Antiquity

Often Roman Catholics use the argument they are the original, the first, and antiquity is on their side. That can seem like a convincing argument and especially appealing because so many Protestants are ahistorical. 500 years ago, Rome was using that same argument against the Lutheran reformers, but Martin Chemnitz masterfully, in his Enchiridion, shows that the argument of antiquity is a total dead end. Roman Catholic doctrine has not been around the longest, and isn't the doctrine of the Scriptures, or is it the doctrine of the early church. The early church knew nothing of papal primacy over the other bishops. The first Christians knew nothing of purgatory and most certainly didn't pray to Mary or the saints. There weren't seven sacraments. Paul, in his letters to the Romans and Galatians, put to rest the doctrine of works-righteousness, and so forth, and so on. It doesn't matter whose institution has been around the longest but what matters is whose doctrine has been around the longest. The Roman Catholic Church as an institution may have been around the longest, but its doctrines certainly have not. The true faith has existed since Adam and Eve, and it was believed by the patriarchs; it was preached by the prophets; it was taught by Christ and his apostles, and that is the ancient faith which does have antiquity on its side.

-Pr. Joshua Sullivan

Patristics

 Neither the East nor Rome owns the Church Fathers. It is absolutely fair to say Lutherans in the sixteenth century invented patristics because of Lutherans' fight with the Roman Catholics. They would say what you are teaching [faith alone, grace alone, Scripture alone] is novel and not what the Church taught. In his Examination of the Council of Trent, Martin Chemnitz shows point by point this is what Scripture says, and this is what the Church Fathers had to say about those Scriptures, and he lays out all the patristic evidence." The Church Fathers had brilliant minds and have been thinking about what these Spirit-inspired texts meant for fifteen hundred years, and we would be dumb to say all that is irreverent.

A famous Protestant convert to Catholicism, John Henry Newman, once wrote, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." Ironically, while Newman was converting to Catholicism, Cardinal Henry Manning wrote: "We will overcome history with dogma." He knew history wasn't in their favor and believed the key was that he needed to have doctrinal development beyond the New Testament to be able to justify the stance that Rome took. We recognize there is no doctrinal development beyond what the New Testament lays down, and nothing that goes beyond Scripture is binding on Christians. St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote: Let the Divine Scriptures be the umpire between us, and whoever accords with that, that's where the vote of truth is given.

You would be shocked if you listened to how the Lutheran Confessions speak of the Fathers. The Lutherans have the audacity to insert in the face of Rome and the East that the Fathers are actually our Fathers. If you listen to what the Fathers teach, what they teach is our faith. The Holy Fathers often say we are saved by mercy." When the Lutherans presented their confessions to the Roman Catholics, they argued from the Scriptures that the Word of God agreed with the Lutherans. Furthermore, the Lutherans presented many quotes from the Church Fathers, such as Ambrose (340-397), Athanasius (296-373), Augustine (354-430), Basil (330-379), Chrysostom (347-407), Clement of Rome (96), Gregory of Nyssa (330-395), Irenaeus (130-200), Mark the Ascetic (425) to show they agreed with the Word of God.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Jesus A Refugee?

Jesus was a refugee, a claim we hear a lot from in liberal Christiandom and groves of unbelievers simply to push a political agenda of open borders. The only reason this is even questioned is because of the immigration debate going on in the U.S. and Europe at this moment. When anyone asserts that Jesus was a refugee, they're doing so to paint their opponents as un-Christian.

The idea that Jesus was a refugee is taken from Matthew chapter 2. We don't know anything about their time in Eygpt. Still, we know from history that there was a considerable Jewish population in Egypt, especially in Alexandria. Hence, it's not unreasonable to think the Holy Family would have stayed amongst their own kindred while in Eygpt.

It's incorrect to think of Judea and Eygpt as different countries separated by an international border in the 1st century AD. Today Isreal and Egypt are different sovereign countries. Still, in the 1st century, that wasn't the case because both Judea and Egypt were providences of the Romas Empire. Under Roman law, the Holy Family would have been a "Peregrine," which most of the citizens of the Roman Empire were and every class within the Empire had free rights to travel and cross provincial borders.

Jesus said, "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars' (Mathew 21). God has ordained civil government and given "Caesar" the authority to make laws for the express purpose of keeping the peace, protecting its citizens, and punishing the wrongdoer. St. Paul lays this out all in Romans chapter 13."

-Pr. Joshua Sullivan

Classical Art

The Church, in many ways, has distanced itself, sadly to say, from art, but art can still teach the truth of Scripture. We live in a very visual culture even though we have gotten away from classical paintings. People don't tend to open up a book and read these days, so classical paintings are an excellent way to teach God's Word. The neat thing about images is they don't invade, but they invite, and you are drawn to them. Art speaks loudly while remaining silent.

-Kelly Schumacher:

Miraculous Signs

"And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name, they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover." (Mark 16:17-18).

This passage is rather illumined for us by St. Pauls's words in 2 Corinthians 12:12, "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works." These signs that Jesus mentions here as accompanying his believers, specifically, are the ones that the New Testament mentions as being fulfilled in the ministry of the apostles themselves.

Think about how Acts covers the casting out of demons and the apostles all speaking in new tongues. Even the way St. Paul on Malta shook off in the fire the viper that had bit him and how the natives were just waiting for him to swell up and die, but he was just fine. How they laid their hands on sick people and healed them. The drinking of the deadly poison is particularly interesting in the later life of St. John, who, according to the church's tradition, by God's grace, thwarted an attempt to poison the chalice and kill him.

St. Gregory the Great, writing at the beginning of the seventh century, says, "these signs were needed at the church's beginning; the new faith needed to be nourished by miracles to grow. When we plant a vineyard, we must water the plants till we see they begun to grow in the earth, and when they have once taken root, we cease to water them constantly."

So St. Gregory urges his hearers not to be troubled that the church of his time or ours seem to lack these miraculous signs. These signs the apostles administered confirmed for all time the truth of their witness to believers.

-Pr Will Weedon

This Is My Body

Mark 14:22, And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing, it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.”

So into the old Passover meal, Jesus inserts something brand new. There are a lot of Christians who think the key to the Supper is in the old Passover, but that is exactly backward. It's the Lord's Supper that is key to the old Passover. And remember how Jesus said earlier you couldn't put new wine into old wineskins or a new piece of cloth on an old cloth that has already been washed, so His Supper isn't just something inserted into the old Passover; it rather brings the Passover to its end at least to those who belong to Him. It explodes it from the inside, and remember they learned Jesus says all kinds of outrageous things, and they have learned that He always means exactly what He says and says exactly what He means.

We are not told they asked a thing, but surely they must have been thinking. Remember back in John 6, after the feeding of the five thousand, the question was asked, "how can this man give us His flesh to eat?" And if they were asking themselves how it could be right now, they had a good sense not to voice that thought out loud. But the word delivers whatever it promises, and if He declares of the bread that it is His body, well then faith falls down before the Son of God and confirms - don't know how it can be, Lord, but you always speak the truth, and your word does not deceive, Your body it is!

Pr. Will Weedon

Nativities Of Jesus And John The Baptist

In the late seventh and early eighth century, a monk called Venerable Bede lived. He never traveled far from where he was born in England and spent his whole life devoted to prayer and sharing the Scripture. He died on the eve of the Feast of Ascension in 735 AD.

He made the most charming observation and asked why the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist is set near the Summer solstice and the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus is set near the Winter solstice?

His answer is this: He must increase, but I must decrease. So after the Nativity of St. John, the light begins to diminish, whereas, after the Nativity of our Lord, the light begins to grow. He saw in this very natural occurrence great wisdom in the way the Church set these feasts, so to lead us to ponder more than the light of the Sun but Instead, the light that is Jesus Christ Himself, who is the light of men.

-Pr. Will Weedon