The Apostles Teaching

I was thinking tonight on the Scripture in Acts 2 that talks about the activities of the early church and remembered it says the Church was “devoted to the Apostles teaching”. Of course we know the only written Scriptures available at that time were the OT writings and the letters from the Apostles to the church. They did not have the many translations that we have today, nor were the copies they did have in abundant supply. So, I pulled out a copy of the Didache which is the teaching of the Apostles in the first century after the resurrection of Jesus.

It is a very interesting reading, but I believe it would be rejected by many today and possibly even many in the church. It is certainly not politically correct and would be viewed as racist, divisive and not relevant for our culture today. Well, all of this is true. The teaching of the Apostles is very racist in that it is written for one race, the Body of Christ. It is divisive because Jesus said he would create division between many people, even members of families. And it is certainly not relevant to those who oppose the Kingdom principles of God.

Following is an excerpt from the Didache.

“Chapter 2. The Second Commandment: Gross Sin Forbidden. (Translated by M.B. Riddle from Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol 7; edited by Alexander Rogers, James Donaldson and A. Cleveland Coxe

And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, Exodus 20:13-14 you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, Exodus 20:15 you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten.”

What is “Pederasty”? From Wikipedia we find

Greek love is a term originally used by classicists to describe the primarily homoerotic customs, practices, and attitudes of the ancient Greeks. It was frequently used as a euphemism for homosexuality and pederasty. 

• Pederasty or paederasty is a homosexual relationship between an adult male and a pubescent or adolescent male.

So, from the above portion of the Didache, we see that the Apostles clearly taught against homosexuality and also the murdering of anything that was “begotten”, as well as immorality, witchcraft, thievery, etc. Anything “begotten” means that which has been conceived, which we know today as abortion. These are very politicized topics in our culture today and our government leaders are elected based on their personal views of these topics, and many of these leaders profess to be a Christian.

Many today say they belong to the “church”, but it is not the church that Jesus built. His church is devoted to the teachings of the Apostles. His church would never support any agenda that is inconsistent with His Word. His church would love all people enough to tell them the truth and help them to walk out of the darkness and bondage of these ungodly influences. His Church would call sin, sin because that is really in the best interest of the people involved

On July 9, CBN News reported that Amazon has removed books on reparative theology for gays from their inventories because they present an answer to the homosexual problem and these books portray homosexuality as sin. It was reported that signatures of only 80,000 people convinced Amazon to make this decision, even though Amazon has 95 million other people with Amazon Prime memberships. That is less than one tenth of one percent of their client base. About 75% of Americans claim to be Christians, so lets assume they have Prime memberships (which they probably all don’t), but that means 71, 250, 000 would be “supposed” Christians. How does this happen? What business makes this type of decision based on these numbers.

The enemy is very confident that the church still remains asleep. Suppose that only 1/2 of the Prime membership is Christians. That is still an alarmingly low percentage (~0.2%) of client base that could sway Amazon to make such a decision. What if about 30,000,000 Prime members canceled their membership? But this won’t happen unless the church wakes up and becomes the Church Jesus built. I am not proposing that we all cancel our Prime membership, but I am proposing that the church wake up and stop what is going on in our nation. I love Amazon and use them almost weekly, but this is just one example of many that are happening right in front of us, but do we see it?

How do we stop it? First, we must begin with PRAYER. The most important tool in Spiritual Warfare is Prayer. We begin to tear down the spiritual strongholds of murder and perversion over our nation with Prayer. Jesus said He gave us authority over the supernatural powers of darkness (Luke 10:19). But we are asleep and the enemy is sowing all types of “poisonous seeds” in our fields and we don’t know it. (Mt. 13:23-30). How many Christians pray? How many individual Christians are truly the “church” that we are supposed to be? Or do we leave this to the Pastors of the church?

Secondly, Jesus said we are the salt and light of the world, but if the church is no longer that salt and light, the world will be turned into darkness, as we are seeing happening today. The church is the answer to our nation’s problems. We must awaken and begin to speak truth…His truth and not what seems socially or politically relevant or people pleasing. We must call sin sin, while offering those in bondage a way out. We must love people enough to tell them the truth and rescue them from the destruction they are engulfed in. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, and that is still the mission of the church today! (1 John 3:8)

I have been in the church for 40 years and I have been working with broken, addicted, sin infested people outside the church for nearly 20 years. Most of the these people self identify as Christians but have no idea what being a Christian really means. There is a huge disconnect because the church is not the salt and light it needs to be and sin and righteousness is not being taught, as the Scripture teaches us, and certainly as the Apostles taught in the early church. People do not know what they do not know and what they have not been taught. The church must become the Church Jesus built or our nation will fall like every other nation left to its own ways. Our children and grandchildren will live in bondage to darkness because Godly values are no longer desired, as we are seeing today in our schools and government.

I see people who have been in church all of their lives, yet remain in darkness. I see people who I believe love God, but have never been taught of His redeeming power. I see people who believe they can continue in their sin and God is ok with that lifestyle. I see people who are stuck in the cycles of failure, and live from one crisis to another because they don’t know the freedom Christ brings. These are all the deceits of the enemy. As we become His Church, we can touch these people everywhere we go: on our jobs, in the marketplace, in our schools and social activities. Everywhere we go, people are living under the rule of the enemy. How do we bring change? One life at a time. How do we change our nation? One family at a time.

Pastor Donna