The 𝘋𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦: How’d the earliest Christians behave?

In the first century, Christian leaders wrote a “teaching” for their newbies: Stuff they felt new Christians oughta know and believe. Over time it’s become known as the didache, from its first line, Didahí Kyríu diá ton dódeka apostólon toís éthesin, “The Master’s teaching to the gentiles, from the 12 apostles.” Medieval western Christians lost their copies of it sometime in the 800s, and assumed it was gone forever, but Ethiopian Christians kept a version of it among their sacred literature, and an 11th-cenutry copy in the Codex Hierosolymitanus was rediscovered by Philotheos Bryennios in 1873.

Historians notice a lot of similarities between the Didache and what the Qumran community taught in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It’s considered a Jewish-Christian catechism, a lesson to be memorized, and eventually practiced. Whether it’s precisely as the Twelve taught, we’ve no idea. But it’s safe to say it’s what a lot of early Christians taught. In fact, many early Christians felt the Didache should be included in the New Testament.

So why wasn’t it? ’Cause for the longest time, Christians thought it was written in the second century, and nearly all of ’em limited the NT to first-century writings. I’m not saying we should add it now… but it’s interesting to look at the way ancient Christians expected their newbies to behave. It’s why I include the whole of it below.

The translation and chapter titles are mine. I took the text from the Codex Hierosolymitanus. Read it yourself, and notice how many of these ideas are still taught in your own church.

“If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”

2 Thessalonians 3.10.

Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this verse quoted by people who don’t wanna give to the needy:

2 Thessalonians 3.10 KJV

For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

Years ago, beggars used to sit at the entrance to every grocery store parking lot, with a sign saying “Help me” or “Looking for work” or some sad story which might get people to give ’em their spare change. That’s not hyperbole: Every grocery store parking lot. They were everywhere. So the city council passed an ordinance: Can’t beg within 40 feet of a driveway or intersection.

Not every beggar knows this, of course. A few weeks ago I walked past a woman begging at the edge of a driveway. I tried to warn her what she was doing was illegal, but she didn’t listen. Pretty sure she listened to the cops which later came by and ticketed her. I’ve seen ’em do it to other beggars.

I don’t know how much they get from sitting there. I know someone who tried to do the math: “If five people give them five dollars every hour, that’s $25 an hour, so $200 a day…” Assuming they’re willing to sit there eight full hours, and assuming people give ’em any more than spare change or a dollar. I once watched a beggar outside a church parking lot, and only two people gave her anything; and one gave her blankets not money.

Regardless, their existence really irritates people. Not because these people are outraged by the plight of the poor in this country. They’re really not. They’ve swallowed the party line that if you’re poor, it’s somehow your own fault. Time and chance didn’t happen to you; you merit your poverty by being lazy, or not fighting off your addictions, or refusing every legitimate agency’s efforts to help you. If you appear to be able-bodied, it really bugs ’em. God forbid you carry an iPhone (even if somebody gave it to you): “What’re they doing with an iPhone? Don’t give to them. They’re just scamming you.”

The general consensus is if you don’t have a job, it’s only because you refused to get one. Or refused to be a reliable employee, so you were fired; or you’re mentally ill but refused your meds. You’ve no excuse for your poverty, and your poverty is simply an obvious display of karmic justice. You’re poor because you’re not worthy. If you were worthy, you’d go get help!

Plus isn’t this principle in the bible somewhere? “If any would not work, neither should he eat.” Because the LORD God did declare back in Genesis,

Genesis 3.19 KJV

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Work is mandatory. It’s part of the curse upon Adam and all humanity for sin. These beggars clearly weren’t sweating for their bread. (Although to be fair, neither are those of us with white-collar jobs.) So how dare we interfere with God’s decree? We sweat for our bread; they should sweat for their bread. And if you’re one of those bleeding-hearts who give to beggars, you realize you’re just undermining God’s decree. You think you’re being kind and generous, but you’re encouraging laziness and dependency. Bad Christian.

These are just two of the many passages of the bible, misappropriated so we can justify our lack of compassion.

Ask prophets follow-up questions.

Hypothetical situation here. Let’s say you’re having lunch with a friend, and the friend gets a phone call mid-lunch, and has to take it; it’s someone important. So you eat while your friend gabs on the phone a bit. Then your friend hangs up. “Sorry about that,” she says. “By the way he says hi, and wanted to tell you something.”

“Okay,” you say, “let’s hear it.”

“He says he knows you have a presentation coming up, and it’s gonna go really well, but he wants you to make sure you don’t wear something that’ll offend the client.”

“Like what?” you say. You already know better than to wear your “It’s not drinking alone if your dog is with you” T-shirt to such meetings.

“I dunno. Something offensive, I guess.”

“Can you call or text him back and get specifics?”

Now let’s change this story ever so slightly. ’Cause duh, it’s a parable. The friend is a prophet, and the important guy on the phone is the Holy Spirit. (You’re still you.) Unlike a phone, you never hang up; the Spirit’s still there, in the room, listening to this conversation, and knows what your question is. He can answer it, y’know. In my experience he usually will.

Yet what do we Christians usually do? Well, for whatever weird reason, we don’t ask follow-up questions. We just sit there and muddle through what the Spirit meant, confused. As if the Holy Spirit is the author of confusion.

Um… you can ask follow-up questions, y’know. God’s okay with questions. In many cases he’s trying to provoke questions. He wants a relationship with us, and relationships involve a little give-and-take. Not just him giving, us taking, and us figuring our relationship is unidirectional—in either direction.

Instead we treat God’s opening statement as if it’s a decree handed down, and the heavens have closed back up behind it. We figure, “Well I’m not entirely sure what to do with that; I guess I’ll pray on it…” and let it bug us for the next day or so, and generate anxiety instead of peace. Or, more commonly, we forget all about it, because vague statements don’t really make an impact on us… plus we’re not so sure it’s even God anyway.

Of course I’m saying we should stop doing this.

When you know Jesus, you know God.

At the beginning of John’s gospel we read,

John 1.18 KJV

No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

God, being spirit, Jn 4.24 is invisible to us material creatures. So in order for the folks in the Old Testament to see him, he had to show them a visible representation of himself. It’s not literally himself; it can’t be, because he himself is invisible. So the Old Testament folks got to see a burning bush, a column of cloud, or a pillar of fire, which represented the LORD’s presence. (And notice how he kept deliberately choosing representations which had no solid form. Hope you can recognize why.)

But in Jesus the Nazarene, God presents something which is exactly himself. Visible, so we can see him. Easy to hear and understand—when we’re really listening. A fully accurate depiction of who God is. You wanna know God? Get to know Jesus.

John 14.8-11 KJV

8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? 10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.

Loads of preachers and theologians love to list any of God’s attributes which reflect his grandness and power. Like his omnis: Omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnivorous, and so forth. ’Cause we humans covet power, and rarely for the best of reasons. So we’re attracted to God’s might, and rejoice that we have a powerful God.

Again, rarely for the best of reasons. There’s this assumption that because we have a powerful God, it somehow makes us powerful and right, and our message and religion and influence oughta also be powerful. Or at least it would be powerful if we’d just grab hold of that power… and smack the world upside the head with it.

But power belongs in God’s hands, and no other. It’s not appropriate for humans. And Jesus demonstrates this: When he became human, he deliberately depowered himself. Pp 2.7 Yes he did miracles, but that’s because he tapped the Holy Spirit’s power. Ac 10.38 And the reason he told us we can do as he does, is ’cause we have the same Spirit. Jn 14.12

Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, and Jesus exhibits these fruits better than anyone. He puts limits on himself. Far more limits than we bother to put on ourselves. Which means all these “omni attributes” which preachers love to list, don’t apply to Jesus. He surrendered them, and his will, to his Father.

That’s why the people of Jesus’s day had the darnedest time recognizing him as God. Humans expect God to be almighty… but see Jesus and think, “Well he’s not almighty. People resist him, and he lets them. People insult him, and he doesn’t strike them down with lightning. He doesn’t enforce his will. Heck, he got himself killed. What kind of weak, ineffectual God is that?”

Not weak at all. Self-controlled.

The Bigger Barns Story.

Luke 12.13-21.

People wanna be rich.

Which I get. I’ve never been rich. My parents are retired and comfortable, but that’s only because their investments paid off: They didn’t have that kind of money while I was growing up. So I experienced food stamps, school lunch subsidies, thrift stores, buses, and free-clinic healthcare. I’ve been poor as an adult too. Not homeless; I nearly got that far. But I definitely learned how to get by on $5 a month. If that.

Poverty sucks. And not just because, in a thousand little ways, American society is no help at getting people out of poverty. Really, you can only save money when you have money—when you can afford to buy in bulk, or get the higher-level plan which happens to offer deep discounts, or afford the $100 shoes which last two years instead of the $10 shoes which last a month. (Well, three months with duct tape.)

Our culture’s popular myth is “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps,” but y’notice most of the people who say that, don’t have boots and have no idea this is an ironic saying. Tell them your financial woes and they just shrug, “Work harder.” Or “Work smarter, not harder.” As if that bit of advice solves all our problems. When I was poor, my problem was if I worked smarter, I’d’ve figured out how to finish my work in half the time… so my boss would’ve cut my hours. Yep, that’s why most people and businesses don’t work smarter: No incentive!

Anyway, between being poor, and not being poor, I absolutely prefer not being poor. It’s nice to be able to look at one’s checking account and be pleasantly surprised. It’s nice to be able to give to charity out of one’s abundance.

But too many people don’t wanna merely be comfortable; they wanna be rich.

They wanna have so much money, they can afford anything their hearts covet. And they covet a lot of ridiculously expensive things. Stuff I look at and go, “Seriously?”—but yeah, they seriously want that. I don’t get it… but then again if they saw how many books are on my Kindle, they’d probably look at me funny too. To each their own, I suppose.

In some cases it’s not even about the stuff they covet. They just want the wealth. They want the power to do whatever they please. They’ll figure out later what it is they please; they’ll waste a lot of money trying to find it. But the point of all the wealth is they can afford to waste money.

And not work. Or at least not work hard. They wanna stumble into tons of money by doing something easy. The older folks I know keep trying to play the lottery, or hope to get lucky at the casino. The younger folks largely realize that’s foolish… so they’re trying really hard to become YouTube celebrities and Instagram influencers. Hey, some folks make millions of dollars doing that, and it doesn’t look all that hard to do. It certainly seems easier than serving unruly customers or cleaning bathrooms.

Again, I get it. Coveting wealth is a pretty common phenomenon. Especially in a culture which doesn’t believe status is a fixed thing—where you’re born into a caste, and can’t help but stay in it forever. We know too many examples of people who were born poor and became rich. (And vice versa.) The potential exists—even though it’s mighty hard to stumble into the thing which makes one rich.

But Jesus warns us against coveting wealth like that.

For many reasons… though you’ll quickly notice today’s parable actually doesn’t get into Jesus’s reasons. It’s really just his reminder that life is more important than wealth. Here y’go.

Luke 12.13-21 KWL

13 Someone in the crowd tells Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me!”

14 Jesus tells him, “Mister, who appointed me to be judge or arbiter over you two?”

15 Jesus tells the crowd, “Watch and guard yourselves from every obsession with wealth:

One’s life doesn’t ‘begin’ once they have a superabundance.”

16 Jesus tells a parable to the crowd, saying,

“Some rich person’s land was very productive,

17 and he was musing to himself, saying, ‘What could I do?—

I don’t have anywhere to collect my produce.’

18 He says, ‘I’ll do this. I’ll tear down my silos, and build bigger.

I’ll gather all the grain there, and my goods.

19 I’ll tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods stored up for many years.

Retire! Eat! Drink! Rejoice!” ’

20 God tells him, ‘Look dumbass, this night they’re demanding your soul from you!

What happens to what you prepare?’

21 This is the way of those who store up treasure for themselves,

and aren’t wealthy in God.”

Tongues build up the individual.

1 Corinthians 14.1-4.

Most of the time when Christians quote this particular passage about speaking in tongues, they quote verse 4 thisaway.

1 Corinthians 14.4 NIV

Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the one who prophesies edifies the church.

Yeah, tongues are okay, but. But but but.

Except the word but isn’t in the original text of this verse. The word which gets translated but in nearly every English-language bible, is δέ/de. It’s a conjunction which indicates the speaker just started a new sentence, and the new sentence is logically connected to the old sentence. You can, as bibles do most of the time, just leave it untranslated. Or, if you really, really wanna connect it to the previous sentence ’cause they fit together just so well, a semicolon will work.

Thing is, whenever translators think there’s a contrast between the two sentences, they can’t just translate de as a new sentence, a semicolon, or even “and.” They gotta turn it into a “but.”

So instead of writing John 1.17 as it it should be,

John 1.17 NIV

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

they gotta insert a “but” between those sentences,

John 1.17 NLT

For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ.

and imply there’s a conflict between law, and grace and truth, where really there’s no such thing.

But the reason they gotta imply such a thing, has nothing to do with the text. It has to do with their pre-existing beliefs. If you’re dispensationalist, and think in the Old Testament times God saved people through his Law, but nowadays saves people through his grace, you’re gonna want that “but” in there, proving your point. You’re not gonna want people to realize God chose Abraham by his grace, rescued the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery by his grace, enriched their nation by his grace, sent them prophets to lead them aright by his grace, inspired the writing of the Old Testament by his grace, and so forth. You’re gonna want to minimize that Old Testament grace (and hide its occurrences in the Old Testament by translating it “favor”) as much as you can.

Then you’re gonna push grace, and encourage people to reject law. Because that’s what people tend to do with contrasts. They’re not presented as “There’s A, and there’s B, and they’re different,” but as “People do A, but they should do B.” Hence dispensationalists insist people do Law, but they should do grace. Not, as Jesus teaches, that we should do both.

So back to 1 Corinthians 14. Paul and Sosthenes did wanna present a contrast between tongues and prophecy. But again, it’s not so people would reject tongues and only do prophecy. It’s so people would recognize only one of the two activities is appropriate for church gatherings. Only one of the two is a group activity. Wanna guess which one?

1 Corinthians 14.1-4 KWL

1 Pursue love. Be zealous for the supernatural.

Most of all so you can prophesy:

2 Tongues-speakers speak to God, not people.

Nobody else understands them, and they speak secrets to the Spirit.

3 Prophesiers speak to people: They build up, help out, and advise.

4 Tongues-speakers build up themselves. Prophesiers build up a church.

Forbidding tongues.

Certain Christians are terrified of tongues. Afraid of other people speaking tongues, afraid of themselves speaking tongues, afraid of the very idea. For all sorts of reasons, but most of of the time it’s one of these four:

• They think it’s devilish, and are afraid of evil spirits.
• They think it’s madness, and are afraid of crazy people.
• They think tongues-speakers are out of control, and don’t wanna surrender or lose control of themselves… nor of course be around out-of-control people.
• They realize it’s empowered by the Holy Spirit… and of all people, they’re afraid of him.

All of them are wrong ideas and false views, and people need to be taught otherwise. But whenever someone starts speaking in tongues around them, their fight-or-flight instinct gets triggered, and at that point there’s no teaching them anything. They’re having a panic attack, or they’re getting out of the building as fast as they can, or they’re furious that someone’s put them in that uncomfortable situation.

So, reason the leaders of various churches, best to just hide or silence the tongues.

Now, those of us who do speak in tongues, tend to get our dander up at the idea. Hey, didn’t the apostles forbid this kind of behavior?

1 Corinthians 14.39 KJV

Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues.

But what I’ve found are two types of churches: The cessationist sort which bans ’em outright, and the soft continuationist sort which believes miracles are still for today, but what they’re really banning are loud tongues. Speak in tongues all you please, but just as most prayers are better off done in private, so are tongues.

Because too often, when they get a tongues-speaker in their congregation, they get yet another immature Christian who can’t keep the volume down. Who insists they have every right to make noise. After all, Holy Spirit! And since God’s enabling their tongues, how dare anyone stifle them? How dare anyone declare how and when and where to show off exercise their particular gift of the Spirit? How dare these churches quench the Spirit. Betcha they blaspheme the Spirit too. Et cetera, ad nauseam.

I told a friend I was gonna write about Christians who forbid tongues, and this was largely his attitude too. He “got his angry up,” as they call it in the Bible Belt. Wants me to tear those Spirit-quenchers a new one. Nope. I’m with them. Did we forget the verse which immediately follows the “don’t-stop-tongues” one?

1 Corinthians 14.40 KJV

Let all things be done decently and in order.

Ah there it is.

You know how people are: We never give one another the benefit of the doubt. We just assume they’re sticking it to us. ’Cause human depravity and all that. But let’s not. Let’s practice a little basic discernment and find out why they “forbid tongues,” if that’s really what they’re doing. Have they absolutely forbidden prayer in tongues, both inside and outside the church building, in every single form? Or do they have no problem with tongues; they’re just exercising their prerogative to quiet noisy people? Unless they’re dark Christians who fear our tongues are calling down demons, you’ll find it’s typically the second reason.