied these than what they had found within the city; [...] there was found among the Syrian deserters a certain person who was caught gathering pieces of gold out of the excrements of the Jews’ bellies; for the deserters used to swallow such pieces of gold, as we told you before, when they came out; and for these did the seditious search them all; for there was a great quantity of gold in the city, insomuch that as much was now sold [in the Roman camp] for twelve Attic [drams], as was sold before for twenty-five; but when this contrivance was discovered in one instance, the fame of it filled their several camps, that the deserters came to them full of gold. So the multitude of the Arabians, with the Syrians, cut up those that came as supplicants, and searched their bellies. Nor does it seem to me that any misery befell the Jews that was more terrible than this, since in one night’s time about two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected.

Josephus, Flavius ; Whiston, William: The Works of Josephus : Complete and Unabridged. Peabody : Hendrickson, 1996, c1987, S. Wars 5.548-552

This coming Sunday morning, September 13th, one of the adult electives offered Sunday mornings at New Minas Baptist Church is a study of Church History.  As the facilitator, I hope that you’ll find the study exciting and informative because believe me… there’s nothing boring about the history of the Christian Church.

One of the keys to the way I teach church history is that we don’t really worry much about dates.  BO-RING!  In fact, by the end of the entire study the only dates I want you to remember is just three years.  If you commit these three numbers to memory, you’ll be so far ahead you won’t believe it.  So here they are…

70        325        1517

So remember those three years, and we’ll start on our first Sunday talking about that first one.  If you were a Jew at that time, you would have said that 70 AD was the end of the world!  Again, the class starts on Sunday, September 13 at 9:15am at New Minas Baptist Church.  Hope to see you there!

The site’s called “XianTruth.com,” and just like the old holiday abbreviation, “Xmas,” lots of people mistake it as somehow taking “Christ” out of the word.  However, I’m all about reclaiming Christian truth & tradition including reexamining some current trends.  Abbreviating “Christ” with “X” is a practise that was started by us Christians!  The reason is simple: in Greek, the language that the New Testament was written in, Christ is spelled “Χριστός” (transliterated “Christos”).

So don’t get bent out of shape the next time you see someone write “Xmas” or “Xian” somewhere.  Instead, ask them if they know why we use an “X” there.  Might just open up the door to a great conversation about Jesus!