The Medieval Church (500-1500)

They sometimes call this period the Dark Ages, but it wasn't all dark. Especially after A.D. 1000, the High Middle Ages, there was some significant development as well as a few important theologians. Two large movements having roots all the way back to the Church Fathers became major movements, the monastic movement and sacramental theology.

The Monastic Movement

The monasteries were the place to be in the Middle Ages. They were the source of spirituality and devotion in the church. Most Protestants do not understand the variety of monastic movements during this time. Now is your chance!

Hermit monks go back to St. Anthony (251-356). His life was made famous by the classic biography by Athanasius, Life of St. Anthony. Communal monks, however, have been more dominant, and their pioneer was Pachomius (285-346). He started ten monasteries under a Rule of life he wrote prescribing monastic life and work, including the disciplines of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. Monasticism spread East and West. In the East, St. Basil (330-379) shaped Orthodox monasteries. In the West, Benedict of Nursia’s Benedictine Rule was influential. Most of the thousands of monks from 500-1200 were Benedictine. Their work was prayer, and they memorized and recited the entire book of Psalms as a prayer guide.

Missionary monks – Don’t let their reputation for seclusion fool you. Many monks were vibrant missionaries across Europe. The Irish island of Iona was a center of active missionary work led by Columba (521-597). For over two centuries missionaries trained and deployed from Iona to Scotland, England, and Europe. Other monks were accidental missionaries when local folks sought them out for advice and soon a church was planted near the monastery for the community.

Cluniac Order : Prayer– Between 900-1100, five abbots of unusual vision, spiritual aptitude, and ability (named Berno, Odo, Majolus, Odilo, and Hugh) directed a monastery at Cluny in France. It grew to over 1000 monasteries and focused on a return to regular hours of prayer (seven times day and night) and manual labor. Unfortunately, their zeal for prayer attracted noble families, and their gifts undermined their commitment to poverty and manual labor and weakened their movement.

Cistercian Order: Remote Areas – Beginning in France in 1098, the Cistercians wanted to return to seclusion and simplicity, so they located their monasteries in remote areas. Within two centuries they numbered over 600 monasteries, due in part to their famous abbot, Bernard of Clairvaux, a great theologian of piety and eloquence. His poem about the wounds of Christ was the basis for the hymns, “Jesus, the very thought of Thee” and “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” But again, their hard work brought wealth and their zeal waned.

Mendicant Orders: Urban Ministry – At the beginning of the 13^th Century, two new orders developed with an eye to avoid previous pitfalls. They would own no property, either individually or corporately, and instead of seclusion, they would serve the world in towns and cities. They would live by the work of their hands or as beggars (mendicants). They were the Franciscans (nee St. Francis) and the Dominicans (nee St. Dominic). 

Under the leadership of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), the Franciscans were strictly committed to poverty, teaching, preaching, caring for the sick, and a brief emphasis on missions. After Francis died, they relaxed the standards and gained vast land grants and suffered in their spirituality. 

Under the Spaniard St. Dominic (1170-1221), the Dominicans focused on education and supplied the growing universities with teachers including the most famous Dominican, the theologian Thomas Aquinas. The Dominicans and Cistercians developed the Rosary, a meditation on the Fifteen Mysteries of the lives of Christ and his mother accompanied by numerous repetitions of the Ave Maria (Luke 1:28) and Lord’s Prayer.

Jesuits – This last monastic order started later in the Reformation, but we will include it here. The Reformers attacked the rationale of monasticism in Matt. 19:21 of poverty, chastity, and obedience, replacing it with the priesthood of all believers. But Ignatius of Loyola took issue with that and began the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the soldiers of Jesus, the Papal shock troops. Their focus on teaching, missions, and starting sixty Catholic seminaries had a role in checking the spread of Reformation.

The Sacraments

The term sacrament was used loosely in the early church. St. Augustine (5^th C) later gave the definition of a sacrament as “a visible form of an invisible grace” or “a sign of a sacred thing,” but Augustine saw the creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and a dozen other things as part of his definition. During the Middle Ages, Hugh St. Victor and Peter Lombard added to the definition. They said a sacrament must have authorization (by Jesus or the Church), that it must be a material element similar to what was signified (wine/blood), and it must have automatic effect to benefit participants, regardless of one’s faith or attitude (errant idea of infant baptism washing away original sin). 

Peter Lombard first came up with seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, extreme unction, ordination, and marriage, and the list was ratified by the church in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council. Protestants limit sacraments to those clearly instituted by Christ and directly related to the gospel – baptism and communion. There is some semantic play in the sacrament debate today since neither the word sacrament nor a definition is found in the New Testament. At the same time, Protestants practice confirmation, ordination, and marriage. Luther even saw penance as a good aid to the Christian life.

The biggest problem with sacraments became the misunderstanding that they automatically confer grace of a saving nature on a person. This association of “automatic grace” with sacraments has caused Baptists to use the word ordinance (a practice “ordained” by Christ).

Baptism was a practice that followed closely after initial faith in Christ in the New Testament (Matt. 3:15-16; 28:19-20; Mark 1:9; Luke 3:21; John 1:29-34; Acts). It signified identification with Christ and the body of believers. During the Patristic Period (100-321), it was delayed more and more to insure the candidate was saved. By the time of Augustine, baptism of infants had become common with the idea that it washed away the stain of original sin so that an infant could enter heaven. Infant baptism follows the idea of an automatic benefit since the infant cannot actively participate by faith in the act. 
Later, the Baptist denial of infant baptism was dangerous to the church-state settlement in Europe. The Baptist belief in believer’s baptism and a regenerate church made the relationship between citizens and their church and thus between church and state, voluntary. Baptist understandings of church provided the seed for the birth of modern notions of freedom of religion, a society in which no church was established, and the rights of citizens of every religion were secure.

Communion (Matt. 26:17-30; Mark 14:12-26; Luke 22:7-20; John 13-17; 1 Cor. 11:17-34) also began to have a number of doubtful ideas attached during the Middle Ages. One idea that developed slowly over church history was that the elements were the real, physical body and blood of Christ. Thomas Aquinas argued that the substance of the bread literally became Christ’s physical body in the Eucharist and that the substance of the wine literally became Christ’s physical blood. He called it transubstantiation. The inward substance, not the outward appearance, change.  Augustine once spoke of the need to distinguish between the sign and the thing signified. 

Baptists believe in the symbolic nature of the communion elements. Scholarly debates in the ninth and eleventh centuries centered on the “real presence” of Christ in the eucharist, and the idea of transubstantiation was formally approved in 1215.  Along with this errant idea came others without much discussion that transubstantiation came with the pronouncement of the priest, that it is a bloodless sacrifice of Christ, and that it automatically conveys grace to the recipient. The children’s phrase, “Hocus pocus” comes from an English misunderstanding of the Latin, “hoc est corpus maem,” the pronouncement of the elements, “This is my body.”

Lessons from the Church of the Middle Ages

1.      All through the life of the church, God has had those who were committed to him and devoted to spirituality. An emphasis on missions, prayer, and ministry have continued throughout the church’s life as God always has a remnant who love him. In the Middle Ages it was most often found in the monastic movement.

2.      Like all movements, the monasteries had difficulty keeping their movements on track as they developed. Often their beginning purpose became blurred.

Wall built by Solomon found

Archaeologists have found a wall in Jerusalem that dates back to the time of King Solomon and matches those described in the Bible in that era.

The section of the wall uncovered is nearly 230 feet long and 20 feet high. It is located in the area known as the Ophel, between the City of David and the south wall that surrounds the Temple Mount. Excavators have uncovered a nearly 20-feet-high gatehouse that is part of the city wall. There is also a large watchtower that has yet to be fully excavated.

The Old Testament passage of I Kings 3:1, the archeologist pointed out, says that King Solomon built the temple and his new palace, and surrounded them with a city that is most likely connected to the ancient wall of the City of David.

Full story here.

The Post-Constantine Church: AD 312-450

In A.D. 311, about 10% of the Roman Empire was Christian. By A.D. 321, about 90% of the Roman Empire was Christian. What happened? The Emperor Constantine happened.

The story of his disputed conversion centers around the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312, when he reported seeing a vision of Christ and a sign with the words, “In Hoc Signo Vinces, By this sign, you will conquer.” Constantine ordered the sign placed on the shields of his army, won the battle, and made Christianity legal Empire-wide in 313. Later in 321 he made Christianity mandatory.

There was a stampede of candidates to be Christian priests, but not for good reasons. They were pursuing political power in the new prestige and imperial favor of Christianity. The church and the state were merging. And it got easier to become a Christian, so easy that actual conversion seldom really happened anymore. There was no requirement for change.  

Was Constantine’s action a triumph or a failure for Christianity? It depends on your perspective. For Martin Luther, Constantine was a model emperor. Constantine gave freedom and financing to the Church and its leadership. For Baptists, it was horrible. The union of church and state caused the church to drop the very things that meant becoming a Christian – a genuine conversion marked by repentance and change of life.

One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church

One of the most important meetings during this time was the Council of Nicea out of which came the Nicene Creed. The church of this era was described by what are called the four classical marks of the church: “I believe . . . in One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.” These marks held sway for a thousand years.

1.      Unity of the Church – With the availability of military force from the government, minority opinions and dissent were rarely given an opportunity. Even up through the Reformation (1500s), union of church and state meant that any heresy or dissent were not just theological error, but political treason. Therefore when Anabaptists and later, Baptists insisted on liberty of conscience before God, they were persecuted by the state.  Theologically, the unity of the church was connected with communion with the bishop, and later, especially with the bishop at Rome. Originally the bishop at Rome was just one of the bishops of the church, but the claim of Peter and Paul as founders of the church at Rome along with the historical connection of Rome being the capital of the Empire and the misinterpretation of Matthew 16:18 led to the increasing power of the bishop at Rome. Therefore bishop control guaranteed unity. If he did not approve of you, you were not in unity with the church which brought the government to bear on dissenters in persecution.

2.      Holiness – After the Donatist controversy, the church’s idea of holiness had degenerated to the corpus permixtum, the erroneous idea that the church was a mix of believers and unbelievers. This condition led to the rise of monasticism. Those who chose monasticism saw themselves as loyal to the church, but they felt also compelled to a deeper life, a holy life which they concluded was not possible in the church of their day. True piety, education, discipleship, and holiness of life from Constantine to the Reformation were largely found in the monastic orders that developed.

3.      Catholic – The word catholic has long been associated with the Roman Catholic Church, but they appropriated that term for themselves. The word actually means universal,  that is, pertaining to all the churches. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 112) was the first to use the term catholic when he said, “where Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church.” By the A.D. 200s, catholic came to mean orthodox as opposed to heretical or schismatic. Later the word gained an additional meaning of geographically universal, that is, the whole world. Cyril of Jerusalem in c. A.D. 350 said the church may be called catholic “because it extends all over the whole world,” is composed of all classes of people, and teaches orthodox doctrine. When the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic) Churches split in A.D. 1054, the Western church somewhat arrogantly continued to call itself catholic though it has not been since.

4.      Apostolic – Of the four classical marks, this one was the most far-reaching. The church father Irenaeus promoted his idea of apostolic succession. He said that an accurate understanding of Scripture was found only in churches whose bishops were successors of the apostles. As an example, Irenaeus listed the succession of bishops at the church in Rome all the way back, as he saw it, to the Apostle Peter. Later the idea became popular that Matthew 16:18 meant that the church at Rome inherited Peter’s role as the rock upon which church was built. With the idea that a true and valid church must be in communion with the bishops, things got tangled up. The problem was that the church replaced the Scripture as the authority. What the apostles left for us, the Bible, was replaced by what they did not leave (human successors). The Reformers rightly returned to the understanding that a church is apostolic when it submits to the Scriptures written by the Apostles and centered on the gospel message.

Lessons from the Post-Constantine Church:

1.      The church’s unity extends to all who believe the gospel.

2.      The church’s holiness is the gift we receive in the gospel.

3.      The church’s catholicity is rooted in the fact that the gospel is destined to be preached in all the world and then the end will come.

4.      The church’s apostolicity is found in submission to the Scriptures given to us by the Apostles which contains the gospel.

5.      The Gospel is the binding characteristic of the four classical marks of the church.

6.      The union of church and state is not good, neither for the health of the Body of Christ nor the liberty of conscience before God.

Genesis 2:18-25 - The Sanctity of Marriage

Opening thought: Trial has ended in United States District Court in San Francisco for Perry v. Schwarzenegger. We are now waiting for closing arguments next month. Have you heard of it? That case could change all of our lives, our society, and millennia of Western culture. Let me explain.

Homosexual marriage advocates are challenging in federal court the constitutionality of Prop. 8, which passed in November 2008 when more than 7 million Californians voted 52% in favor of the constitutional amendment which defines marriage as between only a man and a woman.

After its passage, many lawsuits were filed challenging the validity of the measure and in May, 2009, the California Supreme Court held that Prop 8 was indeed lawfully enacted. Three days prior to that ruling, however, a group with independent access to funding filed suit in US District Court, Northern Division on behalf of two same-sex couples in what is the Perry v Schwarzenegger case. This case holds national significance for the future of marriage. The stakes in the Perry case are enormous: a ruling to overturn Prop 8 could nullify the marriage laws in 45 states and imperil the federal Defense of Marriage Act. [1]

God established three institutions for society: family, church, and government. All three of them are based on marriage. The foundation of society is marriage. No healthy marriages, no healthy families. No healthy marriages, no healthy churches. No healthy marriages, no healthy governments.

In 2006, the Witherspoon Institute published a scholarly defense of traditional marriage. In it, they named four threats to marriage and society: divorce, illegitimacy (non-marital child-bearing), cohabitation, and same-sex marriage.

Divorce: 45% of new marriages now end in divorce. “Children from broken homes are significantly more likely to divorce as adults, to experience marital problems, to suffer from mental illness and delinquency, to drop out of high school, to have poor relationships with one or both parents, and to have difficulty committing themselves to a relationship. Divorce is also associated with poverty, depression, substance abuse, and poor health among adults. More broadly, widespread divorce poisons the larger culture of marriage, insofar as it sows distrust, insecurity, and a low-commitment mentality among married and unmarried adults. For all these reasons, divorce threatens marriage, hurts children, and has had dire consequences for the nation as a whole.”

Illegitimacy: “children raised in single-parent families without the benefit of a married mother and father are two to three times more likely to experience serious negative life outcomes such as imprisonment, depression, teenage pregnancy, and high school failure, compared to children from intact, married families. Women who bear children outside of marriage are significantly more likely to experience poverty, to drop out of high school, and to have difficulty finding a good marriage partner, even when compared to women from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Men who father children outside of marriage are significantly more likely to experience educational failure, to earn less, and to have difficulty finding a good marriage partner, even after controlling for socioeconomic factors.”

Cohabitation: “Adults in cohabiting unions face higher rates of domestic violence, sexual infidelity, and instability, compared to couples in marital unions. Children reared by cohabiting couples are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior, to be suspended from school, and to cheat in school, compared to children reared by a married mother and father. Children cohabiting with an unrelated adult male face dramatically higher risks of sexual or physical abuse, compared to children in intact, married families. For instance, one Missouri study found that preschool children living in households with unrelated adults (typically a mother’s boyfriend) were nearly 50 times more likely to be killed than were children living with both biological parents.

Same-Sex Marriage: There has not yet been time for any long-term studies of the affects of same-sex marriage on children. But there are some things we do know. Institution of same-sex marriage would further undercut the idea that procreation is intrinsically connected to marriage. It would undermine the idea that children need both a mother and a father, further weakening the societal norm that men should take responsibility for the children they beget. Finally, same-sex marriage would likely corrode marital norms of sexual fidelity, since gay marriage advocates and gay couples tend to downplay the importance of sexual fidelity in their definition of marriage. Surveys of men entering same-sex civil unions in Vermont indicate that 50 percent of them do not value sexual fidelity, and rates of sexual promiscuity are high among gay men.

It gets worse. Judith Stacey, professor of sociology at New York University and a leading advocate of gay marriage, hopes that same-sex marriage will promote a “pluralist expansion of the meaning, practice, and politics of family life in the United States” where “perhaps some might dare to question the dyadic limitations of Western marriage and seek some of the benefits of extended family life through small group marriages…”

Same-sex marriage has taken hold in societies or regions with low rates of marriage and/or fertility. For instance, Belgium, Canada, Massachusetts, the Netherlands, and Spain all have fertility rates well below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. These are societies in which child-centered marriage has ceased to be the organizing principle of adult life. Seen in this light, same-sex marriage is both a consequence of and further stimulus to the abolition of marriage as the preferred vehicle for ordering sex, procreation, and childrearing in the West. While there are surely many unknowns, what we do know suggests that embracing same-sex marriage would further weaken marriage itself at the very moment when it needs to be most strengthened.

I hope I haven’t lost you, because we are at an important juncture. The big question is, what does the Bible say about marriage? Let’s turn to the foundational passage on marriage in the Bible in the book of Genesis.

Read:  Genesis 2:18-25

Contextual Notes: Marriage is far more than a cultural institution or an arrangement that society worked out for a man and a woman to meet their needs for companionship. Marriage was established by the Creator as the building block of society, government, and culture. The marriage relationship provides the stable basis from which all other human relationships develop.

In the Witherspoon Institute’s defense of marriage was a list of ten principles regarding marriage and the public good.

TEN PRINCIPLES ON MARRIAGE AND THE PUBLIC GOOD

1. Marriage is a personal union, intended for the whole of life, of husband and wife.

2. Marriage is a profound human good, elevating and perfecting our social and sexual nature.

3. Ordinarily, both men and women who marry are better off as a result.

4. Marriage protects and promotes the well-being of children.

5. Marriage sustains civil society and promotes the common good.

6. Marriage is a wealth-creating institution, increasing human and social capital.

7. When marriage weakens, the equality gap widens, as children suffer from the disadvantages of growing up in homes without committed mothers and fathers.

8. A functioning marriage culture serves to protect political liberty and foster limited government.

9. The laws that govern marriage matter significantly.

10. “Civil marriage” and “religious marriage” cannot be rigidly or completely divided from one another.

Key Truth: Moses wrote Genesis 2:18-25 to teach believers that marriage is a covenant setting apart a man and woman for companionship, intimacy, and openness.

Key Application: Today I want to show you what God’s Word says about the sanctity of marriage.

Sermon Points:

1. God designed marriage for companionship (Genesis 2:18-23)
2. God designed marriage for closeness (Genesis 2:24)
3. God designed marriage for openness (Genesis 2:25)

Exposition:   Note well,

1.   GOD DESIGNED MARRIAGE FOR COMPANIONSHIP (Gen 2:18-23).

a.   In naming these animals, Adam found that each kind of animal had two sexes, but that he was alone. True partnership is not based on sexual instinct, despite what they teach in biology class and on cable TV. We are more than the product of our nerve endings, hormones, and firing synapses. God is a Trinity – by nature a social being. Man (and woman), being in the image of God, is the same. Verses 18 is for men and women!

b.   Suitable helper: (Gen. 2:18, 20) (Hebrew implies the fitting into a unity in which each helps the other equally.) Helper here does not mean servant. In identifying the woman as a helper, Moses was actually elevating the role and worth of a woman by calling her by the same name used by God of himself (Psalm 30:10; 54:4). Adam needed Eve.

c.   She was taken from the man’s side –

                     i.    Not the man’s head – where she would have corporate authority over him.

                    ii.    Not the man’s feet – where he would have abusive, physical authority over her.

                  iii.    Not the man’s loins – as a child, where he would have moral authority over her

                  iv.    But from his side, -- as a companion and friend, close to his heart – the most intimate link in all creation, to be one flesh; to consider the other the very part of his/her being, the wife to be the help her husband needs, the husband to help his wife live to her potential.

d.   As a model for us, Adam and Eve were actually one flesh, the goal of every marriage. Ish and Issha. The model of Adam, in contrast to 3:16, is that the man should subordinate his interests to those of his wife (v. 24).

e.   Tertullian (A.D. 200) – “How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, one in the religion they practice. They are as brother and sister, both servants of the same Master. Nothing divides them, either in flesh or in spirit. They are in very truth, ‘two in one flesh’; and where there is but one flesh there is also but one spirit. They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another. Side by side they visit God’s church and partake of God’s Banquet; side by side they face difficulties and persecution, share their consolations.”[2]

f.    This ideal union ordained by the Creator cannot exist in polygamous relationships between a man and several women or a woman and several men. Nor can there be perfect complementarity and intimacy in a homosexual relationship between two men or two women. That is why God condemns all sexual relationships outside the gracious boundary of marriage between one man and one woman

                     i.    Romans 1:27; 1 Timothy 1:8-10

g.   APPLICATION: Not that you are not complete if you are single, but God brings men and women together to make them stronger and more effective than if they remained single. So let me ask those of you who are married: How is the companionship? Is your spouse still your best friend? Do you spend significant discretionary time apart when you could be together? When is the last time you prayed together? How often do you encourage your spouse? Have you expressed to your spouse your gratefulness for walking with you so faithfully through those dark times together? Do others see you as two who barely tolerate each other? Or never see you together? Or perhaps listen to you engage in a regular dose of husband or wife-bashing? Or do people see you two as companions? Soul mates? Lovers? Best friends?

2.   GOD DESIGNED MARRIAGE FOR CLOSENESS (Gen 2:24).

1. Marriage is more than having a partner like oneself. It involves becoming one flesh, an original unity, with complete sharing, with no boundaries between them. They will be one flesh all their lives, as Jesus confirmed in Matthew 19:6: “⁶So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

2. The emphasis on leaving and cleaving does not mean that God does not have a place for the extended family. God condemns the rejection or neglect of parents (Exodus 20:12; Leviticus 19:3; Deuteronomy 27:16; 1 Timothy 5:4).

3. God commands married couples to multiply a Godly legacy (Genesis 1:28). He commands us to create a Godly legacy through having children. Having children is not an option. It is a command.

                     i.    Psalm 127:3-5: ³ Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. ⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. ⁵ Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.

                    ii.    Psalm 78:5-7: ⁵ He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, ⁶ so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. ⁷ Then they would put their trust in God  and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands.

                  iii.    Deuteronomy 6:6-7: ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

                  iv.    Witherspoon Institute: “Marriage is by its nature sexual. It gives a unique unitive and procreative meaning to the sexual drive, distinguishing marriage from other close bonds. The emotional, spiritual, and psychological closeness of a married couple is realized in the unique biological unity that occurs between a man and a woman united as husband and wife. In procreation, marital love finds its highest realization and expression. In the family, children find the safety, security, and support they need to reach their full potential, grounded in a public, prior commitment of mother and father to become one family together.”

d.   APPLICATION: Let me ask you about your marriage. Are you close? Or have you drifted from each other? Are you making an effort to be close? Intimacy is about more than sex. Are you being intimate at the heart level? Are your hearts close? Couples, are you building a Godly legacy in your family? Are you teaching your children and grandchildren about the Lord? Are you making it normal to talk about the Lord around the table? Do you sit down and eat as a family around the table?

e.   You couples who are not able to have children yourselves, you still have an obligation to build a Godly legacy. What are you doing about it? Are you looking into adoption? Are you willing to adopt a baby or a child who needs a Christian home in whom you can instill a Godly legacy and do your part to redeem our culture and society?

f.    Husbands and wives, if you are able to have children, are you trying? If it weren’t for Latinos in this country, Americans would not be having enough children to replace ourselves. As it is, we are barely making the 2.1 replacement levels necessary to preserve our society and culture. American evangelicals have bought into the secular lie, the Planned Parenthood, evolutionary lies that we should “plan” our families, as if God were not sovereign. We listen to our doctors who advise us to use birth control, birth control that makes the womb a toxic environment for a fertilized egg, and while we condemn abortion as sin, we are killing our own babies in our own wombs out of a false idea of ‘being responsible.’ And all the time, we are also committing the sin of playing God with our bodies and in our marriages and refusing to birth a Godly legacy.

3.   GOD DESIGNED MARRIAGE FOR OPENNESS (Gen 2:25)

a.   Complete openness to the other is a secret of marriage. The Creator left the couple naked in the beginning (2:25). You need to be completely naked with your spouse, and I am not just talking about your clothes. I’m talking about your heart. I’m talking about complete openness.

b.   Illustration: A pastor friend once told me, as a friendly piece of marital advice, that sometimes in marriage you just have to lie to your wife to keep things peaceful. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Lies have no place in a marriage. Honest openness is a secret to the success of a marriage.

3. APPLICATION: Complete openness means there are no secrets you won’t tell your spouse about yourself. Complete openness means you don’t hide information. Complete openness means you are honest and fully disclose all your dealings with the opposite sex. Complete openness means there are no “his money” and “her money,” but it is all “our money.” Complete openness is the secret of marriage and trust. Complete openness is a great bulwark and safety net for your marriage.  

Invitation:

Today you may find yourself floundering in your marriage. You need to pray for it. Why not come forward and seek the Lord’s face with your spouse concerning your marriage? You may have a great marriage, and you want to come forward to this altar and thank the Lord for the great gift he has given you in your spouse. Come and pray today.

        You may realize today that you need to have some honest openness with your Lord. You don’t have a relationship with him and you are lost. Come forward and come to me and let me lead you to Christ today. You may need to join this church today. This altar is open. Whatever is going on in your heart, this altar is here for prayer and ministry today. Won’t you come?

Sources:

David Boehl, et. al., Preparing for Marriage.

F.F. Bruce, The International Bible Commentary, 117.

Africa Bible Commentary, Genesis 2.

Dennis Rainey, Ministering to 21^st Century Families, chap. 3.

http://www.protectmarriage.com/files/WitherspoonReportonMarriage.pdf

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[1] http://protectmarriage.com/trial

[2] Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, 17.

Where Easter eggs come from

"As the feast of Easter developed in Christian tradition, so did the festival's preparatory period, known as Lent. [Lent] involved fasting and later abstinence from certain foods, including eggs." We have a record as early as A.D. 330 of Lenten fasts in the church which included eggs. 

"Presenting gifts of eggs at Easter has a long and culturally diverse lineage[, especially in areas dominated by the Orthodox tradition]. Practicality was one factor: Given that hens would be laying eggs throughout Lent, a surplus would exist by Easter, probably at lower prices."

The coloring of eggs is linked to various legends, and the color most often used early on was red for the blood of Christ.

The full article from christianhistory.net is found here. 

Church of the Fathers AD 100-312

The Patristic Church: A.D. 100-312

Why we survey the church in history

1- We believe the Holy Spirit has been active in illuminating the Scriptures for God’s people for over twenty centuries.

2- History is a warning and safeguard for us, teaching us lessons that mold and shape our interpretations of Scripture today.

3- History is necessary to understand our situation today. Hindsight is 20/20, they say.

4- Unless we think ourselves the sum of all human wisdom and understanding for all time, then what our spiritual forbears in the past knew and experienced is valuable to us.

The Patristic Church (A.D. 100-312)

The distinctively different quality of life of Christians was a powerful witness to unbelievers in the early church. In the Letter to Diognetus (2nd Century) says of Christians: “They marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring. They share their board with each other, but not their marriage bed. They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They love all men, and by all men are persecuted. To put it simply, what the soul is in the body, the Christians are in the world.”

THE CATECHUMENATE was one way that new believers were trained in discipleship and walked through a period of renunciation of idolatry and deliverance ministry. This all happened before baptism. Sometimes the training lasted up to three years, teaching doctrine, spiritual and moral formation, grounding in Scripture, and spiritual warfare. Notice that this practice promotes believers’ baptism and not infant baptism. The catechumenate began to decline as infant baptism became normal in the Church.

THEIR WORSHIP: Justin (c. 150) describes Christian worship in the early church. He said that baptism was the prerequisite for inclusion in the body of Christ and partaking of Communion: “of which no one is allowed to partake except one believes that the things we teach are true and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us.” The Lord’s Supper was central to worship, and Justin writes that on Sundays preaching took place: “the memoirs of the apostles or the writing of the prophets are read as long as time permits. When the reader has finished, the president in a discourse urges and invites [us] to the imitation of these noble things.” Justin also mentions congregational prayer and the taking of an offering.

THE BISHOP: The growing importance of the bishop was the most important development in the early church that affected the following centuries. Ignatius, an early bishop at Antioch, was the first to divide between the office of bishop and elder/pastor. Thus in the church there came to be the bishop, the priest, and the deacon. The bishop was elevated as the most important and the key to the church’s unity. Nothing could go on, especially the Lord’s Supper, without his presence. We, however, know that Christ is the one to be elevated, not any man. In the battle with the heresy of Gnosticism,Irenaeus in the mid-second century found that the heretics appealed to Scripture just like those churches of right doctrine. He claimed then, that right doctrine and right interpretation of Scripture was found in churches founded by the apostles. The bishops, he said, guaranteed unity in doctrine because they taught the traditional interpretation of Scripture given by the apostles.

Because of the stress put on the church through the persecutions of the Roman Empire, the bishop continued to gain centrality in the church. When one Roman emperor (Decius) demanded that everyone sacrifice to idols, some refused. Some did it. Some made up fake certificates to show they had done it when they hadn’t. Even bishops and elders/pastors/priests did these things. What do you do when these people want to worship together after the persecution is over? The bishop Cyprian (c. 250) said that the key to unity was communion with the bishops. He said that submission to the bishops was the key to a proper relationship to the church. He said, “You cannot have God for your father unless you have the Church for your Mother.”

In the fourth century, a similar controversy occurred called the Donatist controversy. During persecution, the Romans demanded that Christians turn over their holy books. Some of them, bishops and priests/pastors handed over their copies of Scriptures and were called traditores (traitors). After the persecution was over, they wanted readmitted to the church, but the Donatists said, “No!” Here Augustine stepped in and said that splitting the church was worse than lapsing under persecution. At the end of the day, the church accepted Augustine’s idea that the validity of baptism or communion lies in Christ, not in the person doing it. Under these circumstances, the church was becoming a corpus permixtum, a mixed body of saints and sinners. This doctrine has come down in mainline churches, but Baptist churches were later a reaction to this doctrine and called for a regenerate church membership.

Lessons from the Patristic Church (A.D. 100-312)

1. Believer’s baptism was the norm in the early church.

2. The early church was pro-life and believed in traditional marriage.

3. The separation and rise of the new office of bishop was itself unfortunate and unbiblical, but the stresses of heresy, persecution, and lack of sufficient numbers and distribution of Biblical manuscripts led the churches to a growing reliance on these men.

4. Jesus Christ, and no church leader including a bishop, is the key to unity in the church.

5. Making disciples and growth in Christlikeness were high values in the early church.