July 30, 2025 • 21 mins
Dive into the fascinating world of early Christianity through the Didache, an ancient church manual that offers a glimpse into how the first believers lived out their faith. This Bible Breakdown Extra explores chapters 10-11 of this remarkable document, written around the same time as the New Testament, which served as a practical guidebook for new Christians navigating communal life.
Pastor Brandon reveals how the Didache provided specific instructions for post-communion prayers and thanksgiving, emphasizing the spiritual significance of this sacred practice. But the most compelling insights come from the manual's guidance on discerning true spiritual leaders from false ones. With striking clarity, these ancient Christians established boundaries that protected vulnerable believers from exploitation while remaining hospitable to legitimate traveling ministers.
"Not everyone who speaks in the spirit is a prophet, but only the one who behaves like the Lord." This powerful statement from the Didache reminds us that authentic spiritual leadership has always been verified through consistent character rather than eloquent words or charismatic performances. Pastor Brandon shares personal stories that affirm this timeless wisdom, recounting how his father evaluated traveling evangelists not by their pulpit prowess but by their conduct around the family dinner table.
The episode also includes important updates about Bible Breakdown's evolving formats and future plans. Learn about the new website hub at thebiblebreakdown.com, designed to bring together the podcast's growing community across various platforms. Discover what's coming after the current Didache series concludes and how you can contribute to this ministry simply by engaging with and sharing the content.
Whether you're fascinated by church history, looking for practical wisdom on spiritual discernment, or simply wanting to understand how the earliest Christians put their faith into practice, this episode offers valuable insights that bridge ancient teachings with modern application. Subscribe to Bible Breakdown, leave a review, and join our discussion groups to continue exploring God's Word together.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 0 (00:00):
Well, hello everybody .
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown podcast with your host
, pastor Brandon.
Today is a Bible BreakdownExtra and we are walking through
the Didache, and so this ismore of a laid-back kind of idea
, and we'll explain why theBible Breakdown Extras even
exist in just a moment.
But if you are ready, we aregoing to jump right in.
(00:20):
But while you're doing that, asalways, we have to tell you to
take just a moment to like,share and subscribe to the
YouTube channel and the podcast.
Make sure you leave us afive-star review on the podcast
and make sure you're going tothe Bible Breakdown discussion
on Facebook.
You can find the links for allthose things at
thebiblebreakdowncom.
Now what I want to do is kindof start to pivot this a little
(00:42):
bit.
We've only got a couple ofBible breakdown extras where we
are covering the Didache.
Then we're going to jump intosomething new.
But we have had people fromtime to time who have asked us
just a lot of questions aboutwhy we do the extra and then ask
us just for updates on what'sgoing on.
How do I get more involved?
I'm new around here all thatgood stuff and so I don't know
(01:02):
exactly what this is going tolook like yet, but we're going
to be pivoting these Biblebreakdown extras a little bit.
That will be half working on itinstead of in it, and then the
other half is going to be justkind of an update, just letting
you know where we are asking anyquestions that we've been
getting, just really turning itinto just a kind of a family
(01:24):
meeting, if we can put it likethat, once a month and so to
kind of give you a bit of abackground.
And then we're going to jumpinto today's idea of working
through the Didache.
The reason why we do a BibleBreakdown Extra every month is,
with the current way we do theBible Breakdown, now you can go
to thebiblebreakdowncom and getall of this.
You can get our Bible readingplan, all the stuff.
(01:46):
We are slowly turning that intothe hub for all things Bible
Breakdown.
But you can go there and getthat.
And if you read along with us,what you'll see is we have
factored into our Bible readingplan two catch-up days, one on
the 15th and one on the 30th,and the reason for that is is
because a lot of people who arereading the Bible with us are
(02:08):
new to reading the Bible everysingle day.
They don't really have a dailyhabit of reading an entire
chapter.
We have people who either don'tread their Bible or they have
been reading their Bible, butthey've been doing it more to
conquer the content rather thanletting it conquer them.
Or maybe they are used toreading a small devotion.
So the idea of consistentlyreading a chapter of the Bible
(02:28):
day in, day out is relativelynew, and so that gives an
opportunity to kind of let offthe gas a little bit, also to
just enjoy digging intosomething else.
But the other reason why we dothis is on the 30th what we
wanted to do is have a spacewhere we could dig into knowing
the how-tos of living theChristian life, and we do that
(02:49):
in various ways.
Many times we will go through abook, encourage you to read it
with us and kind of sum up eachchapter.
There's a lot of differentthings that we do, and one of
the things that we have done iswe went through 12 truths that
prove Christianity is true.
We got that from Dr NormanGeisler's book wonderful book.
Right now we're going throughthe Didache.
We're going to explain whatthat is in just a moment and
then, when we finish the Didache, we're actually going to go
(03:11):
through a book called Tactics byGreg Kokel and it is the idea
about how to share your faithwith other people, and that's
the idea behind the BibleBreakdown Extras is to really
kind of pull back a little bitand to dig deeper into how we go
about doing that.
But then also we want to giveyou some information.
So I'm going to give you aboutthree pieces of information.
Then we're going to dig intothe Didache.
(03:32):
So three things to know.
Number one is you have probablybeen hearing me talk about a
little bit more the websitethebiblebreakdowncom.
I want to explain to you whatthat is.
First of all, this website is away to try to find an
opportunity to bring thedifferent aspects of the Bible
Breakdown community together.
When we first started doing theBible Breakdown and still
(03:54):
primarily, it was for peoplereading the Bible with us as
part of the real-life churchcommunity in Bowling Green,
kentucky, we started this ideaof reading the Bible.
Here's kind of the story, ifyou don't know the background.
And as we were reading theBible, we decided to go New
Testament book, old Testamentbook, new Testament.
You know this was Matthew, thenGenesis, mark, then Exodus, and
(04:16):
then it was, excuse me.
We went to wherever it was.
We got to Leviticus as you cantell, this is me just trying to
be off the cuff and we got toLeviticus.
And as we got to Leviticus, mywife said peace out.
She's like I will see you whenwe get to another book of the
Bible, but I am not readingLeviticus.
I was like, why not?
It's awesome, it's great.
She said no, it's not.
She said I don't understand it,able to read it unless you
(04:41):
literally sit here with me everyday and we go through each
chapter together.
I'm like, well, I'm not goingto do that, because we would do
our personal devotion timesdifferent times of the day Not
going to happen.
And I said, well, what if?
What if I recorded it and gaveit to you?
And she's, I'll do that.
That was the beginning of theBible Breakdown podcast is.
It was me trying to explain tomy wife that Leviticus was worth
(05:01):
reading, and it wasn't that shedidn't want to read it.
She just didn't understand itand had trouble with it, right,
and so we started passing it offto people.
That is also why we haven'tactually read Matthew and Mark
until recently is we werefinishing it up, right?
Well, as we started doing that,we first put it on YouTube
because it was free, right.
Well, as we started doing that,we first put it on YouTube as
(05:23):
just because it was free, right.
And then we wanted to put itactually on a podcast channel
and that's where we got thepodcast.
So we so then we had twodifferent groups.
We had the OGs really was whatI call.
Even though we started it onYouTube, it really was a podcast
.
So we had the OGs the podcast,always my favorites and we got
some of you folks man, I wantyou to comment, I want you to go
to YouTube and comment.
If you are a real one, right,give me a one in the comments if
(05:45):
you were one of the firstpeople that started listening
way back in the day.
These are the OGs, right.
And so we had YouTube over here, we had podcast over here, and
then we started a Facebookdiscussion group where we wanted
(06:06):
to just do devotions on helpingpeople learn how to soap.
That's a Bible study methodthrough the Bible.
And so now we have threedifferent groups of people,
because we have some people whodon't actually listen to the
podcast or watch YouTube video,just read along, which is fine
with me, but then we have threedifferent groups of people, and
so thebiblebreakdowncom is a wayfor us to try to provide a
central hub for everybody, sothat, wherever you are, there's
a place where we can meet.
Because the other thing is isas our audience, let's say it
(06:29):
like that, our community hasgrown.
We have more and more peoplewho don't do you know Facebook
or whatever, and so that's whatthat is.
Number two is this.
Number two is people have askedwhat are you going to do when
you get finished reading throughthe entire Bible?
Well, we still have a ways togo to do that, but the goal is,
once we've read through theBible, once, it's to do it again
and to do it again, make it ahabit for our life.
(06:52):
Because, can I tell yousomething?
The only thing better thanreading through the Bible all
the way through is doing itagain.
Because as you read the Bible,you start to remember things,
and, for instance, when we readthrough the book of Isaiah,
there were certain things thathe would say that you are going
to read later and you're goingto go.
Wait a minute.
Isaiah prophesied about that.
(07:12):
Now it's showing up here inMatthew.
This is really cool and, as youread, you're going to start to
notice that.
So we're going to do it again.
But we also have some ideasthat we want to start some other
podcast called the BibleBreakdown Apologetics, and the
Bible Breakdown Deep Dive.
Apologetics is learning how todefend your faith Deep Dive.
What I want to do is I want togo back over the Bible again,
but we're going to go deeperinto things.
(07:34):
Right now we kind of scratchedthe surface, but I want to go
way into different things.
So that's the second thing iswhat are we going to do in the
future?
Number three is how can youhelp?
We have people who have saidthings like well, hey, I want to
find a way to get my handsdirty, I want to be part of the
Bible Breakdown community.
Can I tell you the number oneway that you can help seriously
(07:55):
is to go to YouTube and tosubscribe.
It's free, comment on thevideos, engage with us and then
share the video with otherpeople, because it tells the
algorithms that this is worthsharing.
Number two is leave a five-starreview on the podcast, comment
on it, let it know and thenshare it with people.
That's the best way you canhelp us.
We really want to get the Wordof God out to people and to
(08:18):
explain it in a way that makessense, so that people can know
God more.
Those are the three things.
Okay, all right, now let's talkabout the Didache.
Now, if you've been joining usover the past few Bible
breakdown extras, we've beengoing over this thing called the
Didache, which is really coolbecause it is the teaching of
the Lord to the Gentiles throughI misspelled through through
the 12 disciples.
(08:39):
Now what happened was through Imisspelled through through the
12 disciples.
Now what happened was is it wasan amazing thing that was
written right about the timethat the Gospels and the letters
of Paul were written, and so wedon't actually know who wrote
it, because that wasn't reallythe point.
The point wasn't that the pointof it, the goal was that it was
a church manual for the earlychurch and it was probably
(09:01):
written either in the late firstcentury or the early second
century, and so we kind of havelost the thread of this over
time.
What we think about now?
Because we have 66 books of theBible 27 New Testament, 39 Old
Testament.
We think it's always been thatway, but it wasn't, even though
most of the books of the Biblethat we have now, the New
Testament was already incirculation.
(09:22):
There were some places thatdidn't have access to all of
them because they started off asletters to churches, and so
what somebody did was they tookthe essential teachings kind of
the cliff note teachings fromthe Gospels and the letters of
Paul and the different ones, andput them into this didache, and
didache literally meansteaching, so it is a Greek word
(09:45):
that means teaching or to teach,and so what it is is it is a
quick synopsis of the literalhow to's of operating within a
local church setting.
It would be almost like so ifyou are part of the real life
church community, which is whereall this started from, then it
would be like attending our RLCConnect, and at RLC Connect we
(10:07):
try to give you a snapshot ofwhat it looks like to be part of
the local body here.
That is what the Didache was.
It was.
This is standard operatingprocedures on what you do.
We've been covering differentchapters and it's amazing how
they really had something to sayabout abortion and about
baptism and all this differentstuff, because those things were
around back then, and todaywe're going to cover chapter 10
(10:27):
and chapter 11 with some otherthings that they would tell you
to do Very specifics.
So, if you're ready, chapter 10of Didache says this final
prayers after communion.
Now, if you remember before, itwould say to receive communion
in a very specific way.
It was considered to be a holytime because it was a reminder
of the cross.
And then it was saying now,today, it's saying after you
(10:49):
receive those prayers, thosecommunion, this is what you do.
(11:13):
After you finish the meal, givethanks like this you give food
and drink to people for theirenjoyment so that they may give
thanks to you, but to us you'vegiven spiritual food and drink
and eternal life through yourservant, jesus.
Above all.
We thank you because you aremighty.
To you be glory forever.
Remember your church, lord, tosave it from all evil and make
(11:37):
it perfect in your love.
Gather it from all the fourwinds into your kingdom that you
have prepared for it.
May grace come and may theworld pass away Hosanna to the
God of David.
If anyone is holy, let themcome.
If anyone is not, let themrepent.
(11:57):
Maranatha, that means the Lordcomes.
Amen, but allow the prophets togive thanks however they wish.
So in other words, chapter 10was saying to make sure that
when you receive communion sothere is this assumption they're
telling these churches hey, youknow what We've been learning
from the apostles and what we'vebeen learning from the life of
(12:19):
Jesus we're going to docommunion.
Communion is important.
So when you're finished withcommunion, don't be like okay,
we're done, but finish it with aprayer just thanking God and
bringing glory to God.
But he says hey, listen, youhave some prophets, just let
them pray however they wish, butthe idea is that they are,
they're truly close to God, andso they may want to pray a
little differently.
They're going to have somethingto do.
(12:40):
They're going to do it.
Okay.
Chapter 11 says thisInstructions about traveling
teachers and prophets.
Now pause.
So during the time, once again,what you're going to have is a
traveling preacher will besomeone like Titus.
You know, like missionaries,paul would send Titus to do the
things and stuff.
Silas was one, timothy, for alittle while, was one.
(13:01):
You know, paul was a churchplanter and traveler.
So there were people who weretraveling and we already know in
earlier they had some kind ofthings to do and not to do, and
so there were people goingaround.
Some people were from God andwe know in Philippians 1, some
people were not from God.
They're just looking for waysto kind of be important, you
know.
And so there's some clearboundaries about what this is,
and here's the reason why it'salso important.
(13:22):
Now let's just be real honestabout something that is this Not
everybody who calls himself aChristian is one or has pure
motives.
And can I tell you, the mostgullible people in the world are
well-meaning Christians becausethey love Jesus so much and
they want to serve God so muchthat they will let themselves be
(13:45):
taken advantage of, and that isterrible and that is sad, and
so they are trying to help thesepeople.
So here we go.
Chapter 11 says thisinstruction about traveling
teachers and prophets Welcomeanyone who comes and teaches you
.
All that has been said before.
But if the teacher turns asideand starts teaching something
(14:05):
different that doesn't match theteachings that you have
received, don't listen to them.
But if the teacher teaches inline with what has already been
taught, then receive them as youwould the Lord.
Now about apostles and prophetsTreat them as high and
respected figures in ourcommunity.
Let every apostle who comes toyou be welcomed, like the Lord
(14:28):
himself, but he shouldn't staymore than one day, two at the
most if absolutely necessary.
If he stays three days, he is afalse prophet.
When the apostle leaves, heshould take nothing except food
for the journey.
If he asks for money, he is afalse prophet.
Now pause.
Now the reason why that was isbecause God had told him to live
(14:53):
this way.
But at the same time, when youwould receive a man of God, your
job was to take care of thattraveling man of God.
Now, that doesn't mean yourlocal pastor at the time.
Your job was to take care ofthat traveling man of God.
Now that doesn't mean yourlocal pastor.
You know, at the time, yourlocal presbyter is what it would
be.
It was people who weretraveling through.
So they would say while they'retraveling and they're with you
and you notice that they are anapostle or a prophet or whatever
(15:13):
, take care of them, feed them,give them a place to stay.
But if they stay longer thanthree days, then they're just
looking for a handout.
Or if they ask you for money,they're asking for a handout.
So in the early church theywere having to be very, very
careful and they were sayingthis is how you can tell.
All right, here we go Next.
It says don't judge everyprophet who speaks in the spirit
.
Let God be the judge.
(15:34):
However, you'll know a falseprophet if he teaches something
that goes against what you havebeen taught or if he lives in a
way that contradicts histeaching.
Every true prophet who acts inline with the Lord's way should
not be judged by you.
His judgment is in God's hands.
In the same way, do not test orjudge any preacher who speaks
(15:54):
in the Spirit, unless it'sobvious that he's speaking
falsely.
Not everyone who speaks in thespirit is a prophet, but only
the one who behaves like theLord by their behavior.
Then will a false prophet and atrue prophet be known.
A prophet who asks for a mealin the spirit is not to be
judged, but if he asks for moneyor something else, he is a
(16:17):
false prophet.
So what's going on at the timeis you've got people who are
going around claiming to besomething and they're trying to
find boundaries to fix this.
Because think about it and Iget to experience some of this
as a young church planter of anon-denominational church the
good thing about denominationsand there's a lot of good things
(16:38):
about denominations is theyhave set rules and boundaries
for how you are to do things,but we're in a
non-denominational church.
You have to set these rules andboundaries.
And the reason why I say thatChristians can be some of the
most gullible people is becauseI are one.
I've gotten a lot better, but Iwas like that I thought, well,
man, surely nobody's going tocome here trying to do anything
(16:58):
bad.
And I thought, well, man,surely nobody's going to come
here trying to do anything bad.
And then I learned differently.
And so they're trying to setboundaries, to go hey, listen, I
know that you got a lot ofpeople and they all claim to be
this, you know, this thing,whatever.
And to be honest with you,they're even just kind of saying
here's the thing.
They all sound good, it allsounds right, it all sounds
beautiful and flowery and lovely.
How do you know it all soundsbeautiful and flowery and lovely
(17:20):
?
How do you know?
By how they live?
And I got to see this a lotwhen I was a kid, because so I
grew up in a denomination in thestate of Alabama where they had
these people called evangelistswho would travel all over the
state of Alabama and they wouldgo and they would preach at
churches, and it gave the pastorkind of a break, but then also
was intended to be someone whowould come in and would
(17:40):
encourage the people.
Well, because of just the waythe whole process would work,
they would be around us thepastor's family, pretty much the
whole week.
And if you didn't get to knowthem and you just would kind of
see them on the revival services, what they call them, you would
(18:01):
think they were all wonderfulbecause they all were
charismatic people and they allhad a lot of great things to say
and they all claim to be of God.
But after seeing them for a fewyears in a row, what you would
start to learn is you wouldstart to learn which ones were
of God and it wasn't because ofwhat they proclaimed in the
church, it was how they lived inthe home.
And you would start to go oh,you know, and there was one
(18:24):
particular guy.
My dad would have come everysingle year and, to be honest
with you, there were some peoplethat did not love the way he
preached and they would kind ofget not frustrated with my dad,
but they would say, hey, maybeyou should get somebody else
because he's really not thatengaging and not that whatever.
And my dad would.
They would say, hey, maybe youshould get somebody else,
because he's really not thatengaging and not that whatever.
And my dad would defend themand defend this guy, whatever.
But the number one thing Ithink my dad knew we never
(18:45):
really talked about this, butthe thing is is because what
would happen after church is mydad would have dinner waiting
and they would talk until likemidnight or later, like every
like every night.
It was like crazy.
But the thing is is over theyears you started to notice this
guy loves j.
He acts the same way in churchas he does around the dinner
table.
This guy is the real deal andthat was why my dad would have
(19:09):
him come back over and overagain.
And so what the Didache isdoing here is he's saying
there's a lot.
It is saying, hey, there's alot of people that's going to
come around you.
It's going to talk a good game.
As a matter of fact, there'sgoing to be some people going to
come around you and you'regoing to assume that there are
prophets because of how goodthey are with the crowd, but
that's not how you're going toknow if they're of God and they
(19:30):
even kind of go this way andthey kind of say and they may
even say a whole bunch of truestuff, still you're not sure.
The best way to know is to seehow they act when they get off
stage.
That's how you know.
That's powerful and that isvery convicting.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much fortoday.
Thank you, god, that we alllive in this spiritual community
(19:53):
and you want us to have healthyboundaries in healthy places,
so that we can know what's realand what's not, that we'll never
be a victim of somebody else'sschemes, but rather we can have
healthy boundaries so that wecan live in freedom.
I'm thankful for books like theDidache that give us a window
into what they were goingthrough, what they were learning
(20:15):
, what they were dealing with inthe early church.
I pray you will help us, lord,to remember, if nothing else,
that even then they didn't haveit all figured out.
And if they don't, it's okaythat we don't too.
We just live closer to youevery day.
In Jesus' name, we pray Amenand amen.
I love doing stuff like thisand going through some of these
things.
I mean, I've had people ask meif we could go through the book
of Enoch and different thingslike that, and maybe we'll see.
(20:37):
But for now
Well, hello everybody .
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown podcast with your host
, pastor Brandon.
Today is a Bible BreakdownExtra and we are walking through
the Didache, and so this ismore of a laid-back kind of idea
, and we'll explain why theBible Breakdown Extras even
exist in just a moment.
But if you are ready, we aregoing to jump right in.
(00:20):
But while you're doing that, asalways, we have to tell you to
take just a moment to like,share and subscribe to the
YouTube channel and the podcast.
Make sure you leave us afive-star review on the podcast
and make sure you're going tothe Bible Breakdown discussion
on Facebook.
You can find the links for allthose things at
thebiblebreakdowncom.
Now what I want to do is kindof start to pivot this a little
(00:42):
bit.
We've only got a couple ofBible breakdown extras where we
are covering the Didache.
Then we're going to jump intosomething new.
But we have had people fromtime to time who have asked us
just a lot of questions aboutwhy we do the extra and then ask
us just for updates on what'sgoing on.
How do I get more involved?
I'm new around here all thatgood stuff and so I don't know
(01:02):
exactly what this is going tolook like yet, but we're going
to be pivoting these Biblebreakdown extras a little bit.
That will be half working on itinstead of in it, and then the
other half is going to be justkind of an update, just letting
you know where we are asking anyquestions that we've been
getting, just really turning itinto just a kind of a family
(01:24):
meeting, if we can put it likethat, once a month and so to
kind of give you a bit of abackground.
And then we're going to jumpinto today's idea of working
through the Didache.
The reason why we do a BibleBreakdown Extra every month is,
with the current way we do theBible Breakdown, now you can go
to thebiblebreakdowncom and getall of this.
You can get our Bible readingplan, all the stuff.
(01:46):
We are slowly turning that intothe hub for all things Bible
Breakdown.
But you can go there and getthat.
And if you read along with us,what you'll see is we have
factored into our Bible readingplan two catch-up days, one on
the 15th and one on the 30th,and the reason for that is is
because a lot of people who arereading the Bible with us are
(02:08):
new to reading the Bible everysingle day.
They don't really have a dailyhabit of reading an entire
chapter.
We have people who either don'tread their Bible or they have
been reading their Bible, butthey've been doing it more to
conquer the content rather thanletting it conquer them.
Or maybe they are used toreading a small devotion.
So the idea of consistentlyreading a chapter of the Bible
(02:28):
day in, day out is relativelynew, and so that gives an
opportunity to kind of let offthe gas a little bit, also to
just enjoy digging intosomething else.
But the other reason why we dothis is on the 30th what we
wanted to do is have a spacewhere we could dig into knowing
the how-tos of living theChristian life, and we do that
(02:49):
in various ways.
Many times we will go through abook, encourage you to read it
with us and kind of sum up eachchapter.
There's a lot of differentthings that we do, and one of
the things that we have done iswe went through 12 truths that
prove Christianity is true.
We got that from Dr NormanGeisler's book wonderful book.
Right now we're going throughthe Didache.
We're going to explain whatthat is in just a moment and
then, when we finish the Didache, we're actually going to go
(03:11):
through a book called Tactics byGreg Kokel and it is the idea
about how to share your faithwith other people, and that's
the idea behind the BibleBreakdown Extras is to really
kind of pull back a little bitand to dig deeper into how we go
about doing that.
But then also we want to giveyou some information.
So I'm going to give you aboutthree pieces of information.
Then we're going to dig intothe Didache.
(03:32):
So three things to know.
Number one is you have probablybeen hearing me talk about a
little bit more the websitethebiblebreakdowncom.
I want to explain to you whatthat is.
First of all, this website is away to try to find an
opportunity to bring thedifferent aspects of the Bible
Breakdown community together.
When we first started doing theBible Breakdown and still
(03:54):
primarily, it was for peoplereading the Bible with us as
part of the real-life churchcommunity in Bowling Green,
kentucky, we started this ideaof reading the Bible.
Here's kind of the story, ifyou don't know the background.
And as we were reading theBible, we decided to go New
Testament book, old Testamentbook, new Testament.
You know this was Matthew, thenGenesis, mark, then Exodus, and
(04:16):
then it was, excuse me.
We went to wherever it was.
We got to Leviticus as you cantell, this is me just trying to
be off the cuff and we got toLeviticus.
And as we got to Leviticus, mywife said peace out.
She's like I will see you whenwe get to another book of the
Bible, but I am not readingLeviticus.
I was like, why not?
It's awesome, it's great.
She said no, it's not.
She said I don't understand it,able to read it unless you
(04:41):
literally sit here with me everyday and we go through each
chapter together.
I'm like, well, I'm not goingto do that, because we would do
our personal devotion timesdifferent times of the day Not
going to happen.
And I said, well, what if?
What if I recorded it and gaveit to you?
And she's, I'll do that.
That was the beginning of theBible Breakdown podcast is.
It was me trying to explain tomy wife that Leviticus was worth
(05:01):
reading, and it wasn't that shedidn't want to read it.
She just didn't understand itand had trouble with it, right,
and so we started passing it offto people.
That is also why we haven'tactually read Matthew and Mark
until recently is we werefinishing it up, right?
Well, as we started doing that,we first put it on YouTube
because it was free, right.
Well, as we started doing that,we first put it on YouTube as
(05:23):
just because it was free, right.
And then we wanted to put itactually on a podcast channel
and that's where we got thepodcast.
So we so then we had twodifferent groups.
We had the OGs really was whatI call.
Even though we started it onYouTube, it really was a podcast
.
So we had the OGs the podcast,always my favorites and we got
some of you folks man, I wantyou to comment, I want you to go
to YouTube and comment.
If you are a real one, right,give me a one in the comments if
(05:45):
you were one of the firstpeople that started listening
way back in the day.
These are the OGs, right.
And so we had YouTube over here, we had podcast over here, and
then we started a Facebookdiscussion group where we wanted
(06:06):
to just do devotions on helpingpeople learn how to soap.
That's a Bible study methodthrough the Bible.
And so now we have threedifferent groups of people,
because we have some people whodon't actually listen to the
podcast or watch YouTube video,just read along, which is fine
with me, but then we have threedifferent groups of people, and
so thebiblebreakdowncom is a wayfor us to try to provide a
central hub for everybody, sothat, wherever you are, there's
a place where we can meet.
Because the other thing is isas our audience, let's say it
(06:29):
like that, our community hasgrown.
We have more and more peoplewho don't do you know Facebook
or whatever, and so that's whatthat is.
Number two is this.
Number two is people have askedwhat are you going to do when
you get finished reading throughthe entire Bible?
Well, we still have a ways togo to do that, but the goal is,
once we've read through theBible, once, it's to do it again
and to do it again, make it ahabit for our life.
(06:52):
Because, can I tell yousomething?
The only thing better thanreading through the Bible all
the way through is doing itagain.
Because as you read the Bible,you start to remember things,
and, for instance, when we readthrough the book of Isaiah,
there were certain things thathe would say that you are going
to read later and you're goingto go.
Wait a minute.
Isaiah prophesied about that.
(07:12):
Now it's showing up here inMatthew.
This is really cool and, as youread, you're going to start to
notice that.
So we're going to do it again.
But we also have some ideasthat we want to start some other
podcast called the BibleBreakdown Apologetics, and the
Bible Breakdown Deep Dive.
Apologetics is learning how todefend your faith Deep Dive.
What I want to do is I want togo back over the Bible again,
but we're going to go deeperinto things.
(07:34):
Right now we kind of scratchedthe surface, but I want to go
way into different things.
So that's the second thing iswhat are we going to do in the
future?
Number three is how can youhelp?
We have people who have saidthings like well, hey, I want to
find a way to get my handsdirty, I want to be part of the
Bible Breakdown community.
Can I tell you the number oneway that you can help seriously
(07:55):
is to go to YouTube and tosubscribe.
It's free, comment on thevideos, engage with us and then
share the video with otherpeople, because it tells the
algorithms that this is worthsharing.
Number two is leave a five-starreview on the podcast, comment
on it, let it know and thenshare it with people.
That's the best way you canhelp us.
We really want to get the Wordof God out to people and to
(08:18):
explain it in a way that makessense, so that people can know
God more.
Those are the three things.
Okay, all right, now let's talkabout the Didache.
Now, if you've been joining usover the past few Bible
breakdown extras, we've beengoing over this thing called the
Didache, which is really coolbecause it is the teaching of
the Lord to the Gentiles throughI misspelled through through
the 12 disciples.
(08:39):
Now what happened was through Imisspelled through through the
12 disciples.
Now what happened was is it wasan amazing thing that was
written right about the timethat the Gospels and the letters
of Paul were written, and so wedon't actually know who wrote
it, because that wasn't reallythe point.
The point wasn't that the pointof it, the goal was that it was
a church manual for the earlychurch and it was probably
(09:01):
written either in the late firstcentury or the early second
century, and so we kind of havelost the thread of this over
time.
What we think about now?
Because we have 66 books of theBible 27 New Testament, 39 Old
Testament.
We think it's always been thatway, but it wasn't, even though
most of the books of the Biblethat we have now, the New
Testament was already incirculation.
(09:22):
There were some places thatdidn't have access to all of
them because they started off asletters to churches, and so
what somebody did was they tookthe essential teachings kind of
the cliff note teachings fromthe Gospels and the letters of
Paul and the different ones, andput them into this didache, and
didache literally meansteaching, so it is a Greek word
(09:45):
that means teaching or to teach,and so what it is is it is a
quick synopsis of the literalhow to's of operating within a
local church setting.
It would be almost like so ifyou are part of the real life
church community, which is whereall this started from, then it
would be like attending our RLCConnect, and at RLC Connect we
(10:07):
try to give you a snapshot ofwhat it looks like to be part of
the local body here.
That is what the Didache was.
It was.
This is standard operatingprocedures on what you do.
We've been covering differentchapters and it's amazing how
they really had something to sayabout abortion and about
baptism and all this differentstuff, because those things were
around back then, and todaywe're going to cover chapter 10
(10:27):
and chapter 11 with some otherthings that they would tell you
to do Very specifics.
So, if you're ready, chapter 10of Didache says this final
prayers after communion.
Now, if you remember before, itwould say to receive communion
in a very specific way.
It was considered to be a holytime because it was a reminder
of the cross.
And then it was saying now,today, it's saying after you
(10:49):
receive those prayers, thosecommunion, this is what you do.
(11:13):
After you finish the meal, givethanks like this you give food
and drink to people for theirenjoyment so that they may give
thanks to you, but to us you'vegiven spiritual food and drink
and eternal life through yourservant, jesus.
Above all.
We thank you because you aremighty.
To you be glory forever.
Remember your church, lord, tosave it from all evil and make
(11:37):
it perfect in your love.
Gather it from all the fourwinds into your kingdom that you
have prepared for it.
May grace come and may theworld pass away Hosanna to the
God of David.
If anyone is holy, let themcome.
If anyone is not, let themrepent.
(11:57):
Maranatha, that means the Lordcomes.
Amen, but allow the prophets togive thanks however they wish.
So in other words, chapter 10was saying to make sure that
when you receive communion sothere is this assumption they're
telling these churches hey, youknow what We've been learning
from the apostles and what we'vebeen learning from the life of
(12:19):
Jesus we're going to docommunion.
Communion is important.
So when you're finished withcommunion, don't be like okay,
we're done, but finish it with aprayer just thanking God and
bringing glory to God.
But he says hey, listen, youhave some prophets, just let
them pray however they wish, butthe idea is that they are,
they're truly close to God, andso they may want to pray a
little differently.
They're going to have somethingto do.
(12:40):
They're going to do it.
Okay.
Chapter 11 says thisInstructions about traveling
teachers and prophets.
Now pause.
So during the time, once again,what you're going to have is a
traveling preacher will besomeone like Titus.
You know, like missionaries,paul would send Titus to do the
things and stuff.
Silas was one, timothy, for alittle while, was one.
(13:01):
You know, paul was a churchplanter and traveler.
So there were people who weretraveling and we already know in
earlier they had some kind ofthings to do and not to do, and
so there were people goingaround.
Some people were from God andwe know in Philippians 1, some
people were not from God.
They're just looking for waysto kind of be important, you
know.
And so there's some clearboundaries about what this is,
and here's the reason why it'salso important.
(13:22):
Now let's just be real honestabout something that is this Not
everybody who calls himself aChristian is one or has pure
motives.
And can I tell you, the mostgullible people in the world are
well-meaning Christians becausethey love Jesus so much and
they want to serve God so muchthat they will let themselves be
(13:45):
taken advantage of, and that isterrible and that is sad, and
so they are trying to help thesepeople.
So here we go.
Chapter 11 says thisinstruction about traveling
teachers and prophets Welcomeanyone who comes and teaches you
.
All that has been said before.
But if the teacher turns asideand starts teaching something
(14:05):
different that doesn't match theteachings that you have
received, don't listen to them.
But if the teacher teaches inline with what has already been
taught, then receive them as youwould the Lord.
Now about apostles and prophetsTreat them as high and
respected figures in ourcommunity.
Let every apostle who comes toyou be welcomed, like the Lord
(14:28):
himself, but he shouldn't staymore than one day, two at the
most if absolutely necessary.
If he stays three days, he is afalse prophet.
When the apostle leaves, heshould take nothing except food
for the journey.
If he asks for money, he is afalse prophet.
Now pause.
Now the reason why that was isbecause God had told him to live
(14:53):
this way.
But at the same time, when youwould receive a man of God, your
job was to take care of thattraveling man of God.
Now, that doesn't mean yourlocal pastor at the time.
Your job was to take care ofthat traveling man of God.
Now that doesn't mean yourlocal pastor.
You know, at the time, yourlocal presbyter is what it would
be.
It was people who weretraveling through.
So they would say while they'retraveling and they're with you
and you notice that they are anapostle or a prophet or whatever
(15:13):
, take care of them, feed them,give them a place to stay.
But if they stay longer thanthree days, then they're just
looking for a handout.
Or if they ask you for money,they're asking for a handout.
So in the early church theywere having to be very, very
careful and they were sayingthis is how you can tell.
All right, here we go Next.
It says don't judge everyprophet who speaks in the spirit
.
Let God be the judge.
(15:34):
However, you'll know a falseprophet if he teaches something
that goes against what you havebeen taught or if he lives in a
way that contradicts histeaching.
Every true prophet who acts inline with the Lord's way should
not be judged by you.
His judgment is in God's hands.
In the same way, do not test orjudge any preacher who speaks
(15:54):
in the Spirit, unless it'sobvious that he's speaking
falsely.
Not everyone who speaks in thespirit is a prophet, but only
the one who behaves like theLord by their behavior.
Then will a false prophet and atrue prophet be known.
A prophet who asks for a mealin the spirit is not to be
judged, but if he asks for moneyor something else, he is a
(16:17):
false prophet.
So what's going on at the timeis you've got people who are
going around claiming to besomething and they're trying to
find boundaries to fix this.
Because think about it and Iget to experience some of this
as a young church planter of anon-denominational church the
good thing about denominationsand there's a lot of good things
(16:38):
about denominations is theyhave set rules and boundaries
for how you are to do things,but we're in a
non-denominational church.
You have to set these rules andboundaries.
And the reason why I say thatChristians can be some of the
most gullible people is becauseI are one.
I've gotten a lot better, but Iwas like that I thought, well,
man, surely nobody's going tocome here trying to do anything
(16:58):
bad.
And I thought, well, man,surely nobody's going to come
here trying to do anything bad.
And then I learned differently.
And so they're trying to setboundaries, to go hey, listen, I
know that you got a lot ofpeople and they all claim to be
this, you know, this thing,whatever.
And to be honest with you,they're even just kind of saying
here's the thing.
They all sound good, it allsounds right, it all sounds
beautiful and flowery and lovely.
How do you know it all soundsbeautiful and flowery and lovely
(17:20):
?
How do you know?
By how they live?
And I got to see this a lotwhen I was a kid, because so I
grew up in a denomination in thestate of Alabama where they had
these people called evangelistswho would travel all over the
state of Alabama and they wouldgo and they would preach at
churches, and it gave the pastorkind of a break, but then also
was intended to be someone whowould come in and would
(17:40):
encourage the people.
Well, because of just the waythe whole process would work,
they would be around us thepastor's family, pretty much the
whole week.
And if you didn't get to knowthem and you just would kind of
see them on the revival services, what they call them, you would
(18:01):
think they were all wonderfulbecause they all were
charismatic people and they allhad a lot of great things to say
and they all claim to be of God.
But after seeing them for a fewyears in a row, what you would
start to learn is you wouldstart to learn which ones were
of God and it wasn't because ofwhat they proclaimed in the
church, it was how they lived inthe home.
And you would start to go oh,you know, and there was one
(18:24):
particular guy.
My dad would have come everysingle year and, to be honest
with you, there were some peoplethat did not love the way he
preached and they would kind ofget not frustrated with my dad,
but they would say, hey, maybeyou should get somebody else
because he's really not thatengaging and not that whatever.
And my dad would.
They would say, hey, maybe youshould get somebody else,
because he's really not thatengaging and not that whatever.
And my dad would defend themand defend this guy, whatever.
But the number one thing Ithink my dad knew we never
(18:45):
really talked about this, butthe thing is is because what
would happen after church is mydad would have dinner waiting
and they would talk until likemidnight or later, like every
like every night.
It was like crazy.
But the thing is is over theyears you started to notice this
guy loves j.
He acts the same way in churchas he does around the dinner
table.
This guy is the real deal andthat was why my dad would have
(19:09):
him come back over and overagain.
And so what the Didache isdoing here is he's saying
there's a lot.
It is saying, hey, there's alot of people that's going to
come around you.
It's going to talk a good game.
As a matter of fact, there'sgoing to be some people going to
come around you and you'regoing to assume that there are
prophets because of how goodthey are with the crowd, but
that's not how you're going toknow if they're of God and they
(19:30):
even kind of go this way andthey kind of say and they may
even say a whole bunch of truestuff, still you're not sure.
The best way to know is to seehow they act when they get off
stage.
That's how you know.
That's powerful and that isvery convicting.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much fortoday.
Thank you, god, that we alllive in this spiritual community
(19:53):
and you want us to have healthyboundaries in healthy places,
so that we can know what's realand what's not, that we'll never
be a victim of somebody else'sschemes, but rather we can have
healthy boundaries so that wecan live in freedom.
I'm thankful for books like theDidache that give us a window
into what they were goingthrough, what they were learning
(20:15):
, what they were dealing with inthe early church.
I pray you will help us, lord,to remember, if nothing else,
that even then they didn't haveit all figured out.
And if they don't, it's okaythat we don't too.
We just live closer to youevery day.
In Jesus' name, we pray Amenand amen.
I love doing stuff like thisand going through some of these
things.
I mean, I've had people ask meif we could go through the book
of Enoch and different thingslike that, and maybe we'll see.
(20:37):
But for now
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