HOW EARLY CAN TRADITION BE—AND STILL BE WRONG?

If a Christian writer lived only a few years after the apostles, how much authority should we give him?

Suppose someone tells you:

“The earliest Christians believed this. Some of them lived only a generation after the apostles. Surely they knew what the apostles meant better than we do.”

That is a serious argument.

We should not dismiss it.

Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, and other early Christian writers are extremely valuable. They help us see what Christians believed and practiced after the New Testament period.

Some may even have known apostles or people who knew them.

But there is another question we sometimes forget to ask:

Does being early make someone right?

Or, more importantly:

Did the apostles themselves tell Christians to follow later teachers simply because those teachers lived close to them?

Let's read the evidence forward.

ERROR DID NOT WAIT UNTIL THE APOSTLES DIED

This may be the most important fact in the entire discussion.

We sometimes imagine the first century like this:

APOSTLES → PURE CHRISTIANITY → APOSTLES DIE → ERROR GRADUALLY APPEARS

But that is not what the New Testament shows us.

Error was already appearing while the apostles were still alive.

Paul told the Galatians:

“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel.”
— Galatians 1:6

How soon?

Paul was still alive.

The church at Corinth had divisions, lawsuits, sexual immorality, abuses of the Lord's Supper, confusion about spiritual gifts, and even people questioning the resurrection.

Paul was still alive.

John wrote:

“Many false prophets are gone out into the world.”
— 1 John 4:1

John was still alive.

Peter warned:

“There shall be false teachers among you.”
— 2 Peter 2:1

And Jesus' messages to the seven churches in Revelation show congregations struggling with false teaching and compromise.

So there was never a period when we could simply say:

“This is early, therefore this must be apostolic.”

Error could arise very quickly.

PAUL SAW IT COMING

Paul gave the elders from Ephesus a remarkable warning:

“After my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.”

But then he added something even more sobering:

“Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.”
— Acts 20:29–30

Notice where some of the trouble would come from.

Not merely outsiders.

“Of your own selves.”

These were church leaders.

Paul did not tell the Ephesian elders:

“Whatever the next generation of church leaders teaches should be accepted because they are close to us.”

He warned them that error could arise from among the leadership itself.

That changes the question considerably.

THEN THE APOSTLES DIED

Now we come to the period historians call the Apostolic Fathers.

These writings are important.

Among them are 1 Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and the Didache.

We should read them.

We should learn from them.

They provide extraordinarily valuable evidence about early Christianity.

But we should notice something else:

They are not part of the New Testament.

That doesn't make them bad.

It makes them different.

Paul could say:

“The things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.”
— 1 Corinthians 14:37

Can Clement say that?

Can Ignatius?

Can Polycarp?

That is the question.

IGNATIUS IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE

Ignatius of Antioch wrote very early in the second century.

That makes his writings extremely important historical evidence.

He strongly defended the genuine humanity, suffering, and resurrection of Jesus.

We can appreciate that.

But Ignatius also wrote that Christians should follow the bishop as Christ followed the Father. He said that church activities should not be conducted apart from the bishop, and even connected the proper celebration of the Eucharist and baptism with episcopal oversight. New Advent

That is fascinating.

It tells us something about church organization very early in the second century.

But what does it prove?

It proves:

Ignatius believed it.

It proves Christians around him were being taught it.

It proves this kind of episcopal authority appeared very early.

But there is still another question:

Did the apostles teach it?

Those are not necessarily the same question.

THE LORD'S SUPPER IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE

Ignatius wrote that certain people avoided the Eucharist because they did not confess it to be the flesh of Jesus Christ. New Advent

Later, Justin Martyr used similarly strong language about the bread and wine. Archdiocese of San Francisco

That evidence deserves to be taken seriously.

It would be a mistake simply to wave it away because it does not fit our tradition.

But neither should we reason:

Ignatius believed it.
Ignatius lived very early.
Therefore this must be exactly what Jesus and the apostles taught.

There is still a missing step.

We must return to the texts of the New Testament and ask:

What did Jesus say?

What did Paul say?

What did the first Christians actually do?

Early history can help us understand the question.

It cannot settle the question by itself.

EVEN “APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION” APPEARS EARLY

The letter known as 1 Clement is another important example.

Written to the troubled church at Corinth, it discusses the orderly appointment of church leaders and the continuation of ministry after the apostles. It therefore became important in later discussions of apostolic succession. American Bible Society

Again, that is important historical evidence.

But notice what has happened.

We have moved from:

What did the apostles teach?

to:

What did Christians shortly after the apostles understand the apostles to have taught?

Those questions are related.

But they are not identical.

HOW QUICKLY CAN SOMETHING CHANGE?

We don't have to guess.

Galatians tells us.

Paul preached the gospel in Galatia.

Then other teachers arrived.

Before long Paul was writing:

“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?”
— Galatians 3:1

Apparently theological change did not require 300 years.

It didn't require 100 years.

It didn't even require the death of an apostle.

It could happen between visits from Paul.

That should make us cautious about saying:

“But this writer lived only fifty years after the apostles.”

Fifty years can be historically very close.

Theologically, it can be plenty of time.

BUT DON'T SWING THE PENDULUM TOO FAR

There is another mistake we need to avoid.

Some Christians act as though church history doesn't matter.

That isn't wise either.

If nearly every Christian writer close to the apostolic period understood a passage differently from us, we ought at least to ask:

Why?

Maybe we have misunderstood something.

Maybe our own tradition has affected how we read the Bible.

Maybe those early Christians knew something about the language, culture, or apostolic practice that we have overlooked.

Their testimony deserves a hearing.

But a hearing is not the same thing as the final word.

EARLY DOES NOT MEAN INSPIRED

Perhaps that is the distinction we need.

EARLY = IMPORTANT.

EARLY = WORTH READING.

EARLY = HISTORICALLY VALUABLE.

But:

EARLY ≠ INSPIRED.

The closer a writer stands to the apostles, the more interested we should be in what he says.

But chronological closeness does not confer apostolic authority.

SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH THE CHURCH FATHERS?

Read them.

Study them.

Respect them.

Learn from them.

Let them challenge assumptions we may have inherited from our own traditions.

But then do exactly what we ask everyone else to do:

Go back to the text.

That means we should not say:

“My church has always taught this.”

And stop there.

But neither should we say:

“Ignatius taught this in A.D. 110.”

And stop there.

Both statements lead to the same question:

WHAT DOES THE TEXT SAY?

TRADITION CAN BEGIN VERY EARLY

This may be the lesson we most need to remember.

Tradition does not have to be 500 years old before it becomes tradition.

It doesn't have to be 100 years old.

According to the New Testament, a mistaken teaching could begin while an apostle was still alive.

So the question is never merely:

How old is this teaching?

The better question is:

Can we trace it to what Jesus and His apostles actually taught?

READ HISTORY—BUT TEST IT BY SCRIPTURE

Church history can tell us:

What Christians believed.

When they believed it.

How widely they believed it.

How their practices developed.

Those are enormously important questions.

But history alone cannot answer:

Was their interpretation correct?

For that, we return to the apostolic writings.

That is not disrespecting the early Christians.

It is following the very standard the apostles themselves gave us.

“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”
— 1 Thessalonians 5:21

And that includes our traditions—

even very early ones.

TEXT B4 TRADITION

Read First. Conclude Later.

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