Great point! If the emergent church is trying to get back to that then I am all for it ;)

It certainly pays to read history! Great find, Nathan!

I was a great post. I like the history of the early church. I especially like how the offering went to meet the needs of the saints.

The Emerging Church is not really about returning to roots; it's about eschewing systematic theology and pursuing mysticism. When you search through writings of its proponents and pick out what little "doctrine" they actually put on display, it appears to me to be a re-birth of classical liberal theology in new clothes.

Good work, as always, Nathan.

Thanks for posting this, Nathan.

So why do so many evangelical churches observe the Lord's Supper only monthly, or in my congregation, quarterly?

reply to Chris Nelson. Brother Chris, from what I understand, the reason why different churches observe the Lord's Supper at different frequencies is because the Lord has given us that liberty. In the Scriptures there is no prescripture or ordinance or pattern as to the frequency of observing the Lord's Supper. My Pastor leads us in observing the Lord's Supper once a month. His reasoning is because it's not so often where it becomes ritualistic and can loose it's great significance, and not so far apart that as a church we are not remembering our Lord's death through the elements in a vivid and constant manner. Of course, this is our Pastor's choice and line of thinking; he has been a pastor for 50+ years, but when it comes to the frequency there are other valid reasons I imagine. I hope this helps.

It seems to me that the pattern for Lord's Supper is every week. Acts 20 : 7 combined with I Cor 16 on giving and Paul's concerns in I Cor 11 and you get a patttern of every week. As to it becoming too ritualistic , then my question , is it possible for that to be true of all worship ? Why not monthly singing , or prayer , or preaching. Can you imagine the protest if there was the suggestion of a monthly or quarterly contribution . Any aspect of worship can become meaningless without the proper discipline and reverence.

Hi brother, yes I agree with you that discipline and reverence and I would add, a good understanding based on God's Word of what you are doing helps in properly participating in any part of the church's sunday worship (just to keep it focused to sunday morning). Perhaps the word 'ritualistic' was too broad, what I meant was repetitive. With preaching, singing, prayer, you are always expressing something different. The message is different, the songs are different, your prayers are different and in the Spirit. As for giving alms, I don't think God's Word asks us give weekly. But regarding the Lord's supper, the fear is that repetition could (it doesn't have to) lead to a devalued sentiment for what you are doing. Certainly by remembering our Lord's death for us, it should lead us to an even deeper self-examination (what 1 Cor 11:28 calls us to do) so as to live a life of holiness. If you do this every week in the Lord's supper, the fear is that the repetition may take away from the significance. Further, I don't see Acts 20:7 as prescribing weekly observance of the Lord's supper; the verse is saying that they were gathered on the first day of the week, and they were observing the Lord's supper in that particular gathering.

We know that meaningless repetition in prayer is not God's will (Matthew 6:7). That's all that I was wanting to point out. Also, our Lord said "For as often...." (1 Cor 11:26). There is no prescribed or established frequency that I can see.

As I was reading I was about to chime in with 1 Corinthians 11:26 "as often as," then I saw the end of the previous post had made the point.

One small thing to add is that what we observe is Acts is descriptive (telling us what happened historically) but not prescriptive (ordering us to do it exactly the same way). There are many things in Acts we don't do the same today because we are not in the same circumstances, yet it all contributes to our traditions and our convictions regarding how we obey the commands of the NT.

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Yes, Acts 20 : 7 is historical ( descriptive ) and is an example of the doctrinal .But whatever , as for me, I want to eat the Supper every week. It is good to be always reminded of the sacrifice. Repetitive is not bad , just vain repetitions. Many times our songs are repetitive and the prayers and how many times have we heard the same doctrines taught . All to the glory of God.

Nathan, this article is good; although, I would like to point out something inherently catholic and ultimately extra-Biblical. The thing, I'm assuming, that emergents may be referring to when they talk about the ancient church is what is mentioned in Acts 2:42-46. I'm not trying to defend the emergent movement as I feel that it's an apostate and extra-Biblical movement in and of itself but I'm going to state the obvious. One of the things Christ said before he left us was to keep the sabbath holy. Okay then, when is the sabbath? Well, sabbath comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat (it means day of rest, as in "on the seventh day He rested") which is also where we get the word for saturday. If you look at Latin languages and see the day marked for saturday, it's sabado; this is more close to shabbat than saturday which the Roman based Christian may attribute to the god saturn. It was the catholic church which decided that the pope carried the crown of Paul and therefore was allowed to change and add to what the Bible said was this and that - the earliest change? The sabbath! The entirety of Christendom has been deceived by the works of the catholic church and how many extra-Biblical practices and doctrines they have given to Christendom since 107ad. The time is nigh that we do as the church in Berea and check everything with the scriptures. The emergents are plagued with extra-Biblical doctrine and practices and antinomian living but if we are not educated in the Word then who are we to solely attack them when they mention the ecclesia or "ancient church;" because, as wrong as they may be, that is one point of doctrine where they are right.

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Benito,

I may be wrong in the area of church history, but you essentially say that Sunday worship is a deception from the Catholic church. My understanding is that Christianity was not legalized until 313 AD by Constantine and was not the official religion of the state until 383 AD. Despite the claims of the Catholic church regarding apostolic succession, it is documented that Sunday worship began as early as 20 years after the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul was not martyred in Rome until 67/68 AD. I don't see how you can say that the Catholic church instituted Sunday worship. We certainly don't see any commentary or prohibition of this practice by Peter or Paul. Maybe you can enlighten me?

David,

You do present an interesting point. On March 7th, 321AD Constantine made Sunday a day of rest by law and it is noted that it was believed to be in reference to a "sun god" commonly worshiped in Rome. But in 312AD, before he was emperor, Constantine was converted when he saw the image we refer to as the "Chi-Rho" (appears as a combination of the first two letters of Christ's name in Greek) above the sun and about it the words "In Hoc Signo Vinces" which is Latin for "By This Sign You Will Be Victorious" and he carried that image into battle to defeat Maxentius and therefore found himself to be the emperor of the Roman empire. In 313AD, Constantine made Christianity legal and in 383 decreed that Christianity be the official religion. It would be right, at this juncture, to add that it is believed that Constantine's decree of the Sunday rest was to merge the pagans and Christians and this could explain the Papal justification of many extra-Biblical doctrines.
As it appears, I give you Constantine's law:
“Let all judges and townspeople and occupations of all trades rest on the venerable day of the Sun [Sunday]; nevertheless, let those who are situated in the rural districts freely and with full liberty attend to the cultivation of the fields, because it so frequently happens that no other day may be so fitting for ploughing grains or trenching vineyards, lest at the time the advantage of the moment granted by the provision of heaven may be lost.” The Code of Justinian, Book 3, title 12, law 3.

It is not Paul that you must focus on when talking about the Catholic lineage, but rather Peter, as he is acknowledged as the first pope by the Catholic church and he was crucified on the inverted cross in 67AD. Now, both Peter and Paul are attributed to the founding of the church in Rome but Peter is the one directly referenced by the Vatican. And Linus is stated as his successor to that church (it is believed that this is the same Linus mentioned by Paul in II Tim 4:21)

When you mention the Sunday observance you are taking a page from a book called Birth Of The Church by Ivor J. Davidson (2005) page 115, the second paragraph or rather, the first to start on that page. Chapter is called "Being Christian," it's the 4th chapter of the book.
This is what that paragraph reads:
"Within twenty years of Jesus’s passion, it had become widespread practice to treat Sunday, “the first day of the week” (acts 20:7; I Cor. 16:2), as the special day of worship, in commemoration of the day on which the Lord had been raised from the dead. The Jewish Sabbath was probably maintained alongside this by Jewish believers, at least for as long as the Jerusalem temple stood, though it is difficult to be sure. Gentile converts who adopted Paul’s view of the law probably saw no reason to observe any day as the Sabbath. Sunday had replaced the Jewish Sabbath for the overwhelming majority of Christians by the turn of the first and second centuries, though it would not be sanctioned in any formal sense as a day of rest until the fourth century; prior to that, it remained for most a regular working day. Sunday came to be designated “the Lord’s day” (Rev. 1:10), and in later Christian reflection this was taken to mean that it was a day not so much for remembering Jesus but for encountering him and enjoying fresh communion with him in his risen power. Sunday was not just about looking back but about meeting with Jesus in the present; it was also about looking forward to a future day of the Lord when Jesus would be definitively acknowledged as Lord of all."

Okay, first, we have a book written by an author who speaks from an anti-semitic standpoint (which I read in chapter 6, "A Catholic Church?") and in that same chapter refers to the book of Acts as apocryphal. And this is the guy q

Are you serious? Everything I wrote was visible on my screen and I hit the post button and half of it's gone now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not going to go through and re-write all of that; next time I'm going to write everything in word and copy it over so that I don't lose my work. That aggravates me greatly, I had so much info typed up and it took almost an hour to type it all up with scripture references and other reference points and everything!

Benito,

What you managed to get was informative and I will have to look into what is there. My question though is, are you suggesting that mainstream Christianity is wrong to worship on Sunday as the Seventh Day Adventists do? Secondly, I cannot possibly agree that Peter was the first pope, nor can I accept papal succession, sacrementalism and Mariology.

I'm sorry that you worked so hard and lost the information you wanted to present. Maybe you could add it to my blog?

David,

I would be more than happy to add it to your blog at some juncture, it's actually one of the things I've been working on for my blog too. I just got back from a seek and soak, or rather, a night of heavy praise and worship with reading of the Word so I'm settling in for a little bit.

Worship and have church any and every day if you will, every opportunity to have fellowship should be taken advantage of. The sabbath day has not changed since God rested on the seventh day, the calendars have not moved the days of the week around, nothing has changed other than the fulfillment. I have spoken the truth as I know it. I'm not a legalist who's going to show up at your house on Friday to make sure you've turned off you lights and don't do any work until sundown on Saturday, Jesus kept the sabbath holy but still did what needed to be done and therefore I keep the sabbath holy but also do what may be required of me or need to get done.

At any rate, what I'm saying is that although the law has been fulfilled, it is something that not only Christ but also the early church is noted to having acknowledged it. Today, the mainstream church is completely oblivious to the facts because much like Joseph Stalin, the Catholic church has done a half-way decent job of the devil's work in distorting the truth. Over the past couple hundred years, we've started to see specific truths that have been lost, resurfacing. This, I say, is the Gospel being spread to all the nations (I say this because most of the world has already seen Catholicism and the end has not come; therefore, I am saying, the time is nigh and the command to be ready in and out of season is more-so pertinent today than it was yesterday).

You don't have to acknowledge Peter as the first pope. It's the Catholic church that does so even though the Catholic church didn't start forming until early in the second century and didn't start calling their leaders popes until late in the fifth century. I can't sit here and condemn the Catholic people (they're just deceived by a master false prophet) but I will say that the papal order was not ordained by God but rather the prince of the world wandering to and fro seeking a beast to crown to deceive the world and fulfill the prophecies. If we look back at 1900yrs of church history, I'm most certain we'll see the beast.

A note: Part Three, Section Two, Chapter One, Article 3 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is their commands on Sunday worship. The thing is that the papal order sees themselves as the immediate lineage to Peter and therefore are given permission to omit, change, and add to Biblical ordinances as well as ordain one day over the next and that's what the Vatican openly states - they openly state that they received direct word from God, because they are in the lineage of Peter and therefore higher than Christ, to change the sabbath from Saturday to Sunday; they even make fun of Protestants who point out the things that are wrong with such doctrines.

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So, what I should add, is that the Sabbath is by definition on Saturday. But aside from the fact that we've strayed a bit off from the initial article, it should further be said that the sabbath lies in Christ when He says, "come to me all ye who are heavy laden and I shall give you rest." That is to show the fulfillment of the 4th commandment, from where I stand, as the Sabbaths, new moons, and feasts are shadows of things to come. Paul, in two letters, makes two very strong points:

1) Romans 14:5-6, "One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day [alike]. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth [it] unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard [it]. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks."

2) Colossians 2:16-17, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days]: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ."

Now, to get back to Nathan's article, he states:
"I sometimes hear proponents of the emergent church arguing that we need to get back to the “ancient practices” of the church. But what "ancient practices" are they talking about? The mysticism of the late medieval period perhaps?"

I will say that I am in no way an 'emergent apostate' and far from one of the 'chosen frozen' but I know what ancient practices they are vying for and I feel that the whole church should desire such practices. No, they are not talking about the mysticism on the island of Crete or the flagrant debauchery going on inside the church at Corinth. Their aim is for the church as seen in Acts 2:42-47 (I know, I stopped at v46 before but it was by no means intentional). At any rate, the church in Acts chapter 2 is ideal, it is the blueprint by which every church should be built with the standards set forth in Paul's letter to Titus about the selection of elders for the church on Crete. We know that the emergent ideals wouldn't last 5mins in a true church of the New Testament, as a matter of fact I would say that no denomination would stand 5mins based on that blueprint. From Acts to Jude, we have many stories of how things were back then and many guidelines by which we as Christians should live and how our churches should be run; all the debauchery is mentioned as well and that shows us that the world is as filthy, if not more-so, today as it was then and we saw how Paul clearly points out every bit of garbage we have to deal with and how to deal with it. Now everyone's, "I'm a Wesleyan," "I'm a Baptist," "I'm a Calvinist," "I'm a Pentecostal," "I'm a Lutheran," "I'm Arminian," and so on and so forth. Paul said what in his first letter to the church in Corinth about divisions over who they followed? Seriously, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian just like those at Antioch who were called so because they resembled Christ-likeness and the people sought to offend them for Christ's namesake - yeah, that's what I am and nothing more! From the reformation to now there have been many great people but none greater than Christ and none but Christ died for me, no, not one, not even John the BAPTIST nor the day of Pentecost. So, no, the ancient church was not emergent, nor any other denomination - just Christian.

Benito,

I'm with you on most that you have said...I just needed some clarification.

David,

I know, I just had to add to what I had said in my first post in regards to the original article