We're going to go ahead and begin. Last week we talked about the early church fathers, and this week we're going to talk about early Christian worship and life. The last week, you can think of it this way. We talked about the big names, the big events. But maybe in the course of that lesson and discussion, you thought, I'm not a Tertullian, and I'm not a Clement of Alexandria. Or maybe in more modern terms, I'm not a Sinclair Ferguson. I'm not an Ian Hamilton. So what about the ordinary person living the ordinary life? What would it be like to worship and to live in the ancient church as a housewife, a slave, a child, a cobbler, a tanner? What was it like in your worship and in your life? The Lord willing, we're going to all jump in a time machine together. We're going to set the clock back around the years 100 to 300, second century, and explore what it would have been like if you lived in the ancient church. With that in mind, we're going to turn briefly in your copy of the Word of God to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 41. Here we get a very early glimpse of both the worship and the life of God's people right at the inception at Pentecost, right after Peter's sermon. This is the Word of God. Then those who gladly received His Word were baptized. And that day, about 3,000 souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together. and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Let us pray. Father, as we explore the worship and the life of your ancient people, we ask that you would help us to understand, appreciate, discern, and ultimately to learn from these people as we find ourselves in this same story that you're telling up into the present day, the story of the expansion of your church by the power of your spirit. We pray this for Christ's sake. Amen. Well, my thesis for this morning, as you see on your handout, is that the early Christians were marked by simplicity of worship and sincerity of life. Early Christians were marked by simplicity of worship and sincerity of life. And we'll be taking those two big heads as our major divisions of this lesson, worship and life. Spend a little bit more time on worship. Let's begin with early Christian worship. And just humor me. I want you all to imagine, get your minds working, and imagine using your creativity that you are in Rome. You're a slave. And it's roughly the year, we'll say, 155. And you are a Christian. You've been baptized, marked out as one of God's people. What would worship have been like for you, a slave in Rome, year 155? First big question is, when would you worship? Anybody, when would you have gone to church? What day of the week? I want participation, discussion. Anybody? Never your master would permit. Well, ordinarily, this would have been on Sunday. Their practice was to meet on the first day of the week, and they saw this as a Christian Sabbath. It was the resurrection of Jesus, the first day of a new creation. Now, what time of day would you have met? In the evening. What about the morning? Ryan. Well, it's interesting, because a slave did have a particular liability, because his master would often require him to work the entire day. Typically, they actually met in the second century very early in the morning. In fact, before daybreak. So you can barely see outside. It's very dark. And there were a couple of reasons for that. Often there was persecution, and it was safer to meet before daylight. And then second, you're a slave. You've got to go to work. So you'd meet very, very early. And so for the sake of the slaves among them, the church met very, very early. How many times on Sunday did they meet? So for us, in our circles, we often have two services, morning and evening. Was this pattern part of early Christian church? And we find an interesting answer from a document dated 112, a letter from Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, to the Roman emperor Trajan. And in this letter, he says this, describing Christian practice. On an appointed day, they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak. After the conclusion of this ceremony, it was their custom to depart. The slaves would go to work, you would go to work, and meet again to take food. But it was an ordinary and harmless food. In other words, even at this early date, it was the custom, it was the practice of the church to meet very, very early, depart, some to keep the Sabbath, others to have to work because their master required it, their superiors, inferiors. But at the end of the day, they would all gather again a second time together. In this case, to eat food and enjoy fellowship. This was a time when Christianity wasn't legal and was often persecuted. But later in the fourth century, early fourth century, Eusebius of Caesarea says this as his practice develops. It is surely no small sign of God's power that throughout the whole world in the churches of God, at the morning rising of the sun and at the evening hours, hymns, praises, and truly divine delights are offered to God. God's delights are indeed hymns. sent up everywhere on earth in his church at the times of morning and evening. So in this early letter and in Eusebius' description of the pattern of the church as it played out, morning and evening sacrifices in keeping with Psalm 92 was just part of the consciousness of the church. Even as a slave, this idea of morning and evening would have been just in your DNA, in your bloodstream. Now what would happen on the rest of the week? Obviously you were slaves, your time wasn't always your own. But if it wasn't the Lord's Day, what would your week have been like? And we learned that often Christians would have gathered before work for a time of informal discussion and instruction where someone would have taught them Christian doctrine. If there wasn't an opportunity to do that, Hippolytus in the early 200s would recommend that you go home before work, after you've risen up, and pick out what he calls a holy book. If you had a book in your possession that was one of the Old Testament or New Testament writings, he recommends reading that scripture text. And so if you were a slave who happened to be able to read, and you had in your possession a copy of one of these books, private worship was also part of the church's life. Sometimes we think that this is only a recent phenomenon called God and I time or devotions. But early on, Christians individually would commune with the Lord before their day began. Later on, Friday and Wednesday become important fasting days. Easter and the date of Easter becomes a huge controversy. Lent comes in to prepare for Easter, eventually the epiphany on January 6th, December 25th, all of these Festal days in the church calendar develop later on. At the very beginning, it's really the Lord's Day, and the emphasis is on the resurrection of Christ and communion with God. If you're a slave, you're in Rome, where would you worship? Where would you gather together early, early in the morning? Any ideas? What would the location be? In Rome or Jerusalem? Well, we're thinking in Rome, but you could say anywhere. Okay, the catacombs, that's interesting. I've actually been in the catacombs in Rome once upon a time. It was very dark and very cold. Actually, from what we can tell, they didn't meet in the catacombs as much as we think. There's a legend that goes that because of persecution, they would hide out as an underground church in the catacombs. That sometimes happened. More often, they would meet in the catacombs because they wanted to celebrate the death of a martyr. So often, they would meet there on the day when a martyr had his home going and went to be with the Lord. And that's where we get the idea of saints' days. And so occasionally, they met primarily to commemorate the martyr's death. But more often, they met in homes, repurposed, remodeled houses. They would knock out some walls here and there, have a big meeting space, and often the pastor would live in separate quarters with his family and really it was a household that was repurposed to be a meeting place for the church. We actually have an interesting model of one, Dura Europos, which is on the Euphrates River in Syria. At around 2.30, we find one of these remodeled, repurposed houses. And there's a central arch in the meeting room. Besides that, it's pretty sparse architecture. It would have met there. There was a stone baptistry for baptisms to take place. And interesting is also some paintings. So if you were, this is in Syria, not Rome, but if you were living in there, you would have had pictures of a good shepherd, a king who conquers death at the cross, and then the three Marys coming to the empty tomb. And so slowly we see a development of Christian artwork. Usually simple, it's stylized. A lot of times it's a symbol of the fish, but slowly and surely we see more artwork developing, usually on frescoes, on walls, maybe carving images on a coffin, but usually pretty simple, if any at all. So that's when, primarily on Sunday, we know where in these remodeled homes. Now the big question, how? how as a slave in 155 in the capital of the Roman Empire, how would you have approached God in worship? At this point, I want to read to you the title of a service book that comes from the 16th century. The form of church prayers and hymns with the manner of administering the sacraments and consecrating marriage, and then get this, according to the custom of the ancient church. This is the title of John Calvin's service book. Because he saw himself not simply as reforming worship according to scripture, though he believed that, but also reforming worship according to the custom of the ancient church. So he believed that the way that you as a Roman slave in 155 would have worshipped was very similar to what he was trying to get worship back to in the 16th century. I'm going to draw this primarily from Justin Martyr's first apology in the year 155 in Rome. But you'll notice that it actually bears a remarkable similarity to Tertullian's order of service from 197 in Carthage in North Africa. So in Africa, and in Italy, and in other places like Syria, there's a consensus developing about how we come to the Lord. First thing you would have done is you would have assembled. So it's really early, you come into this house and you sit down? Probably not. Often there weren't any pews like you have and you spent the majority of time standing. Sometimes the service would go roughly around three hours. So three hours mostly standing in a remodeled house early, early in the morning. The presiding bishop would assemble you all by saying, Then they would move to a time of scripture reading. Often this was done by a deacon who would open up first the Old Testament scriptures and read over a lengthy passage. Then often you would intersperse that with chanting or singing a psalm. Psalms were the most common mode of music, although there is also evidence of early Christian hymnody coming to the church as well. Then you would do a New Testament reading. not from the gospel, so perhaps from Paul's letters, something like that. You'd sing another song or chant another psalm, and then you'd do a gospel reading. Your singing would have been a cappella, probably no instruments at this time, very simple. And the readings, as I mentioned, would have been very long. Justin Martyr says, as long as time permits, whatever that happens to mean. You think about it, you're a slave. It's possible that even if you could read, you didn't have a copy of the Word of God, and maybe you were illiterate. This might have been your one shot, your one chance out of the whole week to hear a word from God. And so although you were standing upwards of three hours, people were very hungry. This was the moment in their week when they could hear from God. And so they often would listen to entire books read in one sitting. After this time of reading, there would be a sermon. And the sermon was given by the presiding elder. And interestingly enough, often he was sitting, in keeping with the synagogue mode, where the rabbi would sit to instruct from the chair. Somewhere along the line, we see even in Acts, people standing to preach, and pulpits develop. But often in the early church, you would be standing for much of the service, while the elder would sit. to preach. If you were fortunate enough to live in Alexandria in Egypt, you might have even heard expository sermon series on whole books of the Bible. Because in the year 200s or so, Origen starts to do that very thing, doing what we're used to, continuous expositions of scripture through entire books of the Bible. During this portion of the service, you might also have done a recitation of the Ten Commandments. We learn from Pliny's letter that they might have done that. This is the first section of worship. It's really an emphasis on the service of the word of God. But at this point in the service, things shift. They shift with an eye to the table. We have the service of the word. Now it's the service of the sacrament. At this point, if you weren't baptized, you would be sent out. Maybe you were a visitor or a catechumen, someone studying and preparing for baptism. If you were in that status, you would be dismissed at this point after the sermon. If you were baptized, you could stay. And then they moved into a time of prayer. Their prayers often went something like this. The presiding elder would give a topic, like prayer for authorities, or prayer for the world, or prayer about Christ's second coming. And in that topic, everyone would have a time of silent prayer. And then the elder would pick up that prayer and lead a corporate prayer, extemporaneous and rather long. There were also set prayers where they would be in unison or responsive. One that we know very well comes from the second century, Gloria Patri. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Another set prayer that developed in Syria in the second century is the Sursum Corda. The Lord be with you. People respond, and also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give him thanks and praise. Amen. What was the posture of prayer? Standing. What would you have done with your hands, probably? Any ideas? Raise them, OK? Basically, it's called the Orans. The typical posture was standing with hands extended, palms facing up, eyes open, looking heavenward, looking to God in Christ. So everybody, and this is not, today we have, so I went to Cedarville University. And in chapel services, some people would raise one hand. Someone would raise this hand. Someone would raise both hands. Some people would sway. It was just kind of all over the place. And it was kind of an opportunity for individual self-expression, really in the moment, listening to Hillsong. And you feel it. You just raise your hand. That's kind of the aura that we think of today with contemporary worship. But in the early church, everybody raised hands together as a corporate act. They'd all lift their hands up to heaven and look heavenward. That was the basic posture for prayer. We don't know exactly where it happened, but it was also probably a confession of sin. Pliny's letter mentions being bound by oath. That could be a reference to confessing sins. And the Didache, which is very early, the year 120, says this. And on the Lord's day, after you have come together, break bread and offer the Eucharist, having first confessed your offenses, that your sacrifice may be pure. Another possible posture is in that confession of sin, rather than standing and looking heavenward, you might have kneeled. Kneeled in contrition to God. So that's prayer. The next thing I have on your list, this is really a list of elements in a rough order. It's not an exact order of service. The next thing I have is singing. And I've already mentioned singing, but I've put it here on your outline because often they don't mention singing. because they associated it with a species of prayer. And they often thought of it as a form of prayer. They sang, they chanted psalms. Pliny's letter says to recite a hymn antiphonally to Christ. And the earliest known hymn that we have that's a definite hymn that was used in worship is that by Clement of Alexandria, shepherd of tender youth in the year 200. At this point, the elder would greet you and you would respond, perhaps by saying amen. And then they had a practice that we find rather uncomfortable, the kiss of peace. Where you as a slave, you were a male slave, you would extend a kiss of greeting to other males in the church. You were a female slave, you would extend a kiss of greeting to other females in the church. And it was a way of greeting one another in the Lord. If you're in, say, Anglican Church today, you might notice that they pass the peace, peace be with you. I think this traces its way back to this early custom, where now they've removed the kiss. When I grew up in a Baptist church, we had a time in the service where everyone would stop and they would shake hands and move around the sanctuary and greet one another. I don't think they self-consciously thought of that as hearkening back to the kiss of peace, but perhaps that's where it comes from. From there they went into the Lord's Supper, and really the Lord's Supper was the climax of early Christian worship. They did it every week in keeping with the pattern established in the Book of Acts where they broke sacramental bread together every Lord's Day. And the way it would work is you would come from your home early in the morning, gathering some bread, if you could have any, maybe a flask of wine that you were able to scrape together. And everyone would bring it at this point together. The deacons would take the bread and the wine, distribute it on the table, pour all of the wine into a common cup, and they would have a series of prayers for the cup, for the bread, and then a prayer of thanksgiving afterwards. They did this, as I said, every week. And the Didache mentions the prayers and the common cup. One interesting element we might not expect, does anyone know the sort of tone in which Lord's Supper would have been done? In other words, we often think of it, I don't think we would think of it as a fellowship meal. But up until the mid-2nd century, they actually had a common meal, what they called an agape love feast, where they would have food they would bring and they would eat together, a meal at the table. And in the context of that, the Lord's Supper would be observed. But mid-2nd century, there's a separation, where the fellowship meal is distinguished from the ritual act of observing the Lord's Supper. After the Lord's Supper, much like we do today, there would be an offering where you would offer tithes and offerings. In general, though, this offering was more of a mercy ministry, diaconal fund, and they would meet the needs of the poor and the widows and the orphans. And much like our service, it would all end with a benediction, often very simple, something such as depart in peace, be dismissed, which is where we get the Latin word missa, is where we get the word mass, which later on takes on a certain connotation in the Middle Ages, much different than this. But a simple benediction, depart in peace. Danny Hyde, reflecting on these early Christian liturgies, says this, what stands out in the descriptions of the Didache, Pliny, Justin, and Tertullian is how simple the ancient liturgies were and how John Calvin imitated that simplicity. There you go. As a Roman slave in 155, that's basically, possibly, what you would have experienced on a Sunday morning. Then you would have worked super hard all day. At the end of the day, gathered together a second time for worship to the Lord. Any questions about how they worship in the liturgy of the early church? OK. Right, because they had a, we're talking about in the temple and then meeting house to house. It's pretty clear that they would gather. together in a larger group at Solomon's Porch. And then they would also meet in smaller groups, house to house. So I'm describing, this would be more, this would be after the death of John the Apostle. So I'm thinking, yeah, I'm even throwing out the year 155. But you're right. There is a shift in how it looks, even from those early days. That's a good point. There's no other questions on how they worshiped. Oh, sorry. Well, Acts. Right. AX suggests there was some sort of daily meal. And I think that's early in AX. Later in AX, it suggests that's moving towards once a week. So my understanding is they could have met every day for communion, or at least a common meal. But I think the trajectory is moving that to once a week, which became the established pattern, weekly communion. Interestingly, Calvin wanted to have weekly communion, but the city council did not want him to. He did not permit him to have his way on that thing. Yes? Right. No, you're absolutely right. We have to keep a distinction between tradition and scripture. I think Calvin's a good model because he's absolutely devoted to the Word of God, and he's willing to throw out any tradition of man that contradicts the Word of God. At the same time, he wants to do theology and church life in conversation with the whole church in history because he recognizes that he stands on the shoulders of giants and he wants to learn from the best and not throw out things that maybe he doesn't understand. but that perhaps are rooted in Scripture after all. So you're right. In describing this early liturgy, I'm not suggesting this is the only or the best way to worship or there couldn't be differences. There were certainly differences even at that time. Ultimately, we go back to Scripture. Right. According to the custom of the ancient church, which is right after the death of the apostles and much closer, not only in time, but in practice to what they were doing, I think Constantine, his conversion, that changes not only church architecture, removed from remodeled houses to basilicas and later cathedrals, but it also makes worship itself more And I think the Roman cult of the emperor and all those things has an effect, often negative, on making the church service much more complicated and departing from scripture. Peter. Thank you very much. It's very helpful. It kind of ties all the pieces together we've been talking about. If we're taking a time machine back, think of a Roman slave taking a time machine to the future and saying, he came into our midst, would he recognize the worship? And would he be drawn to it and say, these are my brothers and sisters? Morning, evening worship, simple liturgy, word and sacrament. It's a good question to ask ourselves. Would he recognize what we do? We're going to hopefully have enough time to keep going. I'm going to move on to another note briefly before we get into Christian life, and that is baptism. The mode of baptism. Did they sprinkle? Did they pour? Did they immerse? What do you all think? Mr. Loring says yes. And it's true. They did all three. The Didache mentions using running water and immersing in it. It also mentions pouring water three times on a person's head. The Didache is 120. It's a Syrian church manual. And they're doing all three modes very, very early on. Tertullian mentions dipping in water. sprinkling the person and then letting them rise up again, combining two modes. Hippolytus says to stand knee-deep in water while the deacon pours water on your head, or he could press your head down into the water. The big thing is they used water. And whether it was the sprinkling, the blood of Christ, or the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, or being immersed in water, the main thing was use water. Often baptisms would take place on Easter Sunday. During that time of the year, it was also an opportunity for other people to renew their baptismal vows. And if, say, you were a slave or anybody who had not yet been baptized, there was a very lengthy process. of preparation. In Acts, the baptisms happen almost immediately. That's understandable, especially for Jews and for God-fearers. But even with the Philippian jailer, it's pretty much right away, and then the process of discipleship begins after that. From that Ancient practice, however, the church moves to longer and longer periods of preparation. I think it's in Syria in the third century, we're talking maybe three years of being a catechumen and a learner, learning and preparing for baptism. It's almost like you have to get a seminary degree before you can be baptized. And finally you get there, there'd be periods of fasting, all night vigils, Easter Sunday would arise, you'd wake up early, you'd come together. Ordinarily for baptism they would not be wearing any clothes, but the women and the men would be separated. You'd go down into the water, be baptized, the newly baptized convert would emerge from the water, they'd give you a white robe to wear. give you water to drink, anoint you with oil, and then you would proceed to your very first partaking of the Lord's Supper. With that overall practice in mind, the big question is, what about infant baptism? Did they do it? What do you think? We do it in our church. Did they do it back then? Peter gives two thumbs up. OK. Moving on. No, they really did actually practice infant baptism, and I hope to show you some of the reasons why I think that. The overall picture that we get in early church is that infant baptism was an uncontroversial and accepted practice in the earliest documents and dates that we have. I'm going to sketch you just a little a little linear view of how this progresses through time. Joachim Jeremias, the church historian, goes all the way back to Jewish proselyte baptisms. We have Jewish synagogues with baptistries. And it was the custom that when a Gentile converted to Judaism, he would be baptized. and his entire household, including nursing infants in his household. So this idea of household water baptism, even among Jewish proselytes, was an accepted and understood practice. Of course, in the Book of Acts, we have Lydia and the Philippian jailer, that whole idea of household solidarity. And in keeping with that ancient biblical practice, we see very early on polycarp, In the year 156, Polycarp, who was a disciple of John the Apostle, who was a disciple of Jesus, and say, 86 years I have served my Lord and he's never forsaken me. In other words, he doesn't know of a time when he was not included among God's people. An early testimony to infant inclusion and infant baptism. Aristides in the year 117, only 17 years or so after the apostle's death, uses language associated with baptism with those dying in infancy. suggesting that those infants had indeed been baptized. That was the practice of the church. Irenaeus in 180 is important because he was a disciple of Polycarp, and Polycarp was a disciple of John the Baptist, so continuing that lineage. Irenaeus, by what we understand, was probably baptized as an infant by Polycarp himself. even closer tie to this ancient practice. And Irenaeus speaks very clearly, I think, of not only the regeneration of infants, but the significance of that being tied to baptism, and therefore speaking of infants being baptized. Shepherd of Tender Youth in the year 200 by Clement of Alexandria has language like this. Here we, our children, bring infants who to your church belong. He sees infants as included in the covenant of grace. Hippolytus in 2.15 speaks of parents bringing children, bringing infants who cannot speak for themselves, and the parents take vows on their behalf. Another early argument for infant baptism. But now we get to a figure who's writing in the years 200, 206, that time frame, named Tertullian. And here's where Reformed Baptists go to say that, no, there is a voice of protest against this practice. Because Tertullian argues against infant baptism. Anyone know why? Yes, Mr. Loring. Yes, that's exactly right. And I'll repeat what you've said for everybody else who didn't hear it, possibly. Tertullian, just to get this out of the way, Tertullian was an idiosyncratic outlier who eventually became a monotonist. So anytime he says something, he has a lot of great things to say, but realize that often he's doing his own thing and going his own way. And on this point, he recognizes that he is an innovator. He acknowledges that infant baptism is the accepted practice in the church. And he says, I'm, as it were, going out on a limb and suggesting that we shouldn't do it. More than that, this gets to Mr. Loren's comment. Why did he oppose it? He opposed it because he said it was safer to postpone baptism. In fact, it was safest to postpone baptism to the point of death. In other words, wait until you're on your deathbed and then get baptized. And here's where we have to understand how he was thinking. Bertullian, like other church fathers at the time, believed that baptism washed away original sin and actual sin. And you could only do it once. So if there's an infant who gets baptized and it washes away his sin, and then he has a whole life in which to do more sins, what's going to happen to him? Those sins can't be washed away. You can't do baptism again. And so his suggestion was, almost like you're trying to time the stock market, or you're trying to get the biggest bang for your buck, Get as much sins covered as you can. So wait as long as you can, up to the point of death, and then get baptized. And that'll wash away all the sins you've committed. Later on, the practice of penance develops, because they have to find some way to deal with post-baptismal sins. There's a story of Augustine. Augustine was living in a time when Tertullian's influence was still rearing its ugly head. And this idea of postponing baptism was very common. I mean, Augustine was a young boy, and his mother discovered that he was sick. She said, we better get you baptized, because you might die in an unbaptized state. And then he recovered. She said, well, let's wait. Let's postpone this a little bit longer. So it's like, what happened to you? Well, she was going to have me baptized. I got better. It didn't have to be. So there's that whole mindset that goes into this. And at the end of the day, Tertullian, we could say this, is not opposed to infant baptism per se. This is important. He acknowledged that infant baptisms were valid and real. But pastorally, he thought it was strategic. to postpone it for anyone and everyone as long as possible because he had an unbiblical view of baptismal regeneration and the need to postpone it. Now, some people will look at Tertullian and say, well, he believed that, but all the other church fathers did the opposite practice for the same reason. You want to wash away the original sins of the infant. And Origen in 248 does say that. But it's interesting that early on, there is a covenantal rationale given for this practice. If you look at Cyprian, who writes in between Tertullian and Augustine in North Africa, he's at a council in Carthage in the year 251 to 252. And at that council, they're bringing up as just a common argument for infant baptism, the idea of analogy with circumcision, and should we do this on the eighth day? Cyprian argues that we don't have to do it on the eighth day. We should do it immediately, as soon as we can. There's no reason to delay it even eight days. But the point is, in a very early time, they had a covenantal reasoning for what they were doing in this practice. Of course, Augustine, who was not baptized as an infant, even though his mother was a Christian. And that's, again, the influence of Tertullian and this bad practice of postponing baptism. He can say, rising above his own times, that infant baptism was the universal and ancient practice of the church. So although I can't give you an absolute certainty on exactly what everyone did at every stage in church history, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the antiquity of infant baptism. We spend a lot of time on that. Early church worship. We've got to do a little bit with early church life before we, oh, go ahead. Yes. The mode becomes an argument against infant baptism. But the Orthodox have been doing immersion with infants for centuries. And Francis Schaeffer even mentioned it. Three times they immersed them. That's right. Francis Schaeffer was once asked, would you immerse an infant? He said, oh, I would do it. But he was even willing to use that mode with infants. So that's not really the nub of that debate. Right. Yeah, they practice paedo-communion. We're not going to get into that right now. That's helpful. Helpful reminder. Well, before we run out of time, very quickly, early Christian life. I don't actually know the place of baptism in the liturgy itself. I know early on it's tied in with public worship. I've often heard it almost in connection to the call of worship, that you're baptized with a view to then coming and answering that call. On Easter Sunday, that annual time, it was done prior to the celebration of the Lord's Supper, so that that would be the first entry point at the Lord's Supper. So in terms of the placement in the liturgy, I'm not exactly sure. It's a good question. I really do have to move, though. Early Christian life. Demographics, well, we have men, we have women, adults, children, slave, free, married, unmarried, everything we see today. But interestingly, there were a lot of women, a lot of children, and a lot of slaves. A lot of lower classes, at least in those time period's perceptions. And this had the effect of raising the status of women and of children and of slaves in the eyes of the church. They were considered equals before the throne of God. Most Christians at this time were in urban contexts, a lot of cities. Later, after Constantine, it goes out into the rural areas more. Often among, as I mentioned, lower classes. Celsus, the pagan, spoke of kitchens, shops, and markets as being the places where Christian evangelism happened, with everyday people doing everyday things. In terms of marriage and the family, you have to realize the church is living in a culture where on the one hand you have Gnostic asceticism, where the body is evil, and you have pagan hedonism, where you get as much sexual pleasure as you can, regardless of what context it is in. At the same time, you're living in a Roman culture where divorce was very easy to come by. Divorces happened all the time. And where they had monogamous marriages in Rome, but the practice of having multiple concubines or mistresses was very common. Christianity strikes through all of this cultural context and makes a stand for the Word of God. Clement of Alexandria says this, by all means then, we must marry, both for the sake of our own country and for the succession of children and for the completion of the world insofar as it pertains to us. Early on there is a very positive view of marriage and of children and of family, but it's understandable that slowly that gets shifted more and more towards an ascetic monastic ideal. At the beginning, think about this, if you're single and there's persecution happening, and you think, if I get married I'm going to have kids that I'm responsible for, What happens if the door gets stormed by Roman soldiers, and suddenly I'm responsible for these people, and then I die, and there's no one to take care of them? In times of persecution, many Christians opted for singleness. And slowly, through the influence of Platonic ideas, the monastic ideal becomes more and more prevalent. But early on, a very positive view of marriage and of the family. I'm going to skip slavery because we already talked about what it was like to be a Roman slave, but finish up with life in the world. Life in the world. And the two big words that come to mind for the early Christians is they were compassionate and they were consecrated. They were full of love and they were full of holiness. First, they were compassionate. The first place you might maybe not expect to see this is that they were pro-life. In recent days, we've seen very disheartening and tragic legislation from New York State about abortion and the timing of that. And it's very sad. Well, the early Christians, this was not something they were unfamiliar with. We often think that dealing with abortion and euthanasia, this is a 21st century phenomenon. But they had a lot of the same issues, sometimes even worse, back in the second century. And they took a stand against abortion. Now at this point, abortion was much less common because it was so dangerous for the mother and she would often die. A more common practice in the Greco-Roman world was infanticide, which perhaps strikes even closer to the recent legislation, where they would take an infant and simply set it outside, expose it to the elements until the infant either died or someone picked it up. We have a letter from 1 BC from a husband in Alexandria who's writing to his wife who's in a different city far away. And she's expecting a baby. And the husband writes to her a very warm letter. He loves her and he's catching up with her in this epistle. But it ends with a rather chilling note when he says, I know that you're expecting a baby. If it's a boy, keep it. If it's a girl, keep it. Set her outside to be exposed to the elements and die. Put her on a trash heap. This was common, wicked, widespread practice. And the church said, no, no, no. We believe in the dignity of human life. And what often happened, and this is great testimony, the early Christians would find these children who'd been left out in the cold, and they would pick them up and adopt them. And so often we have Christians really taking these children into their homes and loving them when their pagan neighbors were ready to throw them out with the trash. They were also very generous. They were compassionate to the needy, to widows, and to orphans. Tertullian famously said, see how they love one another. This was a mark of the apostles and the disciples of Jesus Christ. Second big idea is they were consecrated. not just compassionate, but consecrated. And here is where we have to see them, Christian people, trying to live in a pagan world. And it's instructive for us, because even if we don't agree with all of their applications, and we realize there are differences from their time to ours, we have to ask the question, what would they think of how we engage with our culture and our world today? A few examples, the ancient church had a big emphasis on modesty and on having modest apparel. You bring that up in some reformed churches today, they'll instantly label you a legalist because you're not allowed to talk about modesty. Another thing that they emphasized was abstinence from a number of what they considered to be polluting activities. First, they abstained from civil ceremonies in which they had to take vows or worship the gods or the emperors. Sometimes this meant not participating in pagan holidays. It also meant, in some cases, not engaging in government service. Not because they were against the civil magistrate, but that sometimes meant they had to sacrifice to the emperor or burn incense to the emperor cult. At times, that also meant they didn't engage in military service for the same reason. This is maybe striking a little closer to home. This is something we have to wrestle with as Christians today. Many of them refuse to read classical literature because of the immoral themes and the paganism associated with the gods. They didn't go to theaters because of the atmosphere and the tone of that environment. They didn't, in many cases, participate in sports, and they didn't send their children to pagan schools. Again, this isn't an example of what every single early Christian did, but many Christians felt they could not participate in certain holidays, in the theater, in sports, and in pagan instruction. A good summary of their mindset is given to us in a letter to Diognetus A document from the year 150. Christians are no different from the rest in their nationality, language, or customs. They live in their own countries, but as sojourners. They fulfill all their duties as citizens, but they suffer as foreigners. They find their homeland wherever they are, but their homeland is not in any one place. They are in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh. They live on earth, but are citizens of heaven. They obey all laws, but they live at a higher level than that required by law. They love all, but all persecute them. So just be thinking, in your worship, in your life, what can we learn from these early Christians? Early Christians who were marked by simplicity of worship and by sincerity of life, who are compassionate to those in need and consecrated from the world. Very briefly, any closing questions or comments on this lesson? Hopefully, you've gotten a little bit of a window into what it would have been like to be a common, ordinary person living an ordinary life in the second century. Yes, Miguel. I wish I could answer your question. It's interesting, in the Westminster Larger Catechism on the Sabbath, it talks about inferiors and superiors, and how employers and people in authority are responsible for people under them to enable them to keep the Sabbath. And so oftentimes, slaves found themselves in a position where their superior would say, no, I own you, and you have to work on the Lord's Day. And they didn't feel they had a choice in the matter. It's different, perhaps, than someone who has a job that requires him to work on the Sabbath, but he could have another job somewhere else. I don't really know. That's a good question. I'd have to do further research to see if there was much discussion on that point. It was certainly hard for the slaves, because they didn't want to work on that. I don't know how they thought of it. Good question. Anything else? If not, let's go ahead and close in prayer. Father, we Thank You for this window and glimpse into early Christian worship and life. We pray, Lord, that we would be faithful to the faith once delivered to the saints, that our worship would be found acceptable in Your sight, and that our lives would be marked with the sort of love and holiness that we find embodied in Your Son and wrought by Your Spirit. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.