All right. So tonight, last week we talked about the Lord's Supper and developments and changes in Christian worship tonight we're going to be looking at roughly the same time period.
But we're going to be sort of picking up from where we left off, which was the the responsibility that elders have and the burden that elders have.
If you don't, you know, last week, but we were talking about the Lord's Supper and worship services.
We saw that there was a tendency to to sort of script it, I guess you would say to, you know, restrict the freedom, and to turn it into almost a scripted performance in order to make sure that nothing wrong or heretical Got said and we talked about the burden that elders have
In kind of keeping things where they need to be. If you're not doing that, and you know, like I said, I prefer going the more free route.
But we do have to recognize that that puts a burden particularly on the elders, but really on all of us to be attentive and to pay attention to those things.
So tonight we're going to look at the same time period and we're going to look at some of what happens to the to Christians.
Understandings of elders and bishops like, I said in the email, sorry, Craig Craig's and Marty Craig and Marty are both here, Niels on Zoom.
So, or I know he is, because he told me he was going to be.
But the deacons aren't really going to come into play very much tonight.
Tonight's basically about the elders and bishops.
So we'll be looking like I said at the same time.
Period as last time, maybe not as attentively in the New Testament. But when we do look into the New Testament at the organization of church leadership that it presents, and we compare that to what we see today.
You know whether it's whether it's here or broadly in Christendom.
We definitely see some differences right? Most places, some places are trying to to follow a New Testament pattern.
We're trying to follow a New Testament pattern.
Some places are, you know, very far from what I would consider to be a New Testament pattern of church leadership.
But some of them, you know, in that some of them are very hierarchical, and I don't.
I don't. I think I can understand how they make an argument for it from Scripture, but I don't think it's a good argument, so we see a lot of variety and what I want to do is talk about how we get there.
How we get from the New Testament to all the different kinds of places that we are today.
I'm going to sort of skip over about 1,800.
Years worth of that history, but I think the most you know.
Most of the crucial changes come at about the first 200 years, so we're going to skip the qualifications for elders altogether.
I'm not going to not going to really talk about that tonight, because I don't think it comes into what develops and changes particularly.
But let's look at a couple of other things, particularly in the New Testament.
So we've got a starting point for what we what we do know that the New Testament caused us to Hebrews, chapter 13.
And you can turn there
The author encourages us to submit to our leaders. See in verse chapter 13, verse 17, it says, Obey your leaders, and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your soul as the will have as those who will have to give an account.
Let them do this with joy, and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
So the you know it, like many things that Paul, you know, urges or commands.
There are 2 sides of this. On the one hand, people are urged to submit to their elders, to their leaders, but also he points out the the burden there is on them that they are those who will have to give an account, and so it's you know it's a it's a
Balanced, it's a balanced relationship. There. There's a reason that the leadership has to make the kinds of decisions and take the things into consideration that they do.
And also I want to point out that he's using this language of keeping watch over us.
Language, that suggests shepherds. That's actually where the word pastor comes from.
The word for shepherd, deriving from Greek and Latin
So so he's using this shepherding imagery.
And whoever wrote Hebrews, we don't know who it is, but whoever wrote he bruised is not the only one Peter addresses.
The elders. I didn't write down, but I believe it's chapter 5, verse 2, where he addresses the elders and says to Shepherd the flot, let's tried to turn there.
If I remembered, am I right? Okay. Good.
Well, let's start in verse one. So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed shepherd the flock of God that is among you
Exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you not for shameful gain, but eagerly not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock when the chief shepherd appears you will receive the unfading crown of
glory. Likewise you who are younger, be subject to the elders, clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
So we've got a couple of examples of encouragement to the congregation to submit to the otherers, to their leadership.
We have reminders to the elders of what it is that they are to do, that they're not, you know, ruling over the congregation, but that they are shepherding, that they're exercising oversight as he says but that doesn't mean that it's like some sort
of blind obedience to, to whatever they choose to say.
You know, with a group of 4 or 5, or 6, or however many elders of meeting might have.
You're probably going to get balance, and you'll you'll get rid of some of the worst problems.
But there's no guarantee that you don't get problems within the eldership.
And so repeatedly throughout. There are warnings about elders.
Paul gives instructions on what to do with an elder is caught in sin, and how to handle that.
He does that in the pastoral epistles also, when he brings the Ephesian elders to Miletus in Asia, as he's traveling down to Jerusalem, he decided to skip skip, actually stopping at Ephesus.
But he sent word that he wanted to see them one more time before he went to Jerusalem, and among the things that he that he tells them, in addition to encouragement and reminders of how to lead the flock, he warns them that there could be well, let's let's turn there it's in
Acts, acts 20. That's what I thought
2030 is the exact verse I'm thinking of.
We don't need to read his entire. You can go home and read the whole thing, but we don't need to read the entire message that he has for them.
But in verse 30 he's addressing these elders, and he says, and from among your own selves, or at least it says, from among your own selves, may not be, there will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples, after them.
Therefore be alert so, and he's, you know, given them this encouragement to, you know, to keep watch on yourself.
It's not just to keep watch over the flock, but to keep watch on yourself is what he's told them earlier, and then here in verse 30, he says, you know false teachers are going to arise.
It's not entirely clear whether he's saying that you know false teachers might arise from within the eldership, or if he's saying that false teachers might arise from within the body.
But in either case, and I think it's probably ambiguous, so that it can be in either case, he's saying, in either case you need to be watching over this, because that's a problem.
So those are the kinds of problems that the leadership was facing.
Let me make a couple of notes, because, like I say, I don't wanna I don't want to go into all the details before we launch into the history.
But there are a couple of notes that I want to point out.
One is that the emphasis on their sorry, the emphasis, for when their responsibilities are described, on care for the believers around them right?
It's not, you know, to to take care of all the business of the church.
It's not primarily to deeply study theology and have complex explanations for everything.
The primary thing that they're directed to do is to care for the body, to care for the flock.
The second thing that strikes me here is the admonition that's directed at their own internal spiritual lives.
He tells them, yeah. And apparently this is the way to make sure of it.
The way to avoid the kinds of problems that could come in the power struggles.
Anything else. The way to do that is to keep watch on themselves.
Verse 28, still in Acts 20, he says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, but they're not just keeping an eye on the rest of us.
They have to keep an eye on themselves, maybe each other, but I think primarily what it's talking about.
There is. Look at yourself, examine your own motives, so that's the second thing that I want to point out.
And then the last thing that I want to mention is that the elders in the New Testament are always referred to in the plural.
I mean, okay, there's there are sentences here and there where the word is going to be.
Soular, because he says if somebody aspires to the office of Elder, well, obviously, that's going to be singular.
But when it's actually talking about elders, unless somebody's saying like, Peter, did you know I myself am an am an elder whenever it's talking about elders talking about them in the plural.
So that's pretty unambiguous, there are, and this is where I'll go ahead and let you in on some of it.
This is where sometimes people try to make arguments, saying that we have single bishops ruling over congregations, or shepherding congregations.
Already in the New Testament, and some of the kinds of things they're talking about are Paul, speaking of Peter, James, and John as pillars of the Church, when he says that he he met with them, and he refers to them as pillars that'll get pointed to and also at the the so-called
Jerusalem Council, which is an Acts chapter 21.
James. No, sorry. That's an act 15. James is singled out again.
In chapter 21, but and so they see him as taking a more central role.
There, but I think they're over reading it. Personally, I think that in Acts 21 James is probably being singled out as an apostle, because, without turning to it, you can.
Jot it down and look at it later, and what you'll see is that it's describing him and the elders.
Well, I think as an apostle, James would have been distinguished from the rest of the elders, and then, in in Chapter 15, where it's at the the Jerusalem Council, I think James's only singled out role there is really that he's the one who came up with
The idea that everybody adopts, and so Luke Highlights what it was that he said.
But that doesn't. You know he's not issuing that as a decree from some sort of you know Bishop's chair, or anything like that.
So.
All right. So a lot of the aspects of the New Testament elder that we've talked about, and if I if I say Presbyter tonight, just for those of you who aren't familiar with the term Elder, is a transition of a Greek word Presbyter is sort of the the
Almost transliteration of the same Greek word. The elder is Presbyteros in Greek, and so sometimes people will refer to presbyters, and sometimes I might do that in order to distinguish, because in the New Testament there's, as I think all of us are familiar with there's
No real distinction made between Elder and bishop and overseer.
These are just words that get used to describe the same person.
But as history goes on, some distinctions come in, and I may use Presbyter here and there, and I just want you to know that it's the same word as Elder.
But if I'm using it differently, it's probably because I or somebody that I'm reading thinks that it's being used a little differently than in the New Testament.
Anyway. Lot of the aspects in the New Testament elder pretty much retained in discussions of later elders over the next couple 100 years.
But the one thing that really seems to get lost over the next 200 years is that plurality, that last characteristic that I pointed to the fact that in the New Testament elders are always they come in groups that presbyters continue to come in groups, but the idea that that that is the the leadership, of
The church starts to get lost over the course of the next 2 to 300 years.
So I have given you. Sorry about that. Pull that out more carefully.
I've given you this sheet with, and I've emailed it.
If you're on zoom, that has sort of a timeline, and I'll walk down through some of this tonight as we go, and just talk a little bit about what's going on, and for a couple of them I'll even read some from those for you I didn't I didn't
Photocopy and cut and paste together. Readings for you tonight, because there are too many, and they're too small.
And it just would have been too many little clips here and there.
I'll just go through if you're curious about my footnotes.
Come, talk to me afterwards or email me, and I'll give you exact references
But the first person that we're going to be look, or the first well, we'll talk about the person and we'll talk about the letter that credited to him.
But the the first is a letter called that's called inaccurately.
First Clement it gets a tribute to a man named Clement, who might have been the climate that Paul refers to in Philippians for 3, but I don't think that's likely.
It's possible. Sometime around the late third century, that theory started being, you know, batted about that.
Oh, yeah, Clement of Rome. Was that Clement from?
Galatians that Paul talks about, but it doesn't seem likely to me what we do know about I mean, there's not a ton but what we do know about them is that he was writing or or no let me back up one more step the letter that we call first climate like if you go
looking for it on the Internet, or anywhere like that. It's going to be called first climate.
And even in the the copy of it, that I have, even though the author or the translator and editor of this makes a good case to say, we really shouldn't call it that just for the sake of convention he has to call it that, but if we read the letter the letter, never refers to
Clement. There are some late manuscripts that mention his name at the very end but those don't seem to be the best ones.
The the way the letter starts is the Church of God that sojourns in Rome to the Church of God.
That sojourns in Corinth to those who are called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
May grace and peace from Almighty God through Jesus Christ be yours, and abundance that sounds like a letter from one church to another.
Church, right? And that's what you know. Some of us thought.
Insist on these things, prefer to call it is the letter from the Romans to the Corinthians.
Climate, and we'll see why in a minute.
But climate may have been the corresponding secretary kind of role at Rome, and so ended up being having this letter.
A attributed to him. But the situation in the letter, the reason that the Church at Rome is writing to the Church it's not at the church at Corinth.
It's not a happy letter. I don't think we save very many happy letters, apparently from early Christianity, but the situation is that Corinth has again fallen into division, which, if you've read first Corinthians, won't surprise you, and the Romans point that out to them they're
like, you know, just like that long ago Paul had to write to you about division, but this time and and again it was about personalities, right and first Corinthians.
They're rallying around Paul or Apollo's.
Well, now, we don't get the names, because the Romans don't give us the names they're they want to be a little bit more less aggressive than that, I guess you'd say.
But there, it's about personalities again, what's happened is that the Corinthian church, or some faction within it?
It's not, you know. We don't get all the details, but they seem to have ousted, or some of their old elders, and have replaced them.
So you guys be on guard. That kind of thing can happen.
Apparently, and we don't like I say, we don't exactly know the reasons that they were being working, but what we can tell from reading the the letter is that it doesn't.
It wasn't about any kind of moral failure. It wasn't because they were doing a bad job at it.
It was, you know. He describes them as having just been deposed.
Elders who had served for a long time and served honorably.
So the Romans speak highly of these elders that have been deposed and displaced.
The letter is to urge the Corinthians to to come back together, to restore that leadership, and to, as Peter and Hebrews would say, to submit to that leadership and part of the argument that the Romans make is that this word has gotten out, about this and people all over the region I mean we
Heard about it all the way here in Rome. Everybody's known about this, and you're bringing dishonor on the name of God because of this stupid fight that you're having about.
I don't know. Should we have chairs or pews, or something?
Who knows what the were fighting over, but so that's what the the letter is about, and it's usually data to the reign of Domitian.
So about 96 AD, and that's based on a couple I'm not even going to go into it right now.
But it's based on a couple of internal things.
It's not. We're not sure about that, but that seems likely pretty close to the same time as revelation.
At least the most common way of dating revelation.
And I already read you the the salutation.
My point in bringing up first. Clement, was that that in first climate we have.
What did I? Okay, first climate, we have an example of this kind of correspondence.
That's clearly not in the name of some single bishop.
We've still got, if not quite, the New Testament pattern we've still got a church or a collection of churches.
The church, in the city at least that's functioning with this idea of a plurality of eldership.
And even if Clement is the guy who was sitting there writing all this out, he didn't feel that it was his place to, you know, step into the role of like Paul, and say that this is Clement writing to you.
No, this is just the church at Rome, and then, if we go to the end, let's see
So 62, not 63,
All right. I'm not going to read you the whole paragraph, but at the end of the letter he's sort of summarizing everything, and it is all about.
We we have written enough to you, brothers, about the things that pertain, and as he goes on, or as they go on, I should say I should get in line with how they're doing it.
These Roman elders, these Roman presbyters are sending this letter, and they're not commanding Corinth.
They don't believe themselves to have the authority to command Corinth to do anything they're urging them to do it.
They're giving them the reasons to do it. But there's still an understanding of the independence and of the the right of the churches to govern themselves
I want to move on now, just briefly to a man named Hermus, who lived in Rome, sort of at the same time most of his he was.
I'm guessing that Hermes was a young man.
When Clement was an old man and Hermus writes very long book, it's an apocalyptic book.
Some of it's a very weird book, some of it's fun.
Some of us don't dull as dirt, but he writes quite a number of things.
He has visions, and he's recording them.
But at 1 point I'm just pulling him out, because at 1 point he refers to Clement, and it may be the same Clement Hermus is also in the church at Rome.
His brother was of one of the leaders in the church at Rome.
His name was Pius, retrospectively the Catholic Church refers to him as Pope Pius the First, but he wouldn't have known what you were talking about.
But Hermus refers to Clement in a line.
Here he's he's having a vision, and the the person that he's seeing in the vision says to him, There is she first she asks him if because it's an elderly woman, if he's already written his book and distribute it, yet and he says no and
She's like, Okay, good. She tells him a little bit more, and then she says, therefore you will write 2 little books.
This was early in the composition process. It gets to be a big book, but you will write 2 little books, and you will send one to Clement and one to grot tape.
Then Clement will send it to the cities abroad, because that is his job.
But Grapte will instruct the widows and orphan, but you yourself read it to this city along with the elders who preside over the church.
So in Hermus, who he's probably starting writing, maybe 10 years after first climate was written.
He finishes writing about 50 years later, but he's already he's testifying about, you know, a man named Clement in Rome, and what is? Why is he special?
Why is he being singled out in the slime? It's his job to send stuff to other churches around the region.
That's why. So I think that's how Clement of Rome, who also refers by gets called Pope Clement the First.
Again he would have been just confused. That's why I think he gets really, really credited in that epistle, because he's the one whose job it was to sense
So we're at we're at. Well, I've pulled in first comment, and then Shepherd of Hermus from your list.
Now we'll go to in between those 2 a guy named Ignatius of Antioch.
How many of you have heard of Ignatius of Antioch, not Ignatius of Loyola, but all right, we've got some hands. Ignatius of Loyola was much later and very different, but Ignatius of Antioch is
We can probably say, bishop, for Ignatius. He's Bishop of the Church in Antioch.
This is around. Probably, although dating is questionable here, probably around 115.
He is arrested during a persecution that's going on in the Antioch area, and he's shipped off to Rome and while he's on the way, and I guess a lot of this, I've I've got in your your notes, there.
So I don't have to say all of it. While he's on his way he writes letters to.
He writes 7 letters to churches and one other bishop.
Maybe along his path, and there are 7 of these letters that have been preserved for us
Interestingly. He was probably a student of the Apostle John.
He's living early enough that when he was a young man in Asia Minor, John probably was an old man in Asia Minor the next guy that we'll talk about is is Carmen's friend, Polycarp, and he was probably a very young man when he knew John assuming
That it's true that he knew John. But both of these guys were most likely students of the Apostle John, and Ignatius is the first evidence that we really have of anything approaching what you would call a monarchical bishop.
One who's, you know, ruling over the church in almost a royal kind of way.
Now that's that's really harsh on Ignatius.
Disagree with a lot of things about how Ignatius thinks the Church should be set up.
But I do think it's useful to step back a little bit and look at the church, and how the church was in Asia Minor, and understand what he actively what is function actually was.
And I think that for 2 reasons, one, because when you read Ignatius's letters, while he has very elevated view of the role of the bishop, and while he has some sort of wild theological explanations for it, he's also clearly got a pastor's heart, for the people, and
When he's admonishing bishops and these other churches.
He's consistently reminding them. Care for the people.
So this, that aspect of what we have in the New Testament is definitely not lost in Ignatius.
He has a pastor's heart. The other thing to know is that while we, while we describe him as sort of the first evidence of a monarchical bishop, he's not like we think of today, you know the Archbishop of Milwaukee who's got I don't know how
Many Catholic churches are, in the Milwaukee arts, diocese.
I don't have any idea but it's got to be a 100.
Maybe you sure, even on a smaller diocese you're going to have a lot of churches under a Catholic bishop.
Now, when Ignatius talks about the bishop in a church, he's basically talking about a pastor in a church in a church like this.
So, if if we had a senior pastor at Walatosa Bible Chapel, that's the person that Ignatius would think of as the Bishop when he talked about the Bishop so he's not talking about.
You know some guy who's over thousands and thousands and thousands of Christians in Milwaukee.
He's talking about some guy that's leading. I don't know a few 100 people in the city of Antioch now, having apologized a little bit for him.
We'll skip through. Oh, it just one little connection to previous week he may have been arrested in the in the persecution or in the investigations that plenty.
The younger launched, and we talked about plenty a couple of weeks ago in talking about canonization of Scripture, and I need to get a move on so so Ephesian or his Ignatius epistle to the Ephesians has a lot.
To say about about the Bishop, but it's long, and there's nothing distinctive.
So I'm not going to highlight that too much.
He has another place, where, in an epistle to the Magnesians, where he points out, he says it's also indeed it is right for you all not to take a weight.
I'm too far up. So he's saying that it's important to not take advantage of his youthful appearance.
Apparently their bishop was young, but to defer to him, as one who is wise in God, yet not really to him, but to the Father of Jesus Christ, the Bishop of all.
So in that I think he's right, but I think he's going to push this identification too far.
In the course of his further theology. There's another place, and you may have heard you may have heard this.
If you've heard of Ignatius, he identifies the deacons with Christ.
The Bishop with God the Father as a model of the Father.
That's how the people should view him and the presbyters themselves as God's counsel, and the band of the Apostles and he's not so saying that the Bishop actually is.
You know the presence of the father and the Church. He's not saying that he's just talking about the authority structure, and how this should be understood
In his, Epistle to the Philadelphians, he says to them that there's in the same way that there is one Eucharist.
There's one bishop. He links those 2, and that seems to be really at the core what Ignatius thinks the bishop or the pastor does, he is most associated with the Eucharist, and he tells the people you know that there are these 3 offices, he's
Telling the people this, and when he writes to Smyrna, there are these 3 offices, and only the Eucharist that's under the authority of the Bishop is valid
Not quite sure what he means when he says valid. I don't want to load too much later.
Theology into it, but whatever it is, he thinks that it's only valid if it's under the authority of the bishop, he is very focused on unity, because from partly because the churches in Asia minor were going through these struggles there was persecution and because of these
Struggles they were. They were having division come up and Ignatius is very focused on that.
Unity, and he finds that unity in the Eucharist, and he finds that unity in the Bishop.
So he's emphasizing that people need to do that now.
It's really interesting. There's one of his letters where he doesn't mention the Bishop at all.
The only time the word even shows up in the letter when he refused to himself, as the Bishop in as a bishop in Syria, the and that's his letter to the Romans.
It's where he's headed. He doesn't try to convince them.
You know, submit to your bishop. He doesn't tell them any of that kind of stuff, and I think it's probably because he knows that while he might be able to convince the people in Asia Minor of this theory still, at this State, there's no way, he can get this to fly in
Rome, Rome, ironically, Rome holds on to a plurality of leadership longer than anybody, at least any other major churches in ancient Christianity which is just mind-blowing to me that we think of them now as sort of the you know the example a powerful central bishop and they held
On to plurality longer than anybody else. I am going to to do one more figure tonight, and then I'm going to stop and will conclude this next week, because there's just too much left.
But I do want to get to Ignatius as good friend, and I don't mean that, ironically his good friend Polycarp, who was also a student of the Apostle John, like I said a minute ago, and Polycarp was a leader in the city in Smith now when
Ignatius rights to Polycarp. Ignatius gives him all kinds of advice, and frankly, it's not mostly bad at advice.
He's, you know, encouraging him, you know. Don't forget about the widows.
You're you know you're their last line of defense.
They don't have anybody else. It's just you and God and them, and he's given them all kinds of good pastoral advice, and he's encouraging him to to assert himself more as a bishop
I think the reason he's encouraging him to assert himself more as a bishop is that ignition's idea a single bishop in the church, or of a single pastor, to put it more an hour terms, our contemporary terms.
I don't think that was flying in Smyrna yet.
Ignatius wanted it to, but it didn't seem to be flying, and Smyrna, and so I think Polycarp got this letter from his older friend, and just comes like, yeah, that's that's Ignatius's thing.
But then, when Polycarp turns around and writes a letter to the Philippians, which is one of the things Ignatius had asked him to do, was to to communicate this to a couple of other places, and be sure you know he had a couple of little tasks, that he wanted him that he wasn't going to
be able to do, because he was under armed guard. So Polycarp, could you take care of a couple of things for me?
When Polycarp writes to the Flippians, he talks about himself writing, and he he says, I, Polycarp, with the elders that are with me now, maybe he's maybe there.
He's sort of singling himself out as being distinct from them, but it doesn't really sound like it.
I think Polycarp is talking in terms of a chloride of elders in Smyrna.
That's really what it sounds like to me.
And there are several other things there that that indicate the same.
But Polycarp never talks about himself as the Bishop.
He talks about himself as, and elder, and when he addresses the church at Philippi, he's not addressing it to their bishop.
He's addressing it to the chart, just like first Clement was addressed to the church at Corinth.
He's addressing the church that's at Philippi in particular.
Yes, its elders, because they're going to be the ones, probably receiving it and being responsible for doing things.
But he still seems to have that that idea of a plurality so Ignatius's letters give us sort of both sides.
He's promoting this idea of a solo pastor who takes charge in the church and makes the decisions.
And everybody needs to get in line behind them, but he also, I think, almost accidentally, shows us that at least at 1, 15, you know, 150, the year 115.
This was not a universal, universally accepted way of operating Rome doesn't operate this way Smyrna doesn't seem to operate this way.
I mean in Rome. He he doesn't even mention it to them.
Smyrna, if not for Polycarp's letter.
We wouldn't know for all I know. It's not working that way in Philadelphia or in Magnesia, or in any of the other cities, that he's writing to.
It's kind of hard to say it. Eventually. I'll concede, eventually becomes the standard.
But at this point it doesn't seem to be yet all right, like I say, I need to stop.
It is almost 5 till we'll look at Irenaeus and Cyprian and Dionysius next week I was planning to move on to A, to a new topic, but I think we need to do one more week on on this, just because some of these guys are really interesting and I think
We see sort of this, this trajectory get to a finishing point.
So hopefully, hopefully, you're not too tired of elders and deacons and bishops.
So, my, and we can do one more week of that. I'll close and close this portion of our meeting in prayer, and then and then we can go on to prayer
Right.
Father, we thank you for the leadership that you've placed in our churches.
We thank you that you've given us a pattern for it that both provides for leadership, but also prevents or or
Tries to prevent that leadership from corrupting father.
We pray that pray for our elders here, that they would remain faithful, that they would exercise oversight the assembly, but also of themselves, so that so that we don't run into the things that so many in the early Church ran into Father we thank you, for your preservation of the church, through
All these years, that in spite of our failures to to live up to all the standards that you had set, that you remained faithful, that your spirit remained with us, that you that your word came through this so that we were able to see both the pattern and the deviations that we've
Made from it. Father, we pray that you would keep us humble.
Teach us and help us to live and to worship, and to gather in a way that honors you in Christ's name.
We pray, Amen.