This Ancient Evidence Reveals the Church Was Liturgical & Sacramental I Part 2
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- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- This is a short series of response videos to the lectures of Dr. Tom Wadsworth on the nature of 1st century Christian worship. If you have been blessed by this series and desire more like it, prayerfully consider becoming a paid subscriber at www.barrelaged... (*Only $5 a Month).
📙 Part 1: ua-cam.com/users/li... (House Churches w/ Liturgical Space)
📕 Part 2: ua-cam.com/users/li... (Eucharist as Sacrificial/Mystical Meal)
📘 Part 3: ua-cam.com/users/li... (The Role of Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons in Worship)
📗 Part 4: Coming soon
🗻 Explore more about Orthodoxy & Ancient Christianity through the imaginative worlds of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, & the Church Fathers here: www.barrelaged... 🙏 Support Barrel Aged Faith: www.barrelaged... (*Only $5 a Month for Exclusive Articles, Courses, & Books!)
Recommended Books:
📙Fr. Andrew Damick's "Lord of Spirits: The Lord of Spirits: An Orthodox Christian Framework for the Unseen World and Spiritual amzn.to/4at8Fne
📕 Fr. Andrew Damick's "Bearing God: The Life and Works of St. Ignatius of Antioch the God-Bearer" amzn.to/3yXS1xI
📘Robin Phillip's "Are We All Cyborgs Now?: Reclaiming Our Humanity from the Machine amzn.to/3AS5yYF
📗 Robin Phillips' "Rediscovering the Goodness of Creation: A Manual for Recovering Gnostics" amzn.to/3yV8vqR
C.S. Lewis & Tolkien Related Books I recommend:
📘Further Up & Further In: Orthodox Conversations w/ C.S. Lewis on Scripture & Theology by Dr. Edith Humphrey amzn.to/3WMIrYa
📗Tolkien Dogmatics by Austin Freeman: amzn.to/3xzxHCd
📕Dr. Holly Ordway's "Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography" amzn.to/3v45yBZ
📗Christina Hale's "Deeper Heaven: A Reader's Guide to C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy" amzn.to/3GNFJZh
📚Chronicles of Narnia Box Set for your home library: amzn.to/4aoAnRV
📙Fr. Michael Ward's "Narnia Code" amzn.to/3GQyhg6
📕 Narnia Vision of the Atonement" amzn.to/3RM0YBa
These videos are WONDERFUL! Please do as many of these as you feel led. As a new Orthodox these supplement and reinforce all I am learning and growing in. These are such a big blessing, church history and reading the scriptures with fresh eyes lead me to Holy Orthodoxy. Thanks
I’m a former Protestant evangelical, looking into EO, mainly because I read the church fathers and realize that my tradition is non existent for hundreds and hundreds of years. Someone told me that if I started reading the fathers then I would become EO, I blew em off. Maybe it was a little prophetic
You've begun a long and noble road, and may the Lord grant you continued grace, insight, and success.
Part of what I had to do was let go of my own pride and hubris and recognize that the Fathers may actually have known something that I did not; that they may have had the truth and that I may be the one in error. I had to allow them to correct me and my mindset.
The Early Church Fathers are definitely a red pill for modern low church evangelicals.
@@HickoryDickory86 I agree! Thank you for the comment
@@doubtingthomas9117 100%
you should look into how they think icons can hear your prayers and are essential like a portal to the person they are in image of, how you kiss and bow to them etc.
It might be worthy to note that Fr. Stephen De Young, who holds a PhD in Biblical studies and languages, has said that the word "sacrifice" in the ancient world almost always denoted a meal, that is a communion meal the worshipper(s) ate in the presence of their god. This was true of ancient Israel and the Pagans surrounding Israel. The Eucharist was seen as a meal from the beginning. This would have been synonymous with the concept of sacrifice for the Apostles, since this was the melieu they grew up in, and the fact that the Eucharist was said to be the flesh and blood of Christ, the Paschal Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7).
Exactly!
Not merely said to be the flesh and blood of Christ, but actually so, and so it is to this day, if you know where to look. I can attest to His presence in Tabernacles across the earth, wherein the Savior dwells and awaits our visits. At one such location I spoke with the Savior in His Tabernacle; I had seen a stained glass window of an Inan Maiden her name was Kateri, I spoke to the Lord and said "Lord let the Indian girl pray for me." On her feast day we received a great miracle which, among other things, was a multiplication of Holy Oil. The Lord is generous and the cloud of witnesses are our good friends. The timing of the miracle was perfect as well. Along with it came the scent of lilies detected by my wife, not me. We didn't know the significance of the odor until we found our oil bottle completely full, and it was shortly after when we discovered it was the feast day of Kateri, the girl in the window, she is called the Lily of the Mohawks. Jesus ascended into Heaven, but as He said, He will be with us always, and so He is indeed, The bread which He has become is called The Blessed Sacrament, He comes to us in every mass that way.
@@johnjon1823 "I spoke with the Savior in His Tabernacle;"
Prelest.
@@justanotherlikeyou I guess you must have never met Him, He is quite alive and in the Tabernacle. It is Him in the Blessed Sacrament. You should try it sometime.
Not to mention the actual feast Jesus was celebrating when He instituted the Eucharist was Passover- which was a sacrifice of a Lamb. It's ALWAYS been a sacrifice.
Lord have mercy. The notion that modern scholars would be drastically better informed on what Christ intended for His Church to be like than men who were literally trained by the apostles, absolutely boggles my mind.
The thing Sola Scriptura really fails to account for is how easily our pride creates blind spots in our interpretations.
You clearly misunderstand sola scriptura
@@BrantTheResidentCalvinist what’s there to understand? It’s the single most divisive and destructive heretical doctrine that has ever been introduced. It’s even enabled the revival of ancient heresies that had been dead for centuries. A doctrine cannot be considered the protection against error and corruption, when it is literally a source of error and corruption.
When I was heterodox I never heard of prelest. I’ve been EO 25 years and now see it everywhere!
I went to a Bible college (Assemblies of God, though i didn't believe in the pentecostal stuff personally) and took a class called Temple Imagery. We spent 2.5 out of the 4 months of the class in Genesis. There's so many themes built into the concepts in the temple and all the imagery it conveys. As a place with layers of courts (outer, inner, most holy) it is symbolic of the cosmos, as well as our motion towards God. You have altars always being built whenever someone encountered God. There's cycles of God doing something for man, man falling away, man repenting, God cleansing with either water or blood with an altar, the altar being that bridge for God and man to commune. It was beautiful.
We then spent another month getting into the second temple and how everything was there with just a bit more clarity, like turning the focus on a camera. So we're now at 3.5 months out of 4 months for the class.
We get the final two weeks to prep for a final project and present them. Then the last day of class was:
"Well, now that Christ has come we are the temple, so that liturgical stuff is just to represent all the spiritual themes we discussed."
It was such an underwhelming and disappointing and shallow conclusion to something that God clearly instituted for a reason, just to culminate and have it all point towards Christ... And then disappear as if it's only function was some sort of... Road sign I guess. Like how a road sign points somewhere else and isn't useful for anything other than the pointing.
It definitely makes the most sense to have all that beautiful temple liturgy that Christ instituted as a foreshadowing, knowing that eventually, He will take the place at the center of that very same liturgical service, which is what we do as Orthodox. There's no coping about things being done away with, what happened to it, apostasy? Mistake? Idolatry? Borrowing from paganism? Nope. None of that makes sense. Only the Orthodox position is consistent in this area.
You just summarized everything I saw in reading Genesis and Exodus. God showed Moses the heavenly worship in Exodus 25 and told him to make a copy of what he saw and then somehow it just gets tossed when Christ comes? I don't buy it!
@@JacquelineRPrice right?! God created such beautiful things on earth, as well as communicating a beautiful form of worship that is pleasing to Him, and it's so important to Him that people were smited dead for not following it properly... Then we get the FULLNESS of this shadow when Christ comes, but all that stuff is to be done away with? Talk about a disappointing idea.
I am very thankful and grateful to that professor that taught that class because it may have taken 8 years to discover Orthodox after that class, but it was an important primer for me when I finally did discover it for me to not struggle with accepting all the imagery. Even though I was formerly protestant, I never really had a hang up with all the smells, bells, icons, and robes, even though that was a thing the class didn't touch on.
Regarding the oft-repeated claim that, in the New Testament, all Christians are now priests and that there is no longer a priesthood set apart for special service...
That claim is based on the words of St. Peter, who wrote, "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Peter 2:9).
At first glance that seems like an open and shut case. Except it isn't. The Apostle Peter is using the same language for the Gentile Church (see v. 10) that God used for Israel at Sinai.
"And Moses went up to God, and Yahweh called to him from the mountain, saying, 'Thus you will say to the house of Jacob and you will tell the Israelites, "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I bore you on eagles' wings and I brought you to me. And now if you will carefully listen to my voice and keep my covenant, you will be a treasured possession for me out of all the peoples, for all the earth is mine, but you, you will belong to me as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.'" (Exodus 19:3-6)
So, all of Israel was a "kingdom of priests," but that did not preclude the Aaronic Priesthood, because we know for a fact that Aaron and his sons were anointed to be priests who alone served at the altars, with the rest of the Levites assisting them and the tabernacle/temple in some capacity. The same is true for the New Covenant; all Christians are indeed priests in the same way as all Hebrews were priests, but that does not preclude the existence of a unique priesthood that has exclusive access to the Christian altar. For the Christian priests derive their priesthood from Christ, who is our High Priest, "a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek" (Hebrews 5:6; 6:20; 7:17, 21).
And if we Christians don't have a priesthood that offers incense and the perfect, once-for-all sacrifice for our sins, then Malachi 1:11 is a prophecy that has not yet been fulfilled. So is God a liar or a failure? Absolutely not! Lord, have mercy.
The low church view is pure speculation yet they have 100% certainty. Really the burden of proof is on them. 1) When did the church go sideways? 2) In what specific ways? 3) By whom was it led astray and what is your evidence they had it wrong? And most importantly, 4) Why was Jesus’s promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church not trustworthy? They need to answer for that
Your understanding of what Jesus said about the gate of hades will not prevail against the church is in error. Hades is death, not doctrine.
@@soteriology400 That’s a straw man. I never said Hades is doctrine, that’s your projection. Reformed Protestants hold if you don’t believe in sola fide, you are not saved. It’s protestants who believe doctrine saves, specifically theirs, which they believe was lost for 15 centuries or so
The Apostolic Fathers would likely recognize both Catholic and Orthodox Mass structures, but be utterly baffled by most modern Protestant "worship services".
Rock concert and a Ted talk, anyone? Light show? 😅
You don’t understand the reformers. So stop it
@@MatthewFloor I was in a Calvinist church 7 years, home groups, Bibles studies, book groups, etc. I understand just fine
@@MatthewFloor actually, I think she nailed it.
😂😂😂 no rosary 😭
What protestants don't get is that the Apostles and other disciples taught the gentiles how to properly worship God. Malachi, the prophet writes (prophesizes) in his book that the (gentile) nations will offer incense to God (actually God is speaking and declares it to Israel). How is that possible? They had to be taught how to and what to burn as an acceptable instrument of worship. This had to come directly from the influences of the Synagogue and Temple worship which the Apostles adapted for the church under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - part of the traditions.
Point of clarification: synagogue had no worship. There were no sacrifices or offering of incense. Synagogue was for community, singing of hymns, reading Torah, and discussing the interpretations. Essentially, synagogue is like what Protestants do, temple is like what Orthodox do. I'm only clarifying to point out that they shouldn't be used together.
@@dustins382 Thanks!
@@dustins382 So this is a really interesting take on this discussion. Are the Sunday meetings of Christians supposed to be Synagogue or Temple? Maybe that would clarify a bunch of these arguments.
@@nymusicman Christians were kicked out of synagogues so they ended up doing home services. There was a period that they could still go to Temple and synagogue, but the home services were not some bland protestant Bible study with some songs. It was liturgical. They didn't see themselves as starting a new religion, they still considered themselves Jewish. The Jewish way of worship was at the temple specifically. Worship = sacrifice/offering. Prayer, songs, reading scripture, etc are not worship. The only thing that is truly worship by definition is sacrifice/offering, which was only done at the temple. Considering the Eucharist is a sacrifice/offering, that would be equivalent to Temple activity. Now they also would've had synagogue activity, like singing hymns and reading scripture.
For people that are looking into the early church, try to realize synagogue is not something commanded in Scripture like temple worship is. Synagogue was a development during the second temple period to keep the Jewish community together under the face of hellenization. So for the Hebrew roots types that think doing synagogue is the penultimate form of early church service (doing what God commanded because the Apostles "went to synagogue"), they are chasing a red Herring. Temple service is the form commanded by God, and we have that command repeated in Christ: "take, eat my body, drink my blood" as our new covenant offering/sacrifice.
I appreciate your study on our Apostolic Faith that unfortunately Protestants don’t recognize and sadly left to their own interpretations. Pray they realize and repent and come home!!!
What does Dr. Tom do with the passages in Acts where Paul makes offering in the temple?
Fr Stephen De Young says that passage is where bad theology goes to die 😂
I don't know what Dr. Tom says, but it's my understanding that God never told Jewish Christians they couldn't practice Jewish customs, ceremonies, or holidays anymore. Jesus himself participated in the Jewish life. But that doesn't mean Gentile Christians have to start making offerings in the Jewish temple.
@@nymusicman yeah Fr Stephen said the sin offering was one of many types of offerings. So it wasn't automatically clear that if Christ is our sin offering them suddenly all the other offerings would be detrimental. The Jewish mindset would see all the offerings as a sort of "color palette" to choose from for the type of offering/sacrifice to be given. (Not that they did it subjectively, like choosing a color, there's obviously strict rules and meaning behind it, I just mean each offering is like a different tool for a different task, in a way)
I'd love to see if 'Dr.' Tom here has any primary sources that wholly support his claims
Of course he doesn’t. All the early sources describe services that are highly liturgical and sacramental, because all religious practice was before modern times. It doesn’t matter what culture you look at, what religion you look at, what period in history you look at, this super casual decentralized expression of religion is a modern innovation, born out of new modern ideals of liberalism and individualism. This should be painfully obvious to anyone who’s spent any time studying religious history.
Well, he did have that modern picture of a family at home that he found on the internet to totally show how house churches must have been, if you watched part I. 🤣
In all seriousness, I've heard some scholarly arguments from Protestants that were at least intelligent and well thought out even though I disagree with their conclusions. What the good "doctor," Tom is doing here is just silly and kind of embarrassing.
Ground Control to Dr. Tom...
1 Corinthians 10:16-21 has been THE biblical passage that has changed my view on the Eucharist. It very clearly removes the possibility of a mere memorial view, that Communion is only for us to think about what Christ has done. John 6 is less helpful, because I think there is a very good argument for Jesus speaking figuratively there. But Ignatius of Antioch causes me to have to reevaluate my view of John 6. I have to stop and think, "Maybe I am the one who missed something."
What is very interesting about 1 Corinthians 10:16-21 is that basically all of the Protestant commentaries I have read place HEAVY emphasis on the horizontal relationship, that we are all one because we partake of the one loaf. And they virtually ignore that the context is about avoiding idolatry and that partaking of the bread and the cup is explicitly said to be a participation, not primarily with one another, but with the BODY and BLOOD of Christ.
That is exactly what happened with me about 14 or 15 years ago. John 6 is very convincing for some, but I always told them that 1 Cor 10 was much more for me. It is also one of the reasons John Calvin couldn't take a memorialist view and created more of a middle path. Obviously, I disagree with Calvin's view, but even he could see the implications of the text.
Wow, this is very sad to see. Such a time we live in where everyone can posture as an "expert". I pray for him and those who might be deceived by him.
The beauty of the internet. No one can hide. The truth comes to light. What a great time to be living in.
Tom Wadsworth is presenting a series of lectures based on his Ph. D. He isn’t “posturing as an ‘expert’.”
I disagree with him, but I don’t dismiss him and that’s why I appreciate what Barrel Aged is doing here. Reasoned debate and fair rebuttal warms my heart
@@jeffreybrannen9465 forgive me but, if you are 20 centuries post-Christ and lecturing on things 100% out of synch with the historic church Christ established - You are posturing.
I mean I hear what you are saying. I just don't care if someone is a PHD.
@@aheadofmetal fair point. But it isn’t as if he hasn’t researched his position thoroughly. My interaction with him was cordial and his lectures were informative. I disagree with his views and conclusions, but I don’t dismiss him or see him as a deceiver
@@jeffreybrannen9465 I would simply ask him to name a single christian who held his position from the year 80-553.
I loved this! Thank you ! 🙏🏽
Awesome you are covering this guy! Boy, does he annoy me. I had to change my preferences to not get his videos recommended. He represents the worst of the Primitive Church cherry picking of Scripture and History. I left one really long comment refuting one of his claims, but I know it is just a waste of time when he has so many Bible church friends online.
48:53 “How can you tell if any of these practices were not just regional but could be considered universal”
Regarding "bishop" and "presbyter" being used interchangeably, there is an appendix in the Eastern Orthodox Bible that argues this was a linguistic change, not a change in the offices themselves. That is, yes, initially the words were used interchangeably, but for the sake of good order there was always a "proto-presbyter" who would preside over the presbyters. Later, as we see with Ignatius, the word "bishop" (episcopos) began to be applied exclusively to the proto-presbyter, while the rest of the presbyters continued to be called presbyters.
Yes, I'll dig into this deeper tomorrow God-willing!
The Anglican priest Felix Cirlot has an excellent book on this subject and Apostolic Succession in general. Perry Robinson has some great summaries of it, which you can find both on his website and in UA-cam videos.
Regarding this idea that Wadsworth's view entails the apostles failing as passing on the faith and how to worship, I just got to thinking that believing that Ignatius had gone off the rails regarding ecclesiology and theology of the Eucharist is like believing that Timothy, a co-author of some of Paul's letters, went off the rails as soon as Paul wasn't around. Ignatius was of the same generation of Christians as Timothy and was probably a student of the apostle John, though he certainly knew Polycarp, who was a student of John.
Your best points are based on Scripture. I do not care so much for the claim that Dr. Wadsworth is bashing the church father's. I never got that impression after listening to his lecture that he was dishonoring to them. Even the apostle Peter was far from perfect after receiving the holy Spirit, he still caused division in the church through his actions which Paul rightly called out. Please keep digging on the presbyter and priestly usage in the new testament. Much more convincing for me.
Yes, Jesus and the apostles failed to plant the church. It all fell apart so quickly. Thankfully, a millennium and a half later, the reformers fixed everything, and it's lasted 500 years. Whew. ***sarcasm alert***
What is interesting is that the “fixed” church further splintered into many, many more variations of disagreement and have flung even further into error with numerous denominations affirming LGBTQ and other liberal agendas like gender equality by ordaining women.
The crazy thing about the argument that the Church has no priests because all Christians are priest is that when Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation..." he is quoting Exodus 19:6, which says, "and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." But that line from Exodus obviously doesn't mean that the people of Israel didn't have priests internally. The people were all priests in relation to the nations, but there were priests for Israel from among Israel; the people of the Church are priests in relation to the nations, but that doesn't mean there are no priests for the Church from among the Church.
A thought occurs to me when Dr Wadsworth (and others) focus on the "power" being sought. Without being judgmental as if I myself never follow such spirits, it sounds very like the resentment the old accuser harbours toward God and we whom God created and set apart for a holy purpose. You can always choose to view the vessels of the Potter in this way and miss the truth of holy order.
The citation of Clement of Rome from his letter to the Corinthians is describing in chapters 40 and 41 the work of the Levites at the Jerusalem temple. It is not specifically a description of the Christian services. He uses that Jewish scriptures description to confirm in chapter 42 the orderly way the church grew: apostles sent out, then overseers/elders (episkopos/presbyters, in that day the same role) and deacons from the local congregations.
I am aware that he doesn't make an explicit connection. 3 fold to 3 fold, but I believe he does mean it implicitly which St. Ignatius expands on explicitly. I will be talking more about this in today's stream when we discuss bishops/prebyters.
@@barrelagedfaith OK. Thanks for your clarification.
My issue with a number of the UA-cam channels I've seen is that they tend to look at the early church and apostolic fathers through our modern eyes (be they Protestant or Catholic or Orthodox).
A historical method of analyzing the early church is to look at the pattern that the apostles used as described in Acts and the epistles and apostolic fathers (the synagogue) and see how that model was somewhat adapted in their day, and how it pragmatically changed over time into the later forms of Christian practice. We must be careful to consider the context of what they were discussing, and not assume a modern outlook.
Looking forward to your future presentations.
What a silly guy Dr Tom is
I agree with Dr. Tom, as apostle John pointed out, we are a kingdom of priests. This is a Melchizedek style priesthood, not a levitical style priesthood. They would not have had altars, this was created with the church building program in AD326, under Constantine. Eusebius was really the one behind it, since he was Constantine’s spiritual advisor.
“We have an altar from which those who serve at the tabernacle have no right to eat.” Heb 13:10
@@Abraham-yq2wz Hebrews 8:5 who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, “See,” He says, “that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.”
Hebrews 13:10 was written before the temple was destroyed.
@@soteriology400 Sure. And those who served at the temple ate at THAT altar. St. Paul says “WE have an altar”.
@@Abraham-yq2wz It is a heavenly altar. As I already pointed out in Hebrews 8:5.
@@soteriology400 And as I pointed out, Paul says we HAVE that altar and we eat from it.
Jesus and all of the Apostles were Jewish. Also, all pagan (demon) worship is a perversion of right worship of the most high God. Therefore, true Christian worship of the Triune God cannot BUT bear similarities to these- it fulfills (fills to the fullest) Jewish patterns and corrects the falsities of the pagans.
What a caricature you have of the reformed Biblical Christian church. Reformers never said previous Christianity was all wrong.
But their arguments would indicate that also what’s a reformed biblical church
@@l21n18you’ve clearly never read Calvin.
They didn’t have to say it. We know them by their fruits.
@@bradleyperry1735 they’ve got some pretty good fruit.
@@BrantTheResidentCalvinist The implosion of the West and the return of widespread paganism? If you say so…
DIES IRAE, irenaeus. NOT eye-ray, or ayerenaeus, IIIIIIR-ray. Lord have mercy
Bible: “ *We have an altar* , whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.” (Hb 13:10)
Low Church Prot: THATS NOT LITERAL!!!
Bible/Jesus " I am the living bread that comes down from Heaven"
orthodox "THAT BREAD IS LITERALLY FLESH"
@@heythere6983 YES!
@@Jerônimo_de_Estridão lol
I just don't know if he's ever even read the Bible.