Putting the Pieces Together, Part 2 — Mike Black

In the second part of "Check the Prescription," subtitled "Putting the Pieces Together," Mike Black completes his three-part key for reading Scripture rightly: the authority of the apostles, the unified early church, and the once-for-all rule of faith they guarded. Reading from Paul, Jude, and early Christian writers (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Lactantius, Firmilian), he argues that the apostles established one church teaching the same message everywhere, so the common claim that the church "went off the rails" right after the apostles cannot be true. His payoff is liberating simplicity: because that unified faith points straight back to a plain, uncomplicated reading of Scripture, believers can "just read it and do what it says"—on head covering, the Sermon on the Mount, communion, and the call to endure. A rich audience discussion follows on avoiding "easy believism," faith working with works (James), and how saturated the early writers were in Scripture.

Key Points:

– Mike’s three-part "prescription" is the apostles’ authority, the unified church, and the rule of faith once for all delivered (Jude 3), which together give confidence in Scripture.

– The apostles established one church teaching the same gospel everywhere—Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Lactantius show a unified faith from Germany to Egypt—so the claim that the church errored immediately after the apostles is untenable.

– The early Christians read New Testament Greek as their native tongue and lived in that culture, and they are the ones the church relies on for the New Testament canon.

– The great payoff is an "uncomplicated interpretation of scripture" (a saying he attributes to Conrad Grebel or Michael Sattler): just read the commands plainly and do them—head covering, the Sermon on the Mount, loving enemies.

– On communion, Ignatius (a disciple of John) called it "the medicine of immortality"; from John 6 and 1 Corinthians 10, Mike presents it as more than a symbol—a real spiritual feeding for the wilderness journey.

– In discussion: a plain reading guards against "easy believism," since abiding, bearing fruit, and James’s "not by faith only" all call for faithful endurance, not license.

Scripture References: 2 Timothy; Jude 3; Galatians 1; 1 Corinthians 1; 1 Corinthians 10; 1 Corinthians 11; John 6; Matthew 26; John 15; Romans 11; 2 Peter 2; James 2

Guide me, O the great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. Good morning and welcome to Hope For Wondering Amish. We’re so glad you joined us here this morning. It’s beautiful. God has given us another wonderful day. And we have our good friend Mike Black on this morning again, that we’re all excited to hear — part two, checking your lenses. And, like always, at the end we look forward to hearing from our audience. We’ll have a word of prayer, and Mike, the time will be yours.

Let’s have a prayer. Father, we thank you for this beautiful day. Thank you for this gathering here this morning. And Father, we pray for your kingdom to be advanced and your name to be glorified this morning, in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. All right, Brother Mike, the time is yours. All right, thank you, Brother Elam. Great to be here this morning. Thanks for inviting me back. I guess I didn’t scare anybody off last time.

So just for those that might be joining today for the first time — when I started out, this message is called "Check the Prescription." And it has to do with what we looked at, which is our approach to Bible reading, and how oftentimes, and it’s pretty much unavoidable, we all have our biases. But when we read the scripture, we’re actually not just getting what’s there, but also viewing it through the lenses of however we grew up. And I gave the story of my background, how on my mom’s side, everybody from her grandparents’ generation was Old Order Amish. And then they went to conservative Mennonite, where my mom was raised — in a mainline Mennonite — and met my dad at a Mennonite college. And he was from a Protestant background. So that’s how I was brought up. I married a Catholic girl. We were evangelical for a while. And we were searching. And that’s how, through David Bercot’s talks about the early Christians, I was looking for that true historic faith. I found that the closest thing to that today is the Anabaptist. So it’s like, whereas my mom’s family would have kind of been heading away — they were the wandering Amish — and it ended up how I was raised, and then I’m kind of going back in that opposite direction a little bit.

So we started off just with a look at, like, why these theological glasses matter. And I gave examples of dangerous errors, like divorce and remarriage, why it’s important not to have adornment and to dress modestly because of lust or vanity, things like that. And also, like, you could end up as a Lone Ranger Christian — your solution is just to go off by yourself. Well, that’s not good. And so we got into some of that, and dived into the first part of getting that prescription right.

I really like what Ephraim Renno said about sort of the pieces of the puzzle. He said, at the end of the talk — it’s probably at the end of that message, if you go back and listen to it — but he talked about the different pieces of the puzzle. If you get one little piece that looks right, but it’s not quite right, and you put that in there, eventually you’re going to end up with more pieces that are wrong, because you missed that one in the first place. And so that is very true. So today, kind of a subtitle of "check the prescription" is "putting the pieces together." I really like that analogy. So thank you, Ephraim.

And so the first part of that key, or the puzzle, or the prescription, was the apostles. And so he sent them out to establish the foundation of the church everywhere in the known world at that time. And we talked about the one verse from John, or the couple of verses, where it talked about the Spirit will guide you into all truth, bring all things to your remembrance, and how that was in context spoken to his apostles. And that’s how the early Christians understood it. And so, that’s what we see was fulfilled. He brought these things to their remembrance. We have this record here in the word that we know we can trust.

And so the apostles went out and then established a very unified church that taught a unified message everywhere. So whether you were in Northern Africa, where there were writers like Cyprian and Tertullian in the early church, or modern-day France, which is where Irenaeus was, or Rome — no matter where you were at, you got the same gospel message. And so that is a key, because no matter where you go today, you’re going to get a different message. And every church thinks that they’re going just by the scripture, and that they’re being guided by the Spirit. And yet there’s over — I don’t even know how many thousand denominations there are, and they all say something different. So I kind of was wondering, okay, well, what’s the deal with that? So that’s kind of how this talk came about.

So I do want to talk about today those other two points. So the first was the apostles, and their authority, and how that affects the key. And the next two are the unified church, and, along with that, the faith — the rule of faith that she diligently guarded and spread throughout the known world.

So let’s just start by considering some things that Paul wrote to Timothy in his admonitions. I made kind of a quilt out of 2 Timothy and some other verses. He says — and so we talked about how, like say the Catholic Church would apply those verses about the Spirit from John to the church — it’s guiding them into all truth, and that’s why she can add things to that faith. And how evangelicals apply it to themselves personally, where when they go to their devotion time, they think that they will arrive at all truth just by the Spirit’s help. But how really there was a faith that was once for all delivered, and we’re supposed to contend earnestly for it, just like Jude says to — stick to that and don’t deviate from it.

I like how he says in Galatians 1 — I don’t have that quote in front of me — actually, I have it right here, I forgot I have a Bible sitting on my lap. He says that, you know, he marveled that they so quickly turned to another gospel, which is not another. And he said that basically, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. So those are pretty strong words. And so that’s where the early Christians come in, and that’s where they really shine. They took charges like these very seriously, viewing novelty as heresy. And Tertullian even had a quote that went so far as to say, innovation is unlawful. So, like, it’s against the law of Christ, the law of God, to like invent anything or add anything to what was delivered by the apostles.

And so the early Christians can help us learn that true historic faith, because they received it directly from the apostles. That was one advantage they had. We always look to, like, commentators or people who may have been — or it can be kind of enticing to want to learn from these theologians who have degrees and have studied Greek for many years. But they thought in the New Testament Greek. They dreamt in it. They spoke it. They understood the nuances. You know, we have sayings that we use that somebody from a different country might not get. And so, like — wait, "hold fast"? "Fast" is going somewhere really quickly. Well, no, "hold fast" — we mean, like, stand still and don’t move. So it’s like, they understood all the nuances. And so we read translations, but they read the actual language of the New Testament as their native tongue.

And they lived in the same culture. They understood the culture of the time. We don’t have to turn to commentators to try to understand sort of the world they were living in. They knew that. They didn’t have to turn to any commentary. A lot of times when I’ll quote from them to people out there whose theology might kind of differ from theirs, I get a lot of, oh, I don’t want to hear them, I just want to hear the Bible — or, you know, they’re real quick to dismiss them when they disagree with their theology. However, they’re also very quick to point to them for our New Testament canon, when people are kind of challenging the canon — or, how did the church establish the New Testament canon, and all that? Well, they point to the early Christians for that, and, like, how they had to sift through the Gospel of Thomas and all these other things to find out what were the true and authentic writings of the apostles. And so we have that because of them.

And one key advantage, though, that they had — that is, of course, a result of the apostles’ work, which is why they’re the first part of that key — was a unified church, teaching the same doctrine everywhere. Because the apostles delivered the same rule of faith everywhere they went. So I’m almost sounding perhaps like a broken record there, but that is a key — the unified church. So today we have thousands of denominations. Back then it was the — what they would say — Catholic, which just means universal, not what it means now, like Roman Catholic, but one universal church in the beginning. So, just don’t take my word for it. I’m actually going to read their quotes. Even if you were never to hear any other quotes but these that I’m reading to you this morning, or if you happen to come across some of David Bercot’s works, or other people that teach from them — even if you were never to hear anything else again, there is some good news for you at the end.

So anyway, just two quotes real quick. And just so you know, it’s from different areas. Like I said, Irenaeus, who was only one human link removed from the apostle John — the apostle John discipled Polycarp and set him up as the bishop of the church in Smyrna, and Polycarp, one of his learners, was Irenaeus. So he says about the church:

"She carefully preserves it, as if she occupied only one house. She also believes these points just as if she had only one soul, and one and the same heart. She proclaims these things, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For although the languages of the world are different, yet the significance of the tradition is one and the same. For the churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, neither do those in Spain, Gaul" — which is where he was, which is modern-day France — "the East, Egypt, Libya, or in the central regions of the world." So there we see, there’s one message all throughout the known world at that time.

And so, another quote, which really shores up our faith in the apostles — because, I think a lot of times, like I mentioned last time, they tend to be downgraded, or we only see their faults, which of course we wouldn’t know, if they wouldn’t have been humble enough to write them down for us. But anyway, this is Tertullian. He says — let me pause right here. Because the reason this is important, and one reason I’m kind of going on this early Christian thing, is because out there some — mainly it’s from Protestants, but some people — will try to real quick dismiss the early Christians, because they do disagree, you know, because of theological differences. And they want to try to say that, oh, well, right after the apostles, they’ll quote examples from when the church was being established, such as some problems with the Corinthians, or in Revelation. So during the process of the church being established, there were some things to work out — which actually worked to our benefit, because now we have those teachings to keep us on course. But by the time the apostles had gotten through, got these teachings established everywhere, kind of ironed out the details — by the end of John’s life, what we do see is a very well-established church that was teaching the same thing everywhere.

A lot of people that discount the early Christians will be quick to say that, yep, as soon as the apostles were gone, they just went right straight into error, so we can sort of dismiss them — like they just went off the rails right away, and it wasn’t until the Reformers came and just set the record straight 1,500 and some odd years later. Well, less than 1,500. Anyway — yeah, so that’s why we shouldn’t look to the early Christians. So that’s why I’m kind of reading these quotes. No, they didn’t go off the rails right away. They took these charges, like Paul gave to Timothy, or like Jude gave, to contend earnestly. They held fast, even to the bitter death, for this faith. Hallelujah. I can get a little bit excited about these things — almost a little Pentecostal about it, but don’t get scared.

Anyway, so going on: "Or that they failed to make known to all men the entire rule of faith. Let us see, then, whether — even though the apostles proclaimed it simply and fully — the churches, through their own fault, proclaimed it differently than had the apostles." So that’s the modern-day claim. "You will find that the heretics put forward all these suggestions of distrust. Suppose, then, that all the churches have erred. Suppose that the apostle was mistaken in giving his testimony. Suppose that the Holy Spirit had insufficient concern for any one church to guide it into truth, although he was sent for this reason by Christ" — sorry, I’m getting lost — "Suppose also that he, the steward of God, the vicar of Christ, neglected his office, permitting the churches for a time to understand differently, to believe differently, than what he himself was preaching through the apostles.

"Is it likely that so many and such great churches would have gone astray into one and the same faith? No accident distributed among many men leads to one and the same result. Error of doctrine in the churches must necessarily have produced various results. However, when that which is deposited among many is found to be one and the same, it is not the result of error, but of tradition. Can anyone, then, be reckless enough to say that the ones who handed on the tradition were in error?" So consider that — like, how could we be reckless enough to say they went off track right in the beginning? That’s powerful right there. That’ll step on some toes for sure, out and about, if you go saying that out and about. The critics were putting the same thing forth as many say today. And so he’s like, no, they wouldn’t all be teaching the same thing if they went off the rails right away.

So we see a unified church as the fountain of truth, and like a haven of safety that you can trust. So I want to give two more quotes from the early Christians before I move to the good news and the conclusion, that you don’t necessarily even need them, although this to me is so inspiring. I read these — I’ll say why it really helps me — with the last part of this prescription, or the last piece of the puzzle. So this is Lactantius. So Irenaeus was only one human link removed from the apostles. Then at the end of the second century was Tertullian. Now this — we’re in Rome now, at the beginning of the fourth century, with Lactantius. So no matter where you’re at, it was the same message.

He says: "When they are called Phrygians, Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites" — or, I might add, Baptists, or Mennonites, or Amish, or whatever man’s name — "or by any other name, they have ceased to be Christians." No, I’m not. Anyway. "They have lost the name of Christ, and have assumed human and external names. It is the Catholic," or universal, "Church alone that retains true worship. This is the fountain of truth. This is the house of faith. This is the temple of God. If anyone will not enter into this, he is estranged from the hope of life and eternal salvation." So he’s pointing again to a unified church. And at that time, these new men’s names — which, if you look at Paul in 1 Corinthians, he says, you know, don’t be called — "I am of Apollos," "I’m of Cephas," "I’m of Paul." He says, no, we’re of Christ. People’s names that they were following — it was like, no, that’s wrong, we’re Christians. Now, nowadays, unfortunately, there’s not one unified faith. So maybe we do need to be called Anabaptists or something like that, so people kind of get an idea of what that means. Back in the beginning, they knew what it meant to be a Christian. So I just added kind of that Mennonite or Baptist or Protestant, whatever, as just a little bit of a joke.

So then Firmilian, which is kind of the middle third century, he says, according to the Song of Songs, the church is "a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed, a paradise with the fruit of apples. And the ark of Noah was nothing else than the sacrament of the church of Christ. All those who were outside the ark perished; only those were kept safe who were within the ark." Therefore, we are clearly instructed to look to the unity of the church. So I like those pictures, because that ties right into the last point here, as we kind of come to wrap up.

And so, the best reason — I think that I’ve saved for last — that, like, these early church, that was unified and preached a unified message because of the apostles’ successful work, I should say, is that they help us have confidence in scripture just as it’s written. A clear — I wish I could remember the Anabaptist quote, I’m going to say it’s Conrad Grebel or Michael Sattler, I’m pretty sure of that — but he talked about, out of an uncomplicated interpretation of scripture, or, like, he reads scripture without a complicated interpretation, and that’s how he speaks or acts. I wish I could have that for you. Some of you out there might have that better and can help me with that. But that is so true.

You just read it in as literal and straightforward a way as it can be. Obviously, we don’t read the prophecy literally — that would need interpreted. But like the commands and the things like that, we can just — we know that we can read the scriptures as a whole and arrive at the true historic faith. If we just would take, say, all the scriptures in the New Testament on a subject, take them as a whole in a very straightforward way, we know we’re going to arrive at that faith that was once for all delivered.

So that is one great thing — that the more you read the early Christians and things like that, the more you see that. That opened my eyes. Is — hallelujah, I can just do what it says. I would read things like 1 Corinthians 11 about the head covering, and then I go to church and it’s never talked about, or if it is, it’s explained away as just a Corinthian custom. And I find out later, no, that’s not the case. It wasn’t a Corinthian custom. It was, like what Paul said at the beginning — keep these traditions. It was a Christian custom. And his reasons were because of, you know, the creation order, the headship order, the angels, whatever that means. And so it’s like, oh, hallelujah, I can just read it and do what it says. Hey, pray and prophesy, me without my head covered, my wife with it covered. Simple, done. You don’t need to, you know, add anything or explain away.

Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, I was always told, that was for another era, like the future kingdom era. Or it would be explained away by the Calvinists as just to show us how bad we really are — if you thought you couldn’t earn your salvation through Moses, Jesus wanted to make sure you definitely know you can’t, because his are a little more stringent. No — uncomplicated interpretation of scripture. Jesus says, whoever hears these words of mine and does them is like the one building their house on the rock. Simple, straightforward, exactly what the early Christians taught. They would always point back to Jesus’ teachings as their rule of faith. Why do they turn the other cheek? Why do they love their enemies, and refuse to take up sword against their enemy? That’s what Jesus said to do. Simple, done. But because people out there try to muzzle Christ with their theology, or basically make all this New Testament teaching and commands of none effect by their theology — that’s why it is very valuable for me to learn that the more I read the early Christians, the more it points back to just a very straightforward reading of scripture. And to me, that is just such liberty, such a breath of fresh air.

And for one example that I’ll throw out there — it’s a little maybe controversial, and I might get a little something for this, but it’s something that could maybe spark debate, or I don’t know, but anyway. Take communion, for example — the body and blood of Jesus Christ. What was the early Christian view on it? Well, Ignatius, who was personally discipled by the apostle John — and the apostle John wrote what I’m about ready to read to you from John chapter 6, some of you might know where I’m going with this — but he was personally discipled by the apostle John, and John set him up as a bishop in one of the ancient areas. I think it was Antioch, but I’m not 100 percent. Yeah, it was Antioch. Anyway, he called communion "the medicine of immortality." What? I thought it was just a symbol. I thought it was just something we do purely for remembrance — although we do do it as a remembrance, and show forth his death till he comes, that’s one part of it. But how could he call it the medicine of immortality? That’s bold. I’m going to say that’s heresy. Not really. But why? Well, he was personally discipled by John. Did he go right off the rails immediately? Let’s see.

John chapter 6, 48 through 50-something or other. Let’s just read this real quick, and then I’m going to wrap up. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." Now the Jews quarreled therefore among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" You can almost hear them saying, like, whatever. Well, then Jesus said to them — he doubled down on it. He didn’t back up, like, oh, what I really meant was — no, he said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." He lives in me, and I in him. "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven — not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever."

Now, he goes on to say that many of those disciples stopped following him after that. That’s crazy — eat his flesh, drink his blood, that stumbled a lot of them. As a matter of fact — we can’t drink blood, because we’re Jews, and we can’t have any blood — like, this guy’s crazy. But what did — I flipped past it — but what did Peter say? He says — well, as they all left, Jesus turned to his disciples, and so saying, no, no, no, what I meant was — do you want to leave also? But Peter said, no, because you have the words of eternal life. So although he might not have understood it at the time, he knew enough to know, you’ve got the words of eternal life, I’m going to stick around long enough to figure this whole thing out. Good faith.

And then we get to Matthew 26, where the Lord’s Supper — as they were eating, Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, drink from it, all of you. And he said, eat it and drink it. But before, we have no other instruction on how to eat and drink him, until right there. Then it’s like, okay, well — is part of salvation, or whatever, communion? Now, that’s not the only thing. We know we need to repent and be baptized. We need to remain faithful. There’s all these things that feed into it. But of course, a lot of times nowadays, we’re just taught to think it’s just a — oh, just pray a sinner’s prayer, that’s it, and it can never be lost, and whatever. But it’s just such a more beautiful picture.

And so that’s just one example where that could kind of get confusing, or you might downplay it a little bit. I know that early Anabaptists, unfortunately, as an overreaction to the Catholics — which taught transubstantiation of the bread, no, that’s not actually bread, that’s physically his flesh and physically his blood, and maybe in some sense it kind of is — the early Christian saw more of a dual reality, that although that is actual bread and actual wine, it’s also, in a mystical or a spiritual way, his body and blood. And we don’t even need to really understand it. We just need to obey and do it. Hallelujah.

Now, so one thing — and this might tie into a future message, we’ll see about that — but these shadows that were in the scripture can also help us with our prescription and put the pieces of the puzzle together. Because he was talking about the manna that they ate in the wilderness. And we often link parables only to Jesus’ teachings. But when he quotes about the parables, and the teaching, the things that are of old — and the psalm that talks about those parables and those things of old — what does it go on to do? After it talks about, I’m going to speak in parables and open your eyes to all these things, then what does it do? It talks about the Exodus journey. Well, how is that a parable? We know it’s actual, true, literal history. I believe that all those things actually happened. But in what way is it a parable?

Well, 1 Corinthians 10 kind of helps that. It talks about how they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They drank from that spiritual rock, which was Christ. So they drank from Christ, in a way, and they ate that bread, that spiritual bread. So in a way, they were taking communion by the manna in the wilderness and drinking from Christ from the rock. And so we see, like, they were in bondage to this evil dictator, this ruler — represented Satan. They came out of that kingdom and were delivered from that. He and his forces were drowned in the water, just like Satan’s forces are drowned out in baptism. And we started a new life. Only, what some people might preach, like, oh, we’re already instantly in the promised land, we don’t have to worry about anything else, hallelujah, we’re already at the end, we’re saved forever — no. On the other side of the sea, there was a wilderness that they had to make it through. And that was Paul’s point: stay faithful. Learn this. This was written for your admonition. Look back to this. Because many of them perished in the wilderness, because they weren’t faithful. Only the faithful few were saved. In that case, it was only two — Joshua and Caleb. But he’s pointing to that as kind of a picture, a roadmap for us to follow. So if somebody says, no, you don’t need to have endurance of faith, you’re free, whatever — you can look to those stories. I do need to be faithful, even in this wilderness. And I do need some spiritual sustenance for this journey. And that’s communion.

But anyway — these are, you know, you’ve got Noah, the house that was spared with the scarlet thread from Joshua, all these different things. But anyway, I’m getting long-winded, so that can be for another time, these shadows. But my main point, through the apostles, the unified church, and their unified message — what it all points to is that we can have confidence in the scripture and take it at face value for what it says, and we can arrive at truth. Try to take the blinders off, or the theological glasses off, and just read it for what it says. Just like that thing in John, that would trip up so many people. Or 1 Corinthians 11 — people try to convince even plain people to throw the baby out with the bathwater, take that off, forget about modesty and just do your thing. Well, no. Jesus teaches about lust. That’s why modesty is important. And all these things tie in.

And so maybe I’ll do another message in the future about that. But it just gives me great hope that as we journey on to this promised land, and that rest that is to come, we can have confidence that we’re on the right path. And anyway, I’m going to leave it at that for now, although I feel like I have so much more to say. But for another time. Back to you, Elam.

Thanks so much for that. That was very rich, very good. And the part — for myself, for many years, I was taught the idea that as soon as the apostles died, everybody fell away, kind of thing. So that has been very helpful, to have a change of mind in that area. Yeah, there was a lot of very, very rich stuff shared this morning, very needed things, things people need to hear. And it would be very helpful for many people in their Christian life. There’s definitely a lot of confusion in our Christian world today regarding the subject.

So anyway, I would like to say one thing, though. I did kind of point to the early Anabaptists as an overreaction about the communion, like not taking it as literally maybe as the early Christians would have, and seeing it as just a symbol. But I found an early Anabaptist church order, and it had different points of what they would do and all this stuff. Well, they had communion more than once a week. It would be pretty much whenever they got together. So even though they might have kind of seen it as a symbol, I know they took it very seriously. And even the symbols there are powerful, as, like, many grains coming together as one loaf. So I don’t want to downplay them at all. They had a very lively communion life, so to speak. You know, they did it very often.

I was very surprised by that early Anabaptist church order, because some of the churches that I’m familiar with nowadays, it’s like only once a year. So I was surprised to find that even in the beginning of the Anabaptists, they did it more than once a week. In the early church, I think it was mainly just once a week, on the Lord’s Day. But anyway, I wanted to put that in there as a good, positive thing about the early Anabaptists. I forgot to mention that. I don’t want to leave that unsaid. So, go ahead, sorry. Yeah, thank you very much.

Yeah, appreciate that. And also the idea that we don’t need a complicated interpretation of scripture — that is very good. I’ve heard that quote before also, and I feel like I need to find it myself now. Yeah. Well, I’m sure there’s somebody in the audience here that would have something to say. I’ll give you the ability to unmute yourself. So, you definitely will have to unmute yourself in order to speak. Some of you don’t have your videos on. It’s an opportunity for you to turn your video on in order to say something, but we can’t hear you unless you unmute yourself. So, yeah, very good. This is a very good talk here this morning.

Yeah. Good morning. Thank you, Brother Mike, for that talk. I really enjoyed it. As my thoughts were going along with you, as you were sharing — the one thing, I have a question, but I’d like to try to make myself clear, so you understand the question. Over time, the true historic faith got watered down. We have the term "easy believism." And I definitely agree with you that an uncomplicated interpretation of scripture is very necessary. Down through the ages, churches or people, Christians, didn’t take the faith seriously enough anymore. And it got to where their lack of understanding just wasn’t enough anymore to keep them on the straight and narrow, to keep them on where they needed to go. So therefore, they started adding this and adding that, to keep people on track. And then, you know, now you have thousands of denominations. And rather than being comfortable with each other and appreciating each other and believing each other, now we all like to be a little different from everybody else, so that we can be protected from everybody else — be a little different, and then, you know, have our pet doctrines, or something that sets us apart, that makes us the right ones and everybody else wrong. We don’t want to go there. And yet we also believe that just a simple reading of scripture should be enough. So drive the point home a little again for us. I know you’ve done it, but if you could just touch on that again.

I don’t mean, like, just, yeah, simple belief and that’s enough. I just mean, like, simply taking the scripture — the whole of the New Testament — what it says, and just apply it as it says it. So that, definitely, in the way I’m reading it, is not going to go to easy believism. When you read, for example, John 15, where Jesus talks about, you abide in the vine — he’s saying, abide, you’ve got to remain. So just by him saying that, you know, it’s possible not to abide, or he wouldn’t command it. And then he further warns that if you don’t produce fruit, you’ll be cut off and cast into the fire. People want to explain away the fire, but when I hear "fire," I know what I think of. And so if you just simply take that and read it, that’s not going to be easy believism. You’re going to say, I need to be producing fruit for Christ, I need to be abiding in him. He says, apart from me you can do nothing. So I know I’m not going to be able to do it on my own strength. But like Paul said, with Christ I can do all things. I need to make it — but I know I do need to try to make it.

Also, like I jokingly read with my glasses on last time, the Romans 11, where he talks about being able to be broken off and others grafted in — he says, don’t be haughty, but fear, lest you be broken off. So these type of things. 2 Peter, where he talks about how it’s somehow better for somebody who never believed in the first place than for somebody who believes in the faith and then just falls away from it. That’s pretty strong. Jesus talks about lust — it’s better you poke your eyes out, in other words, you get to the root of it, than to lose your eternal life. So that, to me, says, okay, I’ve got to rein my lust in. That’s one of the first things that caught my attention, when I realized — what if Jesus really meant every word he said? And how can you call yourself a follower of Christ without actually following Christ? I realized these things are important. So it’s simple. It’s just a straightforward reading of it. But that urges you to be a faithful follower, to be diligent in your life. It definitely does not tend to laxity, in my opinion. Is that a good response, or did that answer what you’re saying?

Yeah, it did. That’s well said. I appreciate everything there that you said. When we turn from a simple, straightforward faith in exactly what the Bible says — when it turns from that, to trying to explain away some of those difficult things that we don’t like, that our flesh doesn’t like — when we make that switch, it can be very subtle. But when we make that switch, that makes all the difference. Yeah, because, like, for example, if you equate a simple faith or whatever with, oh, just faith alone — well, if you read the scripture, James says it’s not by faith only. It’s also faith works together with your works for salvation; you’re justified by both, not with one or the other. And so, yeah, so by "simple," it’s definitely not just the easy believism that I came from. Because that involves, in my mind — that’s a complicated interpretation. Because to arrive at faith alone, even though James specifically says not faith only — it says he who works righteousness is accepted by God — to me, it gets complicated in trying to explain it all away, trying to come up with all these theological loopholes and theological gymnastics to get around what’s written. In my mind, simple — easy believism ain’t that easy theologically. You’ve got to explain a lot of stuff away. So anyway, I’ll shut up. I can get long-winded. That’s well said, I appreciate it.

John Calvin’s, what is it, 12-volume books, to find out how complicated easy believism can be, and then try to put all the puzzle pieces together yet — it just doesn’t work. Yeah, it’s a lot of effort. And that’s why people end up exactly where I was before I started searching — I kind of gave up on the whole thing. It’s all explained away, and all I need is faith, and hey, I’m good no matter what I do, it’s all explained away. So I just kind of lived my life, and sort of hoped — although I had doubted whether I could — the eternal security, something inside me, this is like the Spirit, it knew that was a bunch of baloney. But that’s what I was taught. Yeah, thank you for your question.

Anybody else? Yeah, good morning. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Good to see you again. Okay. Yeah, it was nice hearing your talk again. You had some very interesting points, and I thank you and appreciate that. One thing I’d like to highlight a little bit — you had mentioned Matthew 26. And I’ll just read that verse. It says, for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many — and then it goes on and says, for the remission of sins. I just like that thought. I just thought I’d interject that a little bit.

So, yeah, you had some very good points about the Anabaptists, you know, coming up through the ages. And easy believism — I don’t know really how to describe that. I think when we take the Bible for a fact, or like the Bible says, like you had mentioned — I think we shouldn’t be afraid that we are in that boat, but that we can come further with that. So, yeah, appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you. Yeah, I like the early Christians, I like to talk about them a lot, but really they just point you back to the word anyway. And so that’s very freeing. It gives great liberty. So I like to look at them kind of as, like — some people, oh, you’re putting them on par with the scripture, because you quote them. No, not right now — more like, basically the only commentary I would read, or something like that. But, yeah, it’s great, it points you right back there. And like you mentioned, his blood is shed for many for the remission of sins. So it’s like, obviously, none of this stuff — if we realize, okay, we do need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and we do need to do all these things — somebody’s going to accuse us of works salvation. Like, no, we understand what all of it says. None of this would be possible apart from Christ and the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Because if so, our faith is in vain, like Paul says. So, yeah, it all works together, not just one thing. So thank you for bringing that in.

Thank you for the message. It’s really wonderful. And I really like the point that the universal message that the early church fathers spread — the gospel was universal — does tend to strengthen our faith in scripture. And I think that’s a great point. And the thing that most surprised me maybe, about a lot of the early church fathers, was, you could almost assemble the New Testament just in their quotations of the New Testament, which is pretty remarkable, that these documents got all over the world so quickly. You mentioned Polycarp. And I think we have quotations from Matthew, Acts, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, 2nd Thessalonians, 1st Timothy, and 1st Peter, just to name a few, just in one man’s writing from that time. And so, just to hear how much they talked about the New Testament, when the church was assembling the New Testament, and how universal those documents were — that also, I think, strengthens our confidence in scripture. And that’s certainly how they saw it. So, I don’t know, but that’s — that.

Now, I 100 percent agree with you. I think it’s, what, along the lines of over 90 percent of the New Testament could be reconstructed just from them, for me. And when I’ve read their stuff, it’s so saturated with scripture, like what you said. Polycarp — I think of the Shepherd of Hermas, I mean, it just drips with scripture. And their rebuttals to these heretics are just so scripture-filled, and just so — like, their reasoning was amazing. That, when people say they went off the rails right away, they’ve obviously never read any of it, or heard any of it. That is a fact. Like, how can you have read any of this, or be familiar with, acquainted with them, and think they didn’t know their scripture, they went off the rails? I mean, I just marvel at it. Because a lot of stuff, like Justin Martyr with Trypho the Jew, all the Old Testament prophecies, and he ties it in with Christ, and this is just a conversation he’s having — so I assume it was in his brain. I don’t even come close. So thank you for bringing that up. Like, yeah, it’s just marvelous.

And the thing I realized, when I first saw the thing on YouTube that brought me to this initially, which was "Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up?" by David Bercot — Elliot Nesh made a video on it — and my conclusion from that was so amazing. It’s like, oh, so I can just read this thing and do what it says. Okay. Wow. Hallelujah. That’s the exact point I came to. So even though they’re a great inspiration, they’re a great commentary, it points you right back to that thing. So thank you, James, I appreciate that.

Yeah, this has been very good. I’ve really, really enjoyed this morning. It was very well laid out, Mike. Easy to follow. And we always appreciate when we have questions and comments from the audience. This is a very, very good time here this morning. Yeah, great audience. Love you guys. Yeah. But, again, if there’s anyone else, feel free to unmute yourself and say something.

Yeah, well, thank you again. It was a special time. And I think we’re probably going to take a little bit of a break here throughout the summer, or not be doing this every other Saturday morning. I have someone lined up, scheduled in, for the first Saturday of July, August, and September. It’ll be like a three-series talk by John Byler. Some of y’all may recognize the name. John Byler has taught on, you know, subjects of marriage and family, things like that. So his three titles will probably be something down the line of — the first one, in July, will probably be something like marriage; the August one will probably be — sorry about the flies, I have a couple flies around, they’re nasty — so the second one, in August, will probably be like child training; and then the one in September will probably be something down the line of your family and technology. So I think those talks will be very interesting, very needed, and very enjoyable. So, yeah, John Byler — he has 11 children. He’s, in today’s age, you need to say, a husband of one wife. His wife’s name is Beth. Two sons-in-law, and one grandchild, and a second grandchild on the way.

Thank you again for joining us. It was very special this morning, very enjoyable. I hope God will bless each one of you richly today. We’ll see you all later. We’ll see you all later.