How Christians Gathered in the 1st Century, and Why We Should Care with Dr. Tom Wadsworth
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Podcast: [00:00:00] A seed. idea develops that the Lord's Supper is actually our sacrifice that we give to God. Now that's quite interesting because the Lord's Supper is treated in the New Testament as representing the sacrifice that Jesus gave for us.
But what started to happen early on is it started to be viewed as our sacrifice that we give to God, which is kind of mirroring what was going on, not only in Judaism, but also in the pagan world where the common practice for any religions of that day was to go to a temple and offer a sacrifice, whatever that sacrifice might be
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Podcast: Hey everybody, welcome back to the 1000 houses podcast. I'm excited today to have a conversation with Dr. Tom Wadsworth. Uh, Tom, thanks for joining me today. Good to be with you, Jeremy. Yeah. So I posted a video, um, of, uh, something that Tom had described in his doctoral dissertation, how the first century worshiped or in his context, how they gathered, um, and really correcting a lot of misunderstandings about the nature of, uh, especially just first century gatherings of the church.
And I, uh, this is a topic you all know, I'm very interested in understanding deeper. [00:02:00] Um, so Tom and I, a mutual friend, uh, and, and, uh, put us in contact, which is, uh, very kind and I'm excited to. Uh, talk to Tom, uh, just about this topic. So, uh, you guys know, this is, I think this is one of the most, uh, confusing topics in our day.
Um, there's just a lot of, uh, controversy around it. And I know, um, uh, even having put that video out, Tom, you've, you've been the recipient of some strong pushback, I assume, for your positions. Yeah, you, you could say that. Yes. This is, this is not a, this is not someplace that you just want to like Uh, go into, uh, thinking that it's going to be all roses.
Um, it's, it's a difficult topic to, to broach. Um, I just want to start there. Why do you think people are so. Like, why can't we just have a conversation about this? What, why does it, why do people always have to call you a heretic or some kind of like false teacher or broaching the topic of, of how, how the, how the [00:03:00] Bible talks about how the, how Christians gathered.
Yeah. And I've thought a long, long and hard about that particular question and the, where I've landed is this. Everybody wants to think that they're quote unquote worshiping God correctly. And when somebody suggests that perhaps that's not the case, Oh, them's fighting words. And everybody wants to defend and fight back.
It gets to be, uh, polemic. Instead of just a conversation, uh, this is, this is most unfortunate 'cause it seems like we just should be able to have a conversation. Let's just all look at the evidence in the New Testament together. So let's, let's, uh, make our best guesses as to what it's talking about and have different views if necessary, and let's just move on.
But no, it, it gets to be quite serious. Uh, and there are a number of churches, denominations that. [00:04:00] Already deeply ingrained in their doctrine is the belief that they have arrived at the biblical assembly, or that they've never left it, or that they've been there ever since the first century, and anybody who suggests that they haven't Well, it is anathema, um, but let's come on folks.
Let's, let's just talk. Let's just look at the evidence. We all have new testaments. The Catholic new Testament is just like the Protestant new Testament. Let's just look at the evidence and see what we've got. Yeah. Well, and this is, this is one of my experiences. So I went to seminary and one of the things I realized, or I, I experienced in seminary was that there were a lot, I went to Bible college before that.
A lot of, a lot of, uh, people my age, I certainly had this experience. We were reading the new Testament and saying, okay, um, everyone was sort of collectively noticing that there was a huge, uh, distance between what we were [00:05:00] doing and what is being described in the new Testament, uh, how they were doing things.
And so you would ask, you'd raise your hand and ask your professor. Like, how do you explain the difference? Like, shouldn't we like try to understand this? And the universal response that I kept getting was, look, there are prescriptive, uh, commands and descriptions. All we have in the New Testament are descriptions of how they did it.
Uh, these are not prescriptive and therefore we really don't have, there's really no guide guidance from the New Testament, very little guidance from the New Testament about actually how To do this now. Um, so that, and what amazed me is that this response, um, immediately stopped the conversation. Like, uh, they stopped the exploration.
It was like, Oh, okay. This is just one of the questions you can't, the Bible doesn't answer that question. The new Testament does not give us instruction on how as believers we are to gather. And so even though it's easy to [00:06:00] demonstrate that what we're doing now is not found in the new Testament. Um, you're not going to find the answer to that question in the New Testament anyway.
So you're going to have to basically come up with your own, um, way of, of gathering. That that's kind of what I, what I got from that response that just constantly was coming from the professors and the different Bible colleges and seminaries. And so, yeah, how do you, how do you, uh, speak to this, uh, this response that it's just, it's just descriptive.
prescriptive description, you know, uh, articulation of, of,
Well, uh, I'm very familiar with the prescriptive descriptive, uh, issue and the so called regulative principle has, it has been applied here, or there's other ways that this, uh, hermeneutically, this has been described. Uh, There are indeed some passages in the New Testament that are descriptive, like stuff you see in Acts, um, and there's stuff that is prescriptive.
Like when Paul says, uh, this is my [00:07:00] rule in all the churches. And if you don't do it, you're going to hell. Well, he doesn't quite say it like that, but that does sound pretty prescriptive to me. And it does say some things like this with regard to the assembly as well. So, but for my dissertation, I basically suspended this prescriptive versus descriptive, um, debate, and I just wanted to find out, in the New Testament, how did first century Christians view their assemblies?
What did they do in their assemblies? Uh, what was taught about their assemblies? What was the purpose of that assembly? What did they hope to get out of those assemblies? What was the language that they used to refer to all the things that they did? Let's just surface all these facts about first century assemblies and not worry about whether it's prescriptive or descriptive, and then let's just take a [00:08:00] look at that as as a first century phenomenon and compare ourselves against it.
And maybe ask the question, not so much are we right or wrong, but ask the question, what are we missing by not doing it? The way they did it. Now, let's look at it that way. Now, if somebody wants to take a hard line approach and say, well, if you don't do it the way they did in the first century, you're all going to hell.
Well, I can't, I can't stop you from thinking that. And, uh, I don't personally think that. I think that Paul tends to take, you know, A much more relaxed approach to a lot of the specific things that take place in the assembly so that he allows some flexibility and freedom there. And we ought to do the same.
Uh, but at the same time, there are some things that he, uh, nails down is pretty, pretty important. Um, so that, that's, that's my approach. That's good. So part, part of the way you're approaching this is look, regardless of how you see, [00:09:00] um, this being commanded or not, Let's just understand what they were doing.
Um, yeah. Why, why weren't they doing worship services? Like, like they're, they weren't like, there's no evidence that the first century were, um, hosting anything like what we would in Protestant world or even in the Catholic world or the, Orthodox world, we would recognize as, as a worship service. And by the way, you know, there's been this, this large movement of, uh, conversion in the last, especially a few years of, of Protestants becoming Orthodox, you know, Eastern Orthodox, Western Orthodox.
Um, and one of the arguments that I hear being made, um, when people are making this conversion is that the Orthodox, Claim to be worshiping in a, in the most, uh, sort of first century way. Like we are, they claimed that the roots of their liturgy come from the first century. Um, and, and a lot [00:10:00] of the practices of the liturgy come from the book of revelation.
So what are your thoughts about liturgy? Um, and, uh, especially The claim that some of these liturgies, particularly in the Eastern church, go date all the way back to, I don't know if they would say the first century, but certainly the second century. Yeah. Good question. You know, when I first got involved with this study, I didn't even think about liturgy being an issue.
And then all of a sudden it started to rear its ugly head. Then I realized I'm going to need to deal with this and let's first define liturgy. And the way I defined it in my dissertation was, I think I called it, um, the practice of. Repetitive wrote statements that you recite in an assembly and that's liturgy, whether it's even the, uh, uh, the Lord's Prayer is a repetitive thing that you repeat every week, uh, and it's recited [00:11:00] by everybody.
And so that's part of the liturgy, a song that is repeated every week. Or the Lord be with you, and also with you. These kinds of responsive statements are, this is what, at least how I defined, uh, liturgy, uh, for my dissertation. there was, uh, I, I stumbled on an interesting term, uh, in 1959 literature, uh, where a New Testament scholar used the phrase Pan liturgist and what he meant by pan liturgist.
Was the tendency among New Testament scholars of that era to see everywhere pan Liturgy throughout the New Testament. I saw it like in Revelation as you mentioned They saw that the the Gospels are essentially literally a liturgy or some other portions of Scripture were liturgy That was recited in the first century church Well, this was called out in 1959.
What was going on then? It may be [00:12:00] important here in 1959, there was this massive push for ecumenical. Uh, dealings between Catholics and Protestants. This is on the run up to Vatican two. There was a lot of push in Protestants and Catholics to get them together. And it was going to become clear that liturgy is going to be a major stumbling block that prevents them from finding some kind of unity uh, with regard to what they're doing in their assemblies.
So this, but as they started to look into the New Testament to really examine these alleged places of liturgy, that's when this term pan liturgism popped up. And people began to realize then that there's no liturgy there. We've been presuming that it's there because we know that we did it And centuries later, therefore they must be doing it then, uh, and that theory or that idea of pan liturgism, that it's basically baloney, uh, that it [00:13:00] exists, um, has been persisting ever since 1959.
And I traced that development in scholarly literature for the next, uh, seven centuries or seven decades after 1959. Um, and there's now a new Testament or other, uh, a liturgical scholar. Uh, uh, Paul Bradshaw, uh, who teaches, I believe at Notre Dame, if I got that right. Yes. Uh, at a Catholic institution where he also in his latest book on this, which I think was published 2002.
So it's been 20 years, but he also made the statement that, you know, we've got to start looking at this stuff all over again and looking at this afresh, because all this stuff that we presumed was there in the new Testament isn't actually there. This is the case of of anachronism, where we are reading later practices of the church into the first century, when in reality, if you really look at the first century documents, [00:14:00] it's not there folks.
So let's just admit it and move on. Yes. That's what I ended up. Yes. It seems like, like you said in the beginning, it's really important. It would be great if we didn't dispute the facts. Um, can we just look at the history, look at the facts, look what the new Testament says. And there might be good arguments for how you're doing or why you're doing what you're doing today that you want to, um, you want to bring up, but to monkey with the, the facts that we do know the historical, um, reality of the first century, what, what it says in the new Testament in particular.
Um, yeah, that's, and then when you, when you, we turn how instructive have you found, um, works like the did I K you know, the other first, like the early, early, the earliest They started calling people bishops, um, the, when, when we, what, what do we learn from, uh, sort of the primary source material from, uh, the, the oldest, uh, uh, post new Testament descriptions of, of what the church looked like?
Did, did we [00:15:00] start to see, uh, how, how, uh, how long was the continuity from what, what, what we saw in the new Testament with, with house, uh, Church gatherings. Um, how long did that persist? When do you see certain evidence of when things started to really change? How would you describe like where do we see that in the, in the sources?
Yeah, I, I did a deep dive into second, third and fourth century literature to, uh, to try to trace these developments. And what I really wanted to know was when did they start to use worship language to refer to what they're doing in their assemblies? We do it today. They didn't do it in fact, in the first century.
So when, when did it start? Um, but as you look at these various elements of meeting in houses, of using liturgy, as we mentioned, of talking of the Lord's supper as if it's the Holy Eucharist of, uh, the developments in bishops [00:16:00] and, uh, priests. Uh, coming into the Churchill, when did all this happen and why, and, uh, each one of these is an individual study on its own that can take months to do, uh, but, and I did a lot of that.
One realization I came to, which is I explained it in video number six in my seven video series, which was very helpful for me when I stumbled on this, I began to notice in, in the later Christian literature, second, third, and fourth centuries. That they're starting to resurrect temple terminology to refer to what they're doing in their assemblies.
No longer is in an assembly. Uh, well, here's what happens very early in the second century. A seed. idea develops that the Lord's Supper is actually our sacrifice that we give to God. Now [00:17:00] that's quite interesting because what you read in the New Testament, the New Testament is treated, the Lord's Supper is treated in the New Testament as representing the sacrifice that Jesus gave for us.
He, he gave himself up, uh, as, as we all know, and I think even Orthodox and even Catholics and Protestants all recognize that Jesus is the one sacrifice, a once for all sacrifice as it's referred to in, in Hebrews. But what started to happen early on is it started to be viewed as our sacrifice that we give to God, which is kind of mirroring what was going on, not only in Judaism, but also in the pagan world where the common practice for any religions of that day was to go to a temple and offer a sacrifice, whatever that sacrifice might be.
So then you see this sacrifice idea start to develop. It's not thoroughly ingrained, but it starts there even around 100 AD. It's very [00:18:00] early. And then pre soon, the table upon which that sacrifice sits gets to be viewed as an altar. And that was exactly what happened in the Jewish temple. Uh, sacrifices were slaughtered and offered on the altar.
That's also what was going on in pagan temples throughout that, the Mediterranean basin world of that time, uh, people offered sacrifices on an altar. Well, then by the time you get into the third century, the language that the person who is presiding over this process of offering a sacrifice Upon an altar.
That person is therefore a priest. This is again Old Testament terminology. This is, uh, Old Testament temple terminology. It's also a pagan terminology that was very common throughout that world of the day. You have, if you have a sacrifice, then you got to have an altar and then you got to have a priest [00:19:00] to offer that in the appropriate way.
And then finally, the final development in this four step process starts to happen in the fourth century. If you've got a sacrifice that you're offering on an altar, and if the person who is presiding over that process is therefore a priest, which the church started to refer to their ministers as priests by then, then the building in which all this takes place, therefore, is A temple.
And you see Eusebius, for example, in around, writing around 320 AD, uh, he's giving, I think, as I recall, it's a dedication of a new Constantinian cathedral that Constantine helped to build with his own funds, as well as imperial funds, these magnificent, glorious, uh, church buildings. And how does Eusebius refer to this building?
He calls it a holy temple of God. Nobody would [00:20:00] have done that in the first three centuries, but here the language starts to come out. And once you've got a sacrifice and all through a priest and a temple folks, you've got worship in the classic, uh, uh, Jewish sense and in the classic, classic, uh, pagan sense as well.
Now, when I call it pagan, by the way, let me quickly. Yeah. Yeah, people are going to be offended. You know, you're saying we're pagans today. Well, no, I'm, I'm just simply saying this is the way it was in the first century. Uh, any pagan temple had sacrifices and priests and, and altars. And just as the Jews did as well throughout the old Testament, not necessarily criticizing all that.
But, uh, But I am saying, in fact, that the New Testament church did not have that, any of that in the first century, that this was the stuff that developed in later centuries, uh, thereafter. Let me stop there. There's a whole lot there to unpack, but that's, that's. Yeah. See video number six to see the full description of that.
Yeah. I think the history is really important. It's important to get, to [00:21:00] understand, uh, if we didn't get this from the New Testament, then it's important for us to try to trace. The origins, I think of where this came from. Um, so I love, I love your approach, Tom, just like, I really want to understand what they were doing and in the, in the scriptures, um, and as you've pieced together, I'd love for you to like.
You know, take us on a time machine back to the first century where, uh, we, we are going into a traditional gathering of believers. Um, what are we, what are we noticing? What are we seeing? Why are they gathering? Like what, what, what would, uh, what would a person from our day with our assumptions. What would we notice about, about what, what is happening inside that, inside that room?
First off is more than likely, not entirely, not exclusively, more than likely going to be a house. House churches are mentioned at least five times and then it's explicitly stated, I mean, that's how they met. I mean, just, just get over it folks. That's how they met. Uh, not [00:22:00] exclusively. They can meet anywhere.
The house isn't sanctified in some special way that any place else is not. But that's how they met. Uh, some people will say, well, they met in houses because they're being persecuted. Well, that's not necessarily true. Uh, they met in houses cause that's what they did. That was the most natural way to, to, to gather.
Uh, and this continues on into the second century, even into the third century and even beyond that, but mostly the church buildings then begin to develop after that point. But I think I've already lost My original question. What was your question? Yeah. So I wanted you to take us into that, that house church.
Like what are we noticing that especially, you know, you, you, you made reference in, in your videos about, you had a similar, like, I think, epiphany getting to first Corinthians 14. Um, and I, I always tell people, I do think that first Corinthians 14 is kind of like the, the red pill of this whole thing, which is, you know, I think the Corinthians were screwing up their gathering [00:23:00] so royally that Paul's like, I'm just going to explain to you once I'm like, I'm going to talk to you.
I'm going to walk you through exactly what I taught you. So he doesn't, doesn't need to do this. I think with most churches that he's kind of building on, you know, where they are, but it seems like with the Corinthians, he kind of took a step back and started to describe, like, I think his most basic training about how they were supposed to get together.
And so you have that. You know, of course that, that famous summary in verse 26, um, and, and, but I'm just curious, like, how does, how does that happen? Like any thoughts about what, what is going on there? What, what, what might we notice about the way they gathered? It's pretty informal in Corinthians. It's almost chaotic.
Yeah. And Paul wants to bring order. And that's a word he uses in verse 40 of chapter 14. Uh, things should be done decently and in order. Uh, but the main thing that he stresses is that whatever you do, gang, whatever you do, let all things be done for edification, for the building up of one another. And I think that's [00:24:00] something that's got missing today in our churches.
So what Paul wanted, that when people got together, that they're not meeting in some sacred structure, there's nothing hallowed or holy about any of the furniture or any of the people, any more than all the Christians are saints, of course, but nobody is more saintly than anybody else. Uh, but they were to gather together to, to build up one another, whatever it is they're doing in there, whether there's prophecy, whether there's prayer, whether there's singing, whether there's, uh, tongues or interpretation of tongues, whether there's a blessing taking place.
All these things are things that Paul refers to in first Corinthians chapter 14. Uh, here's where also the, uh, this phrase one another. This is a phrase that's used over 100 times in the New Testament. It talks about Christians comforting one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another, um, praying for one [00:25:00] another, confessing your sins to one another, my goodness, all this one another activity must be referring to assembly activity, uh, and so there's this horizontal one another in thing that's taking place extensively in these services, uh, Now, Paul wants them done decently and in order.
Paul also doesn't want people showing off their, their, uh, gift of speaking in tongues or prophecy at all. But let's, let's, folks, love needs to prevail throughout everything we do. And that's where 1 Corinthians 13 becomes so important in understanding first Corinthians 14 is first Corinthians 13 was not written for weddings, right?
I mean, you can use it that way if you want, but it's written in the middle of the context of chapters 11 to 14. That's talking about the Christian assembly. Love needs to prevail throughout everything that we do. And when somebody says something we don't agree with folks. They love him anyway, [00:26:00] uh, just get over it, uh, be long suffering about these things.
All the words that he used and uses in first Corinthians 13 applies. So this, there's compassion going on in the first century assembly. There's different people speaking, not just one person dominating the whole thing because he's the guy in control and nobody else is now there. There's a lot of people talking here and everybody else needs to be gaining from this, uh, from what people are saying.
So that, that I think the size of the group, the location, the informality, it allows for there to be a kind of dynamic where different people feel more free to exercise their gifts. And it seems like there's kind of like three principles. I'm always, you know, trying to understand that he seems to be emphasizing in first Corinthians 14, he's saying like, release the gifts, um, follow the Holy Spirit, but do it in an orderly way so that it builds up everyone.
And if you, if you can do that, there's, there's sort of a, a bit of a tension that exists between the informality and allowing people just to [00:27:00] freely, um, follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and disorderliness that ends up not building up the body, um, but just creates a lot of chaos, right? So, and to that, this is, this is a very difficult problem.
And I think that I know that that one of the reasons why worship services are so Preferable is because there's a fear that when people take the time to drive to a gathering and they want to participate in something, we want to choreograph the entire experience in such a way that they kind of what I, I refer to sort of as get their money's worth, you know, but get their times like, like, you don't know what will happen if you just show up to a, to an informal gathering of believers that are trying to exercise their gifts to build up the body.
If people have been, you know, fighting with their spouse, if people have not been spending time with the Lord, if people are resisting the Holy spirit, it could be a pretty miserable experience. You might not get your money's worth. Um, but if you show up to this [00:28:00] worship service where everything's perfectly, you know, created and we got, you know, we make sure that everyone who's behind the mic is well trained and.
Um, and really an understands like how to deliver exactly their part. Um, this, this I think is, uh, part of the reason why I think this is so intimidating for people. Um, what have you seen about this? Have you noticed, or I don't, I don't know if you've gone through this, but the transition between the experience of.
you know, a perfectly, um, uh, choreographed curated worship service. And then suddenly, um, here you're in a living room, uh, of believers trying to build up one another, like, Uh, trying to, trying to love one another. Um, what is that? Have you noticed, have you seen people go through that transition? Like, you know, part of this is a generation.
It seems like has to choose and make this kind of transition or attempt to do this. Um, otherwise, of course, we're just going to [00:29:00] continue to build on the, the same assumptions and the same practices that we've, we've, we've all inherited. So, uh, yeah. What have you noticed about, about this attempt to try to, to make this shift happen in real, real life?
Yeah, we've become so accustomed to professionalism in our assemblies where you got to have the minister's got to have all these qualifications and he's got his sermons got to be so long and it's got to be just right and everything else has got to be just right. And the singers and all the things got to be just right.
And it can't be substandard. It can't be less than really good or else our worship is not acceptable to the almighty. Oh, I suggest that God can handle a whole lot more, uh, less professionalism in what we're doing. But what I've found throughout the years is that people do not grow unless they're able to engage.
With the conversation, they need to be able to express themselves and talk [00:30:00] back and ask questions and offer their own input. Now, who says that it's that minister at the front who knows everything about this topic and everybody else has to shut up and listen? Can't he learn something from the vast talents and gifts that have already been bestowed by God in those people in the congregation?
Uh, he can, and I think most ministers know that they can, but they've been called into this particular position where they've got to do their thing, and it's an awkward spot, uh, to be in. So it's a hard transition, but, but what's not hard is if you put people in the context of a living room, then they all of a sudden, they're much more, uh, Less demanding of professionalism.
It's what's in what's going on and then feel much more free to be able to talk and ask questions and and contribute to the discussion. Um, and all of that. That, [00:31:00] uh, pent up inhibition starts to go away and all this expectation of perfection starts to go away because it's just us folks and always was just us.
And so let's just get over ourselves and let's deal with ourselves, flaws and all. And that's where love comes in and compassion comes in and let's be patient with one another and let's really listen to one another because I. have a lot to learn from everybody else there. Everybody in that congregation, wherever it is, know something that I don't know and has a perspective that I need to hear if I just shut up long enough.
To let them say it, let me listen and benefit from that. Yes, I agree a hundred percent. We have to, it is a tough transition. I mean, you're used to like, I just want to put my kids in childcare and like go to an air conditioned room where everything's been perfectly curated. Um, you're going to find it a little bit tough.[00:32:00]
To make the transition to, uh, to doing this stuff in a living room. Um, I'm really curious, Tom, like, so as I've tried to piece together what they were doing, there's some of the elements that I, and I don't, I'm curious, have any of these that, that stand out to you as, as other normative, um, so it seems clear they were eating a meal, I believe first Corinthians 11 seems like the Lord's supper was, um, was being done.
Jude refers to a love feast. So I'm like, when was that? Was that a breakfast? Was that an evening? Um, it seems like there was, uh, a public reading maybe of the word Paul talks about. Don't neglect the public reading. Is that the synagogue? Why does James use the word synagogue when he talks about the assembly in, uh, chapter two?
Um, that always surprises me. Like what, why did, why did he use a word like that? Um, yeah, I'm just curious from like, I'm, I'm, I want to hear any of the technical details of what they were doing. Do you think they were singing? Um, I mean, he talks about a hymn in first Corinthians 14, singing to one [00:33:00] another in Ephesians and in Colossians.
Um, yeah, like what are some of those elements do you think were normative?
The most normative thing, I think, May have been teaching, uh, that word just pops up again and again and again in acts as well as in the pastoral epistles, as well as elsewhere in the, uh, in Paul's writings and elsewhere, teaching, teaching, teaching, uh, there's this interesting verse in Hebrews five. I think it's verse.
13, where the writer says, folks, by this time, you ought to be teachers, right? So there was this, this very interesting, uh, phrase because, uh, there seems to be this expectation that after attending an assembly. For weeks, months or years, uh, shouldn't we be developing, shouldn't we be gaining a higher skill level in our ability to [00:34:00] communicate what we're thinking and what we believe, whether to one another in within the church or to outsiders outside the church.
Um, but when you have an assembly where only one person gets to talk and nobody else does. Only one person gets to develop and that's a problem. Uh, it seems to me, so teaching was, they tried to like, try to go, like, they tried to, um, elicit teaching from a larger percentage of the. Of the congregation. You think that they were all participating in that in the teaching?
Well, I think, uh, certainly it's not going to be the case that everybody's going to have the gift of teaching, uh, or Nord going to be able, not everybody's going to be able to develop that gift. Some people are naturally shy. Some people are naturally very cautious about the words they speak and words don't come very easily to some people.
Uh, and I get that. And we shouldn't be pressuring these people to develop that skill. But, [00:35:00] uh, but at the same time, there should be a relatively good percentage of people who are able to talk. That's really all that's required for teaching is can you talk, but Yeah. But then can you talk with some substance behind it?
Do you know what you're saying and do you know why you're saying it? And can you say it effectively, uh, that that's where some skill gets, uh, is, is required and can be developed in Christian assemblies if we just allow it the opportunity. Well, I think, I think that one of the questions I've had for a long time is I, I, I think there definitely was a lot of teaching and equipping that was happening.
You know, Paul famously kept teaching until the poor guy fell out of the window. It's like, and then after that he rose, he healed the guy he's keeps teaching till morning. So it seems like there were these, these times where they would gather for just like lots of teaching. Um, and I think that, I think that, you know, Paul, you know, In the school of Tyrannus or whatever, [00:36:00] wherever that was in Ephesus, where he would just, he was constantly teaching.
It seems like every single day, maybe all day. Um, and so there was just, there was like almost like this hub epicenter of just teaching going on that the believers, Peter, it seems like was teaching every day from the temple, but this, this gathering that he's describing first Corinthians 11 through 14, I think what surprises me is you get to, you get to chapter 14 and he, he puts a lot of emphasis on prophecy.
Right. He's basically says, let two or three prophets speak, and then the rest of you weigh carefully what is said. And, um, you know, he spends a lot of time contrasting prophecy to, I guess what they were doing, which was speaking in tongues, um, and really saying prophecy is better. It's more important. It's.
And so I keep, I keep wondering like what, you know, before the Pentecostal movement started, I think this would have been a, you know, maybe interpreted in a very specific way. Like I don't like maybe, maybe this was a form of teaching. I think that now post a lot of the, the, the movements, like the charismatic movement, there's, there's [00:37:00] now a description of prophecy that is, you know, more similar to what was going on in the old Testament.
Um, oftentimes is referred to as sort of a new Testament version of prophecy. But 14? Does it seem like when the gathering happens? If you're trying to release the Holy Spirit, something was going on. And the word that Paul is using is prophecy as being kind of like something that this needs to happen. We need to have two or three prophets speak.
Do you think that was happening? What do you think they were actually doing? Uh, Paul seems to in first Corinthians 14 seems to focus in on this activity of prophesying as being a highly desirable one and because it's for him, it was, it's the one that's most obviously done for edification. Okay. People are edified by it.
They're built up by whatever prophecy is. I've heard, I remember back when I was in, uh, uh, in seminary and before seminary in college where somebody said that there's two kinds of prophecy. One is foretelling the future and one is [00:38:00] foretelling the future. telling where you're not necessarily telling what's going to happen in the future, but you're simply forth telling some of the principles of Christianity or God or Jesus or something like that.
And that's, that could be what the prophecy is that Paul was talking about in first Corinthians 11. I would admit that that's still a question in my mind is exactly what that kind of prophecy is in first Corinthians 14, but whatever it is, it is something that was to be done and was Was obviously done to build up other Christians.
Yeah. Yeah. You made a huge point of it's got to edify the whole body. And, um, and so these gifts are great. Um, we're going to be continuously, uh, driving into the skill of edification and then really, uh, determining, you know, I think one of these always surprises me, another thing that surprised me about first Corinthians 14 is as much chaos as there [00:39:00] was.
That Paul was, um, you know, rebuking them for really, he never wants in the whole first Corinthians 11 through 14 ever says to some kind of special leader. Hey, can you like get the, get these people together? Like, this is your job. I mean, he says a lot of direct things at Timothy and first and second Timothy, but when he's addressing the Corinthians, there's no mention of somebody being more responsible.
You know, um, there's no elders or deacons. that are called out uniquely for the chaos that was erupting in Corinth. There is, there's no pastors or professional people of any kind. Um, there's no hierarchy that he's referring to that I know of at all in first Corinthians, which if, if, if I were to ever imagine this happening in any other context today, I think that I would expect.
That the person, you know, the apostolic person would be directly addressing the leader as the one responsible for solving this problem and [00:40:00] for ensuring that order, um, happens. Uh, I don't know. What do you, what do you make of the fact that Paul's not doing that here? Is that normative or was that something?
Unique to the Corinthian situation? Uh, I don't think it was normative. Uh, 'cause you know, at the beginning of Philippians one, he addresses the, uh, was it the, to the overseers and deacons at the church there. Um, uh, of course the references in Titus one and one Timothy three and references in Acts 17 x 20, uh, references to the elders and, uh, throughout.
My goodness, there's a whole bunch of references to the normative experience would be that there would be churches that have, uh, elders. Elders is the most common term that is used to refer to these leaders. Leaders, plural. You don't see a reference to, uh, an elder, plural. One elder who's running a whole show and [00:41:00] certainly not running a whole show for multiple churches, uh, but it seems to be a multiplicity as a general rule.
Not that there's something sinful going on if there's only one, but the potential for abuse of one person being in charge is, uh, is really great then. Yeah, I think a lot of churches are realizing that today when there's a lot of scandals going on right now. But, you know, if you had a multiplicity of elders, I wonder if that would be happening.
Um, so, so, but yeah, a multiplicity of elders, but in Corinth, another factor going on at Corinth, uh, Paul mentions in first Corinthians chapter one, Uh, he says, I hear that you guys are, you're divided. Some are saying I am of Paul. I am of Cephas. I am of, uh, uh, uh, Apollos or I am of Christ sort of these forward divisions.
And it could be that as they started to filter into four different segments, maybe meeting in four different houses, Uh, and maybe they lost whatever [00:42:00] elders that had been existing, uh, at one time. And so that's why he's writing in first Corinthians 14 to a situation where there, there are no elders anymore.
And he's got to, you've got to have the hammer and lay down the law as to what's going on. But the important thing to remember is everything must be done to build up other people. If you do that, then you're, you're on the right track folks. Right. Why divide? Right. Right. Well, so I I'm really curious how you think about this term Ecclesia.
Um, so, uh, I know that, that some have said there, and I just was recently reading a book, That was, um, written before the New Testament and it used the word Ekklesia multiple times. Every time it seemed to be referring to some kind of almost governmental gathering of the city. Um, and so, uh, when Jesus says, I will build my Ekklesia, um, do you, uh, yeah.
How do you, how do you think about that word? Um, and, [00:43:00] and the fact that we're using the word church to translate it, how, how would you distinguish the English word church from the Greek word Ekklesia? Yeah. Good question. Uh, it's probably a huge discussion there, but if I had to be really short about it, I say I would probably start to translate at Glacier wherever it is found with the word assembly assembly.
Okay. And I think that that is going to be more representative of its meaning wherever it is found. I think it's, it's an ax 19 verse 32 I think where, uh, the references, the word is used there in reference to a city. a civic assembly, a civic ecclesia. Uh, and it's not talking about a church. I mean, the word church doesn't fit there at all.
And I think the word church in our culture has become too churchy so that, uh, uh, we're confused as to what that is when we see the word church [00:44:00] in the new Testament. Let's replace it for a while with assembly. And I think we're going to get, uh, More refreshed as to what it's talking about there. It's a gathering folks, uh, almost in any context where that is found.
When he talks about the churches of Christ that are throughout this area, he's talking about the assemblies, uh, the Jesus assemblies of all these gatherings and all these different homes or wherever it is they're meeting, uh, uh, throughout that given area. These are that. Yeah, that's good. And I'm curious, any thoughts about, um, so one of the things I've uniquely really try to understand is.
The way the first century Jewish and Roman family or household impacted the way that they, they saw this interaction that was happening. Um, there's a book that I recently was, I've been reading called when the church was a family, and he's trying to make the case for the, the depth of sibling relationships in the first century was beyond anything that, um, modern people would [00:45:00] understand.
And when they were calling him brother and sister, it was like. You know, remarkable really, um, the, the, the family-ness of the first century church, um, one of the reasons why we have such a hard time recapturing what the love one another is all about in the Bible is because they had the shorthand of having experienced that in much stronger bonds of families and households.
And that when that was started to be extended to spiritual siblings, it was, it created. a, an experience that was so unique to the early Christians. And today, when we get a bunch of believers together, even in a house, because our families are so, um, relatively weak when it comes to the bonding that, that, that, that we experience, um, particularly between siblings, um, it can be difficult for us to understand.
Why, when Jesus said, you'll get a hundred times more , more [00:46:00] mothers, and more fields, and more, you know, more brothers and sisters. That, that was such an exciting, uh, and encouraging word. Yeah. So what, what have you seen or, or thought about when it comes to, I mean, you see this with household salvations. The household just seemed much more of a, even the word ocos, um, which is used almost anonymously with Lac CI think in Romans 16.
You know, the, the ocos, the Lac C that meets in your ocos, your household. Yeah. Any, any, anything you've learned or thought about with regards to how the way they were doing family or household. impacted their understanding of, of how to gather. I may not have much to add there, but one thing that is a principle that seems to be true throughout the discussion of this family aspect, as well as, uh, what's going on in these assemblies is this equality, uh, brothers and sisters.
Uh, nobody's really in charge here. I mean, nobody's better than anybody else, but we're all one in Christ. And another word that is used that Paul uses [00:47:00] repeatedly, uh, in reference to the Christians he's writing to, they are Haggai. They are saints. They're all holy ones. The men, the women, they're all hao. Uh, they're equal, they're brothers, they're sisters.
Uh, they're this mutuality, this one anothering, this horizontal, this going on. Uh, this is what's breathing life throughout the organization and allowing people to realize that they're important, that they've got something to say, that they have been also endowed with the spirit of God, and thus have something to contribute to the whole.
That must have been so such a unique experience, slave free men, women, Jew, Gentile in one living room, all acting in, in a way as equals. Um, yeah, I think that was, and I, one of the things that we'd, I think one of the reasons why people have such a hard time studying Corinthians as a, [00:48:00] potentially guide back to a way of doing church.
I think that they trip over 1 Corinthians 11 and the, um, and the, uh, tradition of head coverings that Paul describes there. Um, have you noticed that I've seen that, that it seems like Paul is, is, is really talking about because you are so radically equal in the context of this gathering. He needed to answer the question whether or not the household order continued to persist within that gathering.
Um, or could that be fully thrown off? Um, and, um, but yeah, I'm, I'm always really curious. I think it's a critical. Uh, objection to answer, if people are going to take much more seriously, um, all of the chapters in first Corinthians about the apostolic traditions, Paul's advocating, since he seems to be so adamant about that tradition and virtually no one in kind of the modern evangelical world seems to follow that particular tradition anymore.
Yeah. And in almost [00:49:00] any tradition, um, interestingly enough, you go back to, uh, American church culture of the 1950s. Uh, you would have a lot of ladies coming into church with a doily or something on their head, uh, this little net or something. Uh, and that was very, very common. They all felt this need to cover their head.
That isn't exactly what was going on in first Corinthians 11, but they're doing that because of first Corinthians 11. But, uh, somehow for some reason, uh, whatever compulsion that people had 50 years ago to be doing that 70 years ago, uh, almost nobody feels the compulsion to do that anymore. And I'm not, I'm not pressing for that.
One thing that I've noticed is that the same strong arguments. that Paul makes for women to have their head covered. He also gives the same strong arguments for women to be silent. [00:50:00] And yet we seem to be able to dismiss those arguments for the head covering, but we don't dismiss the arguments for the silence of women.
It seems to me, in order to be consistent, you either got to be all in on the head covering and the women's silence We're all in on saying, all this is cultural and we don't need to require head coverings or, uh, women's silence anymore. Um, I just find us being very inconsistent in how we're applying the rules of first Corinthians 11 and the rules of first Corinthians 14, where women says women must be silent in churches.
Uh, folks were just, we're not being consistent. Uh, we're, we're picking and choosing, uh, just admit it. And it picks and I think there we're going to end up with different points of view on that. Right. Yeah. And I, and I think we've, we've just got to be. More compassionate and understanding of people who end up differently [00:51:00] on that egalitarian complementarian, uh, debate.
Let's not condemn one another. Let's stop that. Stop that. It's not doing anybody any good to do that. Come to your own opinion, your own view. Do your best to apply it as best as you can in your own context. But stop condemning other people for coming to different points of view on it. Yep. Yeah. This is, I really appreciate Tom, the spirit of that.
You're communicating this, this with, it's so important to try to be as clear as we can. Like you said about the facts without being contentious and saying, let's divide over all of these things. Um, like we need to be able to have these conversations very openly. And so, yeah, I really appreciate you having this conversation with me today.
I'd love for, Um, how can people find out more about your, um, you know, your dissertation, uh, teaching, yeah, anywhere that people that want to dive deeper, how would they do that? Yeah, my, my website, tomwadsworth. com has some materials there. Uh, but [00:52:00] my YouTube channel has basically exploded in the last two months.
Um, I've got seven videos on this topic. We've been talking about seven, one hour videos. Uh, they're, they're at length. They're mostly based off my dissertation. Uh, those have been getting now a third of a million views already. Just that's in the last two months. We're really hungry for this. Something's going on that makes people realize.
There's something here. Now it's true that some of those third million people are hating my guts and thinking I am the, I am close to Satan himself, but there's also a lot, a lot of people who are saying, man, I thank God for this, this material you're sharing here, because this is a mind blowing. People are calling it, they're calling it eye opening.
Somebody described me as a national treasure. Oh, uh, because of, uh, because of these things now, I wasn't shooting for natural, natural, [00:53:00] national treasuredom in writing all this stuff. I was just honestly, honestly, trying to find out what's going on in the New Testament with regard to the assembly. I wasn't trying to attack anybody's position when I did this, and I wasn't trying to defend anything that I'd already been doing or practicing.
I was really, really trying to figure out what's going on there. And so if you go to my YouTube channel, Tom Wadsworth at YouTube, and look for my worship stuff, and you'll see my videos right there. and uh, join in the third of a million people who are watching them. And even while we're talking here right now, Jeremy, I'm, I I'm already, I've been seeing my ticker going.
I'm getting several comments already on others that have been viewing this stuff. And they're coming from all over, all over Christendom, Mennonites, Amish, Quakers, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, uh, Everybody's [00:54:00] joining in, but I think they're finding something that's worth talking about.
Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah, it seems like when the reformers began to focus on the importance of things like justification by faith. And the scriptures, they didn't reform the Ecclesia, they really tried to take the template that the Catholic church was using and reform that template instead of go back to first principles in the scriptures, like they did with regards to salvation and other topics.
And so I think this is why people are so hungry. There's a sense that people have, that we have not properly reformed, uh, in this area back to. the original design that it seems the Holy Spirit wanted to preserve for us in Scripture. And so I thank you, Tom, for taking the time to do those videos. I encourage you guys to to go through all of them and please add, uh, your friendly comments to the YouTube videos [00:55:00] in, uh, in contradistinction to the, uh, the more hateful comments that Tom's been receiving.
So thank you so much, Tom, for joining me today. I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you, Jeremy. God bless your ministry.
VIDEO 1KH OUTRO: Well friends, thanks for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to learn more about a thousand houses or discover what a season of coaching might look like for you and your household, visit one k h. org. We'll see you for the next [00:56:00] episode.
