The Trinity, the Council of Nicea, and the Substance of God

In A.D. 325, Eusebius, the first church historian and the bishop (link opens in new window) of the church in Caesarea, wrote a letter. To me, it is one of the most surprisingly ignored letters in the history of the church. THe letter is an explanation of the Nicene Creed immediately after its acceptance by [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

The Bible and a Closed Canon:
(Should There Only Be 66 Books?)

One of these days I’m going to have time to do justice to the series I was doing on the appearance of Paul from 1 Thessalonians 2. There’s one post on exhortation I really want to get to, but I have to have a good amount of time to write it. I got another email [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

Eastern Orthodox Church

The simple version of it is that I don’t believe in a church other than the local church.

  • Share/Bookmark

Greed and Glory from Men: The Appearance of the Apostle Paul, Part 2

This series started by looking at Paul’s boldness and his avoidance of flattering speech. All of these attributes come from 1 Thessalonians 2, and they are all the result of one thing: Paul’s focus on and commitment to the Gospel of Christ. Paul never lost sight of the goal: preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

Water Baptism in Christian History

For those of you that read my blog, but not Christian History for Everyman, I’m just letting you know I made a page on water baptism for that site. It’s pretty comprehensive, even though it only touches on the mode of baptism by accident and that only one time.  

  • Share/Bookmark

Letter of Ignatius to the Ephesians: Chapter Two

If you haven’t been following this series, it begins with Ignatius’ introduction 3 or 4 posts ago on June 28. The Text of Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians 2 We’re on chapter 2 today. It reads as follows: As to my fellow-servant Burrhus, your most blessed deacon in all things pertaining to God, I plead [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

The Letter of Ignatius to the Ephesians: Bishops and Ecclesiastical Authority

"Bishops and Ecclesiastical Authority." Sorry for the pompous sounding name of this post. I wanted to pull in the liturgical folk who might be searching for a topic like this. We’re going to tackle Ignatius of Antioch’s comments about bishops, control, and church authority in today’s post. And we’re going to tackle it hard. What [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

The Secret of Unity

I already posted today (at 1:30 a.m.), but I ran across a teaching on my The Rest of the Old, Old Story web site that I thought was worth reminding people of. It’s called The Secret of Unity for the Early Church, and it gives the foundation for unity in the early church. It’s three [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

The Letter of Ignatius to the Ephesians: Chapter One

I started this series yesterday with an introduction to the early Christian writings. This is Ignatius’ epistle to the Ephesians, written in A.D. 107 or 116, about 50 or 60 years after Paul wrote his epistle to the Ephesians and only about 30 years after the letter to the Ephesians found in Revelation ch. two. [...]

  • Share/Bookmark

The Letter of Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians, Introduction

This letter is taken from THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS, Volume I, and updated to modern language. The original translation is about 120 years old and is in university-style English. We’ll begin with the introduction by Ignatius, and then there’s 21 chapters to cover. The chapters are only a paragraph long each, so this letter is not [...]

  • Share/Bookmark