The Bible Breakdown
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The Bible Breakdown
BB Xtra: The Didache Part 2
Discover the fascinating world of the Didache, an ancient church manual dating back to Christianity's earliest days. This remarkable document served as a practical guidebook for new believers at a time when apostolic letters were still being circulated and the faith was rapidly spreading across the Roman world.
The Didache (pronounced did-ah-kay), meaning simply "the teaching," offers us a unique glimpse into how the first generations of Christians understood and applied Jesus' teachings. Though not scripture, this document synthesizes apostolic wisdom on everything from baptism and fasting to prayer and ethical living. Think of it as an early church playbook, answering the pressing "how-to" questions of communities learning to live out their newfound faith.
Dive into chapters 4-6 with us as we explore the Didache's refreshingly straightforward approach to following Jesus. Chapter 4 emphasizes honoring God's word, making peace, practicing generosity, and teaching children. Chapter 5 presents "the way of death" – a comprehensive catalog of sins early Christians were told to avoid. Perhaps most encouraging is Chapter 6's gracious acknowledgment that spiritual growth is a process: "If thou canst bear the whole yoke of the Lord, thou shalt be perfect; but if thou canst not, do what thou canst."
This ancient wisdom reminds us that Christianity has always been a practical way of life, not just a set of theological beliefs. Sometimes the greatest act of faith is simply faithfulness – remaining on the potter's wheel as God shapes us into who we're meant to become. As one church father might say, "It's okay not to be okay, but God loves you too much to let you stay that way."
Join our Bible Breakdown Extras as we uncover this treasure from our spiritual heritage and discover how its timeless insights can transform our walk with God today. Subscribe and share your thoughts on how these ancient teachings speak to your modern faith journey!
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The More We Dig. The More We Find.
Well, hello everybody, welcome back to one of our Bible Breakdown Extras. I love these so very much because what we do is we take some time out once a month and we just get creative. We just work on it, not in it. And we take some of these times and we talk about spiritual disciplines and we walk through books together that teach us about apologetics and stuff like that. And last time we talked about one of these books that not many people know about and it's a shame because it's so very interesting and it's called the Didache, which means the teaching, and we're going to jump into the next three chapters about this and it's really it's really cool, really, really fun, really awesome, and I hope you enjoyed the first one, and we're going to jump into the second half, our second part of it today, and so, if you're ready, we're going to jump in, and I want to kind of remind us what we're talking about and then we'll jump in from there. And so, remember, it's called the Didache and it's the teaching of the Lord to the disciples through or, excuse me, it's the teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles through the 12 disciples, and so the background of this is is this was written around the same time. The Bible was being inspired by the Holy Spirit and the letters of Paul being written. You know there are right after the fact and all these things are happening, but we don't know who wrote it. The goal was not to have somebody to write this and and for everyone, just to celebrate them. That's not why it was written for. The goal was to be a church manual for the early church, because at this point, you know, christianity is brand new and the letters are still being written or and they're still being passed around. I mean, as a matter of fact, it is in the late first century, that's the that's you know, right about the time when, when john was probably possibly still alive to the early 100s or the second century. And so what was happening is, as these letters are passing around, there were some of these churches all over the place and they needed kind of a manual on how to do the different things, and so this was put together like a playbook for how to be part of a church community. So some interesting facts is it may have been written during the time the New Testament was being written and it is one of the oldest Christian documents outside of the New Testament.
Speaker 1:Now it's important to realize I want to make sure I do this again, I'll make this big old circle here it's important to realize this is not considered to be inspired by God. So no one is going around saying that we should put the Didache into the New Testament. It's not like that at all. That's not what this was for. It was a synthesis or like a bottom line of the practical teachings of the New Testament that was being passed around through the apostles. So, as the apostles were teaching, people were saying, okay, this is what they said and we're putting it together. So, in other words, it's about Christian ethics, about baptism and fasting, about how to do prayer in the Lord's Supper, how to treat others and how to live their life in the light of Jesus' return.
Speaker 1:So then, why should we read this, like Pastor, if this is not in the New Testament, why do we even care? Well, first of all, we want to look at and see okay, how did the early church live? Like what was it that they were doing? Number two is I love the simplicity of following Jesus, how they just keep it really simple and they just this is how we do this and we just don't get up in the weeds about it. It's not scripture, but it's full of biblical truth and wisdom and it connects us to the roots of the church. And so in the first three chapters we saw this amazing synthesis if I can say that word of the different things that the early church believed, about things like baptism and abortion and stuff like that. Well, in the next one we're going to go even further, and these chapters are really really short, so we're going to read these and just enjoy.
Speaker 1:The idea of this is how the early church thought about some of the practical and pressing things going on in their world. So, if you're ready, chapter 4 says this my son, night and day shalt thou remember him that speaketh unto thee the word of God, and thou shalt honor him as God. For where the power of the Lord is proclaimed, there is the Lord, and thou shalt seek out, day by day, the faces of the saints, that thou mayest rest upon their words Verse 4. For transgressions, in other words, what they just said was is seek to honor God. Try to make peace among people.
Speaker 1:Verse four thou shalt not waver in spirit, whether thou shalt be yes or no, but not one stretches forth his hands to receive, but whereso holdeth no one uses that word anymore them forgiving if thou hast it in thy hand. Thou shalt give a ransom for thy sins, for thou shalt not hesitate to give. Neither when thou givest, shalt thou murmur, for thou shalt know who is the fair recompenser of the reward. Thou shalt not turn away from him that is in need, but thou shalt share all things with thy brother, and thou shalt call anything. Thou shalt not call anything thy own, for if ye are sharers in which is incorruptible, how much more the things that are corruptible? Thou shalt not take away thy hand from thy son or from thy daughter, but from their youth up until y'all shall teach them to fear the Lord. In other words, what he just said there was is they said be generous to all, don't be stingy and teach your children the ways of the Lord.
Speaker 1:Verse 10,. Thou shalt not, in thy bitterness, lay commands upon thy bondsmen and thy maidservant, of whom is the same God, lest at any time they may cease to fear him. Who is God over both, for he cometh not to call men according to his outward appearance, but to those whose spirit he hath made ready for him. And ye servants be subject unto your masters. He says this is the way of life. So, in other words, long before the Mandalorian, the early Christians said this is the way. Now I know that this is in like the Elizabethan English, but there's not a lot of modern translations, so we got to do the best we can.
Speaker 1:So what he's also saying, or what they are also saying, is hey, early church, hate all hypocrisy. Like be true to who you're supposed to be and don't forsake the commandments of god. And hey, listen, if you sin, confess it in the congregation. We don't do that anymore, but maybe we should. Because number one is when you confess your sins, other people realize okay, I'm not the only one. But then also, for what it's worth, there's something to be said about man. I don't want to sin because I ain't gonna tell everybody I'll be sinning, right. So there, there's something to that. All right, all right, chapter five.
Speaker 1:But the way of death is this. First, all of it is evil and full of cursing murders, adulteries, covet, desires, fornications, theft, idolatries, witchcraft, sorceries, plunderings, false witnessing, hypocrisies, duplicity, guile, arrogance, malice, stubbornness, greed, foulness of speech, envy, insolence, pride and boasting. Persecutors of the good, hating truth, loving falsehood, not acknowledging the reward of righteousness, not cleaving to that which is good, neither to the righteous judgment. Watchful not toward good but toward evil, from whom meekness and patience are far removed. Loving vain things, seeking after recompense, not pitying the poor, not sorrowing with the sorrow laden, not acknowledging their maker, murderers of children, destroyers of the image of God, turning away from the needy, grieving the afflicted, advocates of the rich. So what they just did was they said you want to know what a list of sins are? Because the way of death, let me give them to you, and he just lays it out. So if you want to know what the early church considered from the teaching of the apostles, what sins were, you just got them. And we can get all of these from the New Testament, from different places, but here they are and basically what it is is you really get down to love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself, and you look at those. There they are, but they actually give you a list of what they are, and there are some of these that even talk about the idea of turning away from those who are in need, grieving those who are in pain. You know, when it says advocating for the rich, that means playing favorites. These, all these things destroy people, so don't do that. All right, one more chapter.
Speaker 1:Chapter 6, very, very short chapter, says see that no man lead the astray from this way of the teaching since he teacheth thee, apart from God. If thou canst bear any yoke of the Lord, thou shalt be perfect or mature, but if thou canst not do that which thou can Now concerning food, bear what thou can, but refrain utterly from meat offered to idols, for it is a service of dead gods. So in other words, that goes all the way back to Romans 12, that there was this problem of what do we do with meat offered to idols. And Paul was like hey, look, you and I both know those are dead gods. So offer a word of thanks and you're good to go. But if it bothers your neighbor, don't do that, because we don't want to be a stumbling block for your neighbor.
Speaker 1:Well, I love the simplicity of that last chapter. I'm going to go back to it real quick. If you're watching the video, it says this see that no man leads you astray from the way of the teaching, in other words the teaching of the apostles. That's what they had. The letters and the gospels would have been passed around at this point.
Speaker 1:See that no one leads you astray from the word of God, since they teach something that is apart from God. For if you can bear all of the yoke of God like you can do what God has called you to do. You can bear it. Then do it. That's what maturity looks like. If you can't do as much as you can, that's awesome. In other words, he's saying you'll get there If you keep going, just don't give up.
Speaker 1:And what a wonderful lesson for us that the people in the early church this was what they were saying to one another hey man, listen, there's a lot of things in that Bible that is very different than the way I was raised, very different than the 10 unwritten rules of my family's past. It's very different from what I want to do, and I'm working on it, but I'm not there yet. So does that mean we hide in a corner until we get it right? No, the didache says do the best you can with what you have and just keep getting better. What would happen in our lives if we live that way? What would it look like in our lives if we gave other people the grace to do that? Hey, do the best you can with what you have. Trust God, god with the rest, I think there'd be a peace that come over people. I don't think I heard someone say one time that they they struggled to tell people that because they were afraid if they did, people wouldn't try to live holy. I think it's quite the opposite. I think if we take the pressure off of people and say hey, man, god loves you just the way you are, he just loves you too much to let you stay that way. And so God's got a growth plan for you, and everyone's at a different stage of growth in their life. So your job is to stay on the potter's wheel and let him get rid of those rough edges. Do the best you can, and sometimes the greatest act of faith is faithfulness. I'm just gonna stay here. I'm gonna stay and I'm gonna grow where I'm planted and watch what God will do. What a powerful lesson for all of us. And so, as we end these next chapters, I think that that's the number one takeaway.
Speaker 1:In the first chapter, chapter four, he was talking about how make peace as best as you can and be careful to honor others and choose the way of life. Chapter six was all about, or, excuse me. Chapter five was all about hey, listen, there's a list of sins, do none of life. Chapter 6 was all about, or, excuse me. Chapter 5 was all about hey, listen, there's a list of sins, do none of them. But then it follows up with the next one of do the best you can Get the ones right that you can and keep working on the rest of them and you'll get there.
Speaker 1:Man, what a wonderful thing for us. So can I encourage you Kind of? Set you free a little bit. It's okay to not be okay, but God does not want you to stay that way. He's going to keep working in your life and slowly mature you and slowly untie all the knots we find ourselves tied into until we're completely whole, completely forgiven and completely free. That's God's promise for all of us. All right, okay, I love you, I'll see you tomorrow. We jump back into God's word.
