Speaker 5: [00:00:01] Guys, do you believe that there is
Speaker 5: one true church?
Speaker 5: Just one, uh, of all [00:00:06] the different kinds of churches in the world that is the one that really is the one that Jesus had in [00:00:11] mind,
Speaker 5: and that
Speaker 5: is carrying forward the true,
Speaker 5: depiction of the right traditions, the right way to do church. [00:00:16] Now, a lot of us Protestants, we don't necessarily claim to believe that.
Speaker 5: Uh, but if you are a [00:00:21] Protestant, do you believe that there is one true way to do [00:00:26] church, or one that is clearly better than all the others? Now, if you don't believe [00:00:31] that, then how do you decide what church to go to? How do you figure out what [00:00:36] traditions to participate in? That's what this video's all about.
Speaker 5: How do you figure out what [00:00:41] God designed the church to be?
Speaker 5: how do we dive into these things? Does the Bible give us a clear [00:00:46] indication for how to answer these kinds of questions?
Speaker 5: so we're gonna look at apostolic blueprints [00:00:51] and try to understand what does the New Testament say about the nature of church [00:00:56] traditions, and how to decide as a family [00:01:01] what church to get involved with.
Speaker 5: Hey guys, I'm Jeremy Pryor with 1000 Houses where we are [00:01:06] working to activate households to disciple the city, and we constantly are talking and trying to [00:01:11] understand how as households interact with this thing called the church. Now, in [00:01:16] the kind of high church traditions, Catholic churches, Orthodox churches, they tend to believe, "Hey, [00:01:21] we are the true church.
Speaker 5: We have, uh, [00:01:26] apostolic succession, so we know that you can trace our authority to call [00:01:31] ourselves a church uniquely back to the original apostles." Then you [00:01:36] have Protestants who have kind of a similar version of believing in the one [00:01:41] true church, but to them it usually is a little more subtle in that they say, [00:01:46] "Well, there's only one right way to do church, so our church sort of has figured out the right way, [00:01:51] like our traditions of expository preaching or, you know, making sure that we [00:01:56] understand, uh, this particular doctrine just right, or, you know, our doctrine for the [00:02:01] nature of the Bible."
Speaker 5: This is the way the Protestants often think about being a part of the one true church. [00:02:06] But I believe that Jesus always envisioned there to be a [00:02:11] variety of expressions, in the same way that in the kingdom there's going to [00:02:16] be members of every tribe and tongue and nation, that there is a lot of [00:02:21] freedom to how to do church in these different church traditions.
Speaker 5: So in our first episode, we [00:02:26] looked at kind of what makes the church, which is this confession that we get in Matthew [00:02:31] 16, where Peter says that "You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God." [00:02:36] This confession that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is Messiah, this is what gives rise to [00:02:41] the ekklesia, the first time that Jesus ever used that word.
Speaker 5: And we also saw in Matthew 18 that Jesus [00:02:46] envisioned this extremely flat structure where, uh, [00:02:51] "Where two or three are gathered, there I am," and he gave them the same power that [00:02:56] he talks about with Peter. "Whatever they bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever they loose on earth will be loosed in [00:03:01] heaven."
Speaker 5: But in this very flat structure, how do you decide how to do church? How do you figure [00:03:06] out traditions that actually, um, are going to give rise to the kind of vision Jesus had for the [00:03:11] church? And so this has always been a real conundrum for Protestants, uh, in [00:03:16] particular, and we need to dive into, what does the Bible say about how to construct [00:03:21] traditions?
Speaker 5: And I think the first inkling we get about this topic, [00:03:26] how to resolve this, is from a very interesting parable that Jesus told about wine [00:03:31] and wineskins. So one day, John the Baptist's disciples and the Pharisees got together to [00:03:36] talk to Jesus about why he and his disciples were not fasting [00:03:41] according to their traditions And so Jesus gives a lot of interesting [00:03:46] responses to this, but it ends with him telling a story about wine and wineskins.
Speaker 5: He tells [00:03:51] them that new wine needs to be put in new wineskins and old wine into old wineskins. You put new [00:03:56] wine into old wineskins, it'll burst, uh, the old wineskins. And so [00:04:01] he is describing the reason he is constructing [00:04:06] new traditions for his disciples, uh, ones that aren't [00:04:11] necessarily aligned with the exact traditions that were being followed at the time.[00:04:16]
Speaker 5: And this is a really, really difficult question to answer. How do you figure out [00:04:21] if there are traditions that absolutely need to be followed? Is it okay [00:04:26] to just devise new traditions? And Jesus seems to be saying, "Well, it depends." Are [00:04:31] you fermenting new wine? And if you are, then new wine requires new [00:04:36] wineskins.
Speaker 5: Now, one of the things that's really interesting about this particular parable is you have it in [00:04:41] Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and it's very similar, uh, has a very similar setup, uh, similar [00:04:46] stories that he tells about a garment and things like that. Uh, but he ends the [00:04:51] all three with this parable about wineskins, but they all three end slightly differently.
Speaker 5: So [00:04:56] in Matthew, he really talks about how new wine is for new wineskins and old wine is for old [00:05:01] wineskins, so both are preserved. The emphasis of Matthew is they're both important, [00:05:06] and you need to just make sure that the right wine is in the right wineskins. So that's the purpose [00:05:11] of, of that. And it's interesting, it is true that if you put people that are [00:05:16] built for new wine into old wineskins, they do tend to cause [00:05:21] damage to those traditions.
Speaker 5: They're constantly asking or pushing back on those traditions, [00:05:26] and the reason is they're new wine. And so sometimes you have people in a church [00:05:31] who are just not the right wine for that wineskin, and that's okay. There's a reason for [00:05:36] that. And often they need to realize that, wow, it doesn't mean [00:05:41] that this old wineskin is wrong.
Speaker 5: Um, and maybe it is wrong in some ways, but just because the [00:05:46] traditions aren't really resonating deeply with you doesn't mean that that's a [00:05:51] problem. It could just be that you're a different kind of wine. Now in Mark, he makes a slightly different [00:05:56] point. It really ends by emphasizing the importance of that, new wine needs new [00:06:01] wineskins, right?
Speaker 5: So both are preserved is how Matthew ends, but in Mark, it's really [00:06:06] emphasizes that when you are fermenting new wine, it does require you to also create new [00:06:11] wineskins. In other words, you need new traditions for that kind of new wine. You know, right here in Cincinnati, [00:06:16] we have, um, a megachurch that, as I've talked to many people who have come to faith, [00:06:21] so many of them came out of very traditional Catholic families, [00:06:26] and so they were in an old wineskin and, but then they came to faith in a radical way.[00:06:31]
Speaker 5: And they have a really often antagonistic relationship with the [00:06:36] Catholic Church that they grew up in because they will say, "I don't understand why I couldn't find [00:06:41] Christ in that place." And so they are extremely [00:06:46] committed to this new wineskin. They will promote it, they will share with [00:06:51] others, and they'll watch as others come to faith through this new wineskin.
Speaker 5: I think one of the things that's true is [00:06:56] that they are new wine, and that old wineskin was not working for them. Now, [00:07:01] that what's really crazy, so you would look at this and say, "Well, I guess we just need to constantly be creating new wineskins all [00:07:06] the time because we're always fermenting new wine." But that's actually not how The Gospel of Luke [00:07:11] ends the same story.
Speaker 5: So, uh, in this story, it's really interesting, it's pr- I think the most surprising [00:07:16] ending. Jesus tells the same story about two wineskins, about how new wine is for new wineskin, old [00:07:21] wine is, is for old wineskin, so both are preserved. But then he quotes somebody in the story [00:07:26] and says, it says that anyone who has tasted old wine will [00:07:31] say, quote, "It is better."
Speaker 5: And wow, that was super insightful [00:07:36] that there is a sort of a third dynamic. So you have the dynamic you n- need to preserve both, Matthew's [00:07:41] dynamic. You need the dynamic in Mark, that you do need new wine for new wineskin. But there's a [00:07:46] dynamic in Luke where people often have a palate for old wine, and they [00:07:51] think it's better, and they will say it is better.
Speaker 5: People will grow up in a very [00:07:56] kinda low church tr- set of traditions in the Protestant world, walk into a Catholic Eucharist, [00:08:01] and It's like something has, erupted in their soul. It's so beautiful to [00:08:06] them, and they just are s- like, "This old wine is better." And they have a palate for old wine.
Speaker 5: You know, [00:08:11] one of the things that, you know, has really impacted our traditions as a church and as a family is diving [00:08:16] into a lot of these sort of Torahic rhythms. Not because we believe we need to keep the law, but I think it just gave [00:08:21] us contact to kinda a reservoir of old wine, and we really love it.
Speaker 5: [00:08:26] Uh, you know, a festival like Sukkot, um, this is the Festival of Tabernacles. We've been keeping this [00:08:31] festival for over 20 years as a family, and man, it, tasted a certain way to our family. And you [00:08:36] could run around and say, "Oh, wow, like, everyone should taste this wine. It's better."
Speaker 5: And it's [00:08:41] very hard to not say it is better. But I think it's real interesting that Jesus was quoting somebody else. [00:08:46] Jesus was not saying it's better. Jesus says, "If you can taste the old wine, you're going to say it is better." [00:08:51] And I think that these three different ways, the way that Matthew and Mark and Luke each [00:08:56] end this, uh, parable or this story, helps us [00:09:01] understand the three different ways that we need to approach traditions [00:09:06] when we are participating in the Church All right, so does that just mean it's a free-for-all?
Speaker 5: Like, we all are just gonna come [00:09:11] up with our own traditions, traditions like, "Okay, you guys like to worship on Tuesday, we're gonna worship on [00:09:16] Saturday." This person's gonna worship on Sunday. They're gonna have hymns, they're gonna have praise choruses, [00:09:21] they're gonna have meals, they're gonna do it homes, they're gonna do it in a big building, and we [00:09:26] just kind of like atomize down to everyone's personal preferences.
Speaker 5: Is that what should [00:09:31] drive the creation of traditions, just what's best for me personally, my family? Or is there [00:09:36] some kind of role that we have in the church for who [00:09:41] constructs these kinds of traditions and can architect the way that the [00:09:46] traditions impact the church? Who does that work? Um, is that the [00:09:51] pastor?
Speaker 5: And, you know, what's interesting about that word pastor is it's in the [00:09:56] Bible, uh, basically one time, in Ephesians 4, and it's plural. It [00:10:01] talks about pastors. Sometimes it's translated shepherd or shepherds, right? But it's [00:10:06] not a very common word in the Bible, it's a very common word in our current conversations about [00:10:11] the church.
Speaker 5: But there is another word that is used for a kind of person, [00:10:16] uh, I think 79 times it's used, and it's not used very much today, and I [00:10:21] think it, it really unlocks the secret for why we struggle so much with traditions. That [00:10:26] word that's over... used over and over again, uh, for a [00:10:31] person in the 1st century church in the Bible was apostle.[00:10:36]
Speaker 5: And we freak out about that word. We talk about, you know, [00:10:41] capital A apostles and little A apostles because there is a danger [00:10:46] that somebody who is taking on that kind of role will [00:10:51] begin to add to the Bible and say, "Okay, here's my letter for the, the [00:10:56] church." Um, so how do we think about this role? 'Cause I think this role is [00:11:01] absolutely critical for answering this question.
Speaker 5: Um, and this really comes out [00:11:06] of something that Paul wrote about himself and about apostles in general in 1 [00:11:11] Corinthians 3 where he unpacks not only that apostles are ones to [00:11:16] construct these traditions, but how they construct traditions [00:11:21] that are, uh, lived out by a particular church. So let's dive [00:11:26] into a few of the things he said, and I think this will really help us understand at least a [00:11:31] biblical 1st century vision for how traditions are both constructed [00:11:36] and are kept by a particular congregation.
Speaker 5: So something really tough is [00:11:41] happening in Corinth. Paul has left the city, and other apostles [00:11:46] have shown up, and they began to offer training in [00:11:51] other beliefs and other traditions. And this became a big question. [00:11:56] Does Paul say, "Look, I am the only one you can follow?" And what's [00:12:01] really cool in this letter is he outlines, like, why it is that this [00:12:06] gift exists, and he says in 1 Corinthians 3, "You guys have to understand.
Speaker 5: There's... I do understand there are other teachers, [00:12:11] there are other apostolic people that are coming and going, um, but [00:12:16] I came as..." And what he, he calls himself a master builder, "And [00:12:21] I architected a particular kind of church, a certain [00:12:26] set of traditions." And what he describes is that each person who comes in, they can use different [00:12:31] kinds of material.
Speaker 5: You know, people can use straw or hay or wood, or they can [00:12:36] build with gold, silver, costly stones. And he said, "The way that you can [00:12:41] tell if they're using the right material is," he says, "the day comes and [00:12:46] exposes the quality of each person's work, and if what they have built survives, [00:12:51] then they will receive a reward."
Speaker 5: This is what the apostle's aiming at. Can what [00:12:56] I constructed with these traditions actually help the church [00:13:01] withstand the day, withstand persecution or the fire coming? And he says, "If it burns up, [00:13:06] then the, that apostolic worker will suffer loss," which is, um, [00:13:11] really surprising and interesting to consider.
Speaker 5: He said, "He himself will be saved, but as one almost escaping through [00:13:16] flames." And so this idea that there's a lot of pressure [00:13:21] on the apostolic worker to construct the kinds of, you know, [00:13:26] doctrinal, clear beliefs and traditions that will help the church withstand the day. [00:13:31] And he says that, I laid a foundation.
Speaker 5: No foundation can be laid other than the one that is already laid in Jesus Christ." So we're [00:13:36] all building on the same rock-solid foundation of Christ. You can't build on a new [00:13:41] foundation, but you can build on that foundation using these different kinds of material And so [00:13:46] he was really making the case that I'm an expert builder, I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 5: He says in the next chapter, he's [00:13:51] like, "You got thousands of guardians, but you don't have any fathers, and I was like a father to you. I constructed [00:13:56] these." And then he gets to chapter 11, and he says something even more stringent. He says to them, [00:14:01] "Keep to the traditions that I gave you." And he's talking about [00:14:06] something that they were, I guess, pushing back on, which had to do with wives covering their [00:14:11] heads, during their, their worship time.
Speaker 5: And so he's telling them, "I want you to keep to these traditions." He says something [00:14:16] similar in 2 Thessalonians, "Hold fast to the traditions that I gave you." Now, the question that a lot of people are asking is, well, [00:14:21] should we all be holding fast to Paul's traditions? Is this idea that Paul [00:14:26] is a master builder?
Speaker 5: Does this mean there's one set of apostolic traditions that [00:14:31] every church in every culture throughout all of time needs to hold to? Or is [00:14:36] this position in the Church, this position of having a little [00:14:41] A apostolic worker, somebody who's gifted at architecture really is [00:14:46] constructing traditions to try to withstand the day using the best kinds of materials to [00:14:51] help the Church be built up in the proper way to honor the foundation that is [00:14:56] Christ.
Speaker 5: Is that something that still exists today, or is that something [00:15:01] that was constructed once and we should all be getting back to [00:15:06] that foundational, um, true set of [00:15:11] traditions that we all should be following in the same way? Now, to be a Protestant, you kinda believe in the second, right? You kinda... You, [00:15:16] you have to say, "Look, we've left the, the Catholic Church.
Speaker 5: They claim to be the one [00:15:21] true church. We've, um... You know, there's a separation between Protestants [00:15:26] and the Orthodox Church." So what we believe as Protestants is that [00:15:31] there are multiple kinds of wineskins, multiple kinds or sets of traditions, [00:15:36] and we should be looking at the fruit really carefully and the apostolic worker and what they're [00:15:41] building with to figure out if these traditions are actually, um, going to withstand the s- test of time.
Speaker 5: So every time [00:15:46] you go to a church, you can ask the question Who was the apostolic worker [00:15:51] that originally came up with this set of traditions? If you go to a Methodist church, you are [00:15:56] walking into a set of traditions designed by John Wesley. It was a [00:16:01] fantastic blueprint for the 1700s. It really worked.
Speaker 5: kind of [00:16:06] Methodism really helped church grow. And these different [00:16:11] circuit-riding preachers that went through the various colonies and states, they really [00:16:16] helped. But do we update the Methodist traditions, right? If you're in a Presbyterian church, [00:16:21] a lot of that was constructed by a guy named John Knox.
Speaker 5: Obviously, you can go to a Lutheran church and you're going to be very [00:16:26] influenced by Luther. There's a lot of Reformed churches that are very influenced by Calvin and the traditions [00:16:31] that he advocated for. One of the things that I'm always listening for is the difference between saying, [00:16:36] this is the one true way to do church and this is the way we do church and [00:16:41] here's the fruit.
Speaker 5: If you want to join these apostolic traditions, then you need to participate. [00:16:46] And we believe that this is firmly on Christ and that [00:16:51] this will withstand the day. This is a good way to do church and we have good reason to believe that. [00:16:56] The problem often is a lot of these traditions are [00:17:01] time-bound. They made a lot of sense at the time.
Speaker 5: They... It made a lot of sense to have [00:17:06] circuit-riding preachers, you know, and have a tradition that was really well-constructed. But what do [00:17:11] you do in the 21st century And so what the Methodists do, I know even to this day, they like to move their pastors around. [00:17:16] A lot of that is a vestige of what happened in that early period.
Speaker 5: Um, but there's always a [00:17:21] conversation or a question as to whether or not, is this still the best way to do it? Uh, have some things [00:17:26] changed? and so does anybody get to update the blueprint? And if you don't have any apostolic [00:17:31] leaders, you don't get to update the blueprint, then you're basically stuck with a [00:17:36] set of dead traditions that no longer, can be updated. And therefore, if they start becoming less and [00:17:41] less effective, you start to see this phenomenon happening in Protestant churches all over the world, which is [00:17:46] vibrant churches from 200 years ago that are holding to those same traditions are just getting smaller and [00:17:51] smaller and less effective.
Speaker 5: And they're really trying to hold to the traditions that was given to them by [00:17:56] John Wesley or John Knox or John Calvin or Martin Luther. But, um, [00:18:01] it's less effective now. And then you see this new crop of apostolic workers who kind of [00:18:06] show up. Guys like Bill Hybels, who are like, "Okay, I'm gonna create a completely new wineskin based [00:18:11] on surveys that I took about why people aren't going to church. I'm gonna construct a church for the unchurched," [00:18:16] right? Rick Warren did this. John Wimber did this in the Vineyard. Like, he started to see, [00:18:21] "Man, I don't feel like the traditions that we have in Calvary Chapel are going to [00:18:26] properly, honor the influx of the Holy Spirit that we're seeing.
Speaker 5: We need [00:18:31] traditions that do a better job of that." And so, you know, Chuck Smith, who was the kind [00:18:36] of little A apostle of Calvary Chapel, said to, you know, John Wimber, you know, [00:18:41] "Bless you, go for it," and the Vineyard was born. Um, I think this is really [00:18:46] important for us to embrace the reality that there's only two possibilities, just to [00:18:51] summarize.
Speaker 5: Either there's one true church, one true set of traditions, and we all should get back to it. That's [00:18:56] a legitimate possibility, and you can believe that. Or that [00:19:01] Jesus, when he said, "Where two or three are gathered, that whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose [00:19:06] on earth will be loosed in heaven," that he was suggesting that H was going to unleash into the [00:19:11] church a much more flat structure, and that these apostolic workers are really important, and these annoying [00:19:16] guys who are...
Speaker 5: often show up at church and say, "Why don't we do it this way? Why don't we take communion this way? Why don't we make [00:19:21] disciples this way?" Like, how does this work? We need to find [00:19:26] modern-day architects who actually will take that responsibility to say, [00:19:31] "We need to figure out how to construct a set of traditions [00:19:36] that is going to, uh, get us to improve on the [00:19:41] current blueprint.
Speaker 5: And it doesn't mean it's always better. It's always a risk. And that means there's no perfect way to [00:19:46] do this. This is an ongoing conversation that needs to happen. But this gift is so important. [00:19:51] And so this whole conversation around the importance of apostolic blueprints and deciding [00:19:56] and understanding whether or not in any church that you're a part of, [00:20:01] who is constructing the traditions?
Speaker 5: Is that you? [00:20:06] If not, then understand who that apostolic worker is and understand the [00:20:11] fruit of what those blueprints are producing. And understand that as [00:20:16] Protestants, we need to be very thoughtful about either [00:20:21] deciding to follow a particular apostolic blueprint and understanding who's [00:20:26] updating the blueprint and what is the fruit of it.
Speaker 5: And some of you listening to this might actually [00:20:31] have this gift. You might be constantly thinking about, oh man, why do we do it this way? Why can't [00:20:36] we try this? I'm always inventing and creating and restoring traditions [00:20:41] that to me feel like they are closer or will bear the kind of fruit [00:20:46] that will withstand the day, that will withstand the kinds of things that are coming.
Speaker 5: If that's [00:20:51] you, man, we need you to do that work well. And we need to be really [00:20:56] thoughtful about how to build the right materials and to construct the kind of blueprint that is going to really bless [00:21:01] your city, bless your family, bless your whole community. And if it's really fruitful, may it [00:21:06] multiply. But I think that Jesus is still giving this gift to the church of these apostolic workers.
Speaker 5: They [00:21:11] need to be honored. They need to be understood. And we need to understand how important traditions [00:21:16] are, that there's not one perfect set of traditions, but the traditions are really [00:21:21] important. When Paul is saying stick to the traditions, he's making a call for unity, not for uniformity. [00:21:26] He's saying, I want this.
Speaker 5: I planted this church. I'm the apostolic worker most responsible. [00:21:31] Therefore, you guys need to hold to the traditions that I gave you. And he wasn't saying [00:21:36] 2,000 years later, if these traditions are breaking down and not effective at [00:21:41] actually producing the kind of kingdom fruit because there's been massive changes in [00:21:46] culture.
Speaker 5: Okay. So all of a sudden people, you know, they may have been worshiping on Saturday [00:21:51] night. That's what most people believe. Now we worship often on Sunday morning, which is [00:21:56] better. I don't know. But sometimes things change and traditions have to be updated. [00:22:01] And those are hard decisions that somebody has to make.
Speaker 5: And we need to honor the [00:22:06] process of making those decisions. So hopefully this is helpful. We really need to, as a church, honor and understand [00:22:11] the role of apostolic blueprints.
