August 30, 2025 • 21 mins
The ancient church manual known as the Didache offers a fascinating glimpse into early Christian practices, with specific guidelines for communion prayers and identifying false prophets. Pastor Brandon explains how this document helped establish boundaries while building healthy church communities.
• The Didache served as an instruction manual for early churches when not all had access to every apostolic letter
• Chapter 10 provides specific prayers to be used after communion, emphasizing thanksgiving and glory to God
• Early Christians needed clear guidelines for discerning true prophets from false ones
• False prophets could be identified by contradicting established teaching, staying too long, or asking for money
• Genuine spiritual leaders demonstrate consistency between their public teaching and private living
• The Bible Breakdown podcast is evolving to include monthly "family meetings" alongside continued study
• Future plans include Bible Breakdown Apologetics and Bible Breakdown Deep Dive podcasts
• The podcast began when Pastor Brandon recorded Leviticus explanations for his wife
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Transcript
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
(01:05):
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
meeting, if we can put it likethat, once a month and so to
(01:26):
kind of give you a bit of abackground.
And then we're going to jumpinto today's idea, 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 this stuff.
We are slowly turning that intothe hub for all things Bible
(01:50):
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 isbecause a lot of people who are
reading the Bible with us arenew to reading the Bible every
single day.
They don't really have a dailyhabit of reading an entire
(02:13):
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
day in, day out is relativelynew, and so that gives an
opportunity to kind of let offthe gas a little bit, also to
(02:34):
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
in various ways.
Many times we will go through abook, encourage you to read it
with us and kind of sum up eachchapter.
(02:55):
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
through a book called Tactics byGreg Kokel and it is the idea
(03:16):
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.
So three things to know.
Number one is you have probablybeen hearing me talk about a
(03:37):
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
primarily it was for peoplereading the Bible with us as
(03:59):
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 it was
Matthew, then Genesis, mark,then Exodus, and then it was
excuse me, wherever it was.
(04:21):
We got to Leviticus.
You can tell this is me justtrying to be off the cuff.
And we got to Leviticus.
And as we went to wherever itwas, we got to Leviticus.
You can tell this is me justtrying to be off the cuff.
And we got to Leviticus.
And as we got to Leviticus, mywife said peace out, she's like
I will see you when we get toanother book of the Bible, but I
am not reading Leviticus.
I was like, why not?
(04:44):
It's awesome, it's great.
She 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 explainto my wife that Leviticus was
worth reading, and it wasn'tthat she didn't want to read it,
she just didn't understand itand had trouble with it, right,
(05:08):
and so we started passing it offto people.
That is also why we haven'tactually read.
You know, matthew and Markuntil recently is we were
finishing it up, right?
Well, as we started doing that,we first put it on YouTube as
just because it was free, right,and then we wanted to put it
actually on a podcast channeland that's where we got the
(05:28):
podcast.
So we so.
Then we had two differentgroups.
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 podcastalways my favorites.
We got some of you folks.
Man, I want you to comment, Iwant you to YouTube and comment.
If you are a real one, give mea one in the comments if you
were one of the first peoplethat started listening way back
(05:49):
in the day.
These are the OGs.
And so we had YouTube over here, we had podcast over here, and
then we started a Facebookdiscussion group where we wanted
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
(06:09):
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 is as
our audience, let's say it likethat.
(06:29):
Our community has grown.
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
(06:49):
and to do it again, make it ahabit for our life.
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.
(07:10):
Isaiah prophesied about that.
Now it's showing up here inMatthew.
This really cool.
And as you read, you're goingto start to notice that.
So we're going to do it again.
But we also have some ideas thatwe want to start some other
podcast called the BibleBreakdown Apologetics, and the
Bible Breakdown Deep DiveApologetics is learning how to
defend your faith Deep dive.
What I want to do is I want togo back over the Bible again,
(07:32):
but we're going to go deeperinto things.
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
.
I want to find a way to get myhands dirty.
I want to be part of the BibleBreakdown 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
(08:15):
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
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
(08:38):
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 1stcentury or the early 2nd century
, and so we kind of have lostthe 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 alwaysbeen that way, but it wasn't.
Even though most of the booksof the Bible that we have now
the New Testament was already incirculation.
(09:23):
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.
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 and itwas considered to be a holy time
because it was a reminder ofthe cross.
And then it was saying now,today, it's saying after you
(10:49):
receive those prayers, thosecommunion this is what you do
After you finish the meal givethanks like this we thank you,
holy Father, for your holy namethat you have caused to live in
our hearts and for the knowledge, faith and eternal life.
You are revealed through Jesus,your servant.
To you be glory forever.
(11:11):
You, lord Almighty, created allthings for your namesake.
You give food and drink topeople for their enjoyment so
that they may give thanks to you, but to us you've given
spiritual food and drink andeternal life through your
servant, jesus.
Above all, we thank you becauseyou are mighty.
To you be glory forever.
(11:33):
Remember your church, lord, tosave it from all evil and make
it perfect in your love.
Gather it from all the fourwinds into your kingdom that you
have prepared for it.
Yours is the power and theglory forever.
May grace come and may theworld pass away Hosanna to the
God of David.
If anyone is holy, let themcome.
(11:55):
If anyone is not, let themrepent.
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
(12:16):
from the apostles and what we'vebeen learning from the life of
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 truly
(12:36):
close to God and so they maywant to pray a little
differently.
They're going to have somethingto do.
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 be someone like Titus,like missionaries.
Paul would send Titus to do thethings and stuff.
(12:57):
Silas was one, timothy, for alittle while, was one, paul was
a church planter 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
(13:18):
know.
And so there's some clearboundaries about what this is,
and here's the reason why it'salso important.
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
(13:39):
well-meaning Christians becausethey love Jesus so much and
they want to serve God so muchthat they will let themselves be
taken advantage of, and that isterrible and that is sad.
And so they are trying to helpthese people.
So here we go.
Chapter 11 says thisinstruction about traveling
teachers and prophets Anyonewelcome, anyone who comes and
teaches you.
All that has been said before.
(14:01):
But if the teacher turns asideand starts teaching something
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 prophets.
Treat them as high andrespected figures in our
(14:23):
community.
Let every apostle who comes toyou be welcomed like the Lord
himself.
Every apostle who comes to yoube welcomed like the Lord
himself.
But he shouldn't stay more thanone 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
(14:43):
for the journey.
If he asks for money, he is afalse prophet.
Now pause, now the.
The reason why that was isbecause god had told them to
live 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.
You know at the time, yourlocal uh, presbyter is what it
(15:05):
would be.
It was people who weretraveling through.
So they would say, whilethey're traveling and they're
with you and you notice thatthey are an apostle or a prophet
or whatever, 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
(15:26):
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.
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
(15:47):
not be judged by you.
His judgment is in God's hands.
In the same way, do not test orjudge any preacher who speaks
in the Spirit, unless it'sobvious that he's speaking
(16:17):
falsely.
Not everyone who speaks in theSpirit is a've got people who
are going around claiming to besomething and they're trying to
find boundaries to fix this.
Because think about it now andI get to experience some of this
as a young church planter of anon-denominational church right,
the good thing aboutdenomination and there's a lot
(16:38):
of good things aboutdenominations is they have set
rules and boundaries for how youare to do things.
But we're in anon-denominational church.
You have to set these rules andboundaries, and the reason why
I say that Christians can besome of the most gullible people
is because I are one.
You know, I've gotten a lotbetter, but I was like that.
I thought, well, man, surelynobody's going to come here
trying to do anything bad.
(16:58):
And then I learned differentlyand so they're trying to set
boundaries, to go.
Hey, listen, I know that yougot a lot of people and they all
claim to be 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?
(17:19):
By how they live?
And I got to see this a lotwhen I was a kid.
So I grew up in a denominationin the state of Alabama where
they had these people calledevangelists who would travel all
over the state of Alabama andthey would go and they would
preach at churches, and it gavethe pastor kind of a break, but
then also was intended to besomeone who would come in and
(17:40):
would 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
(18:00):
think they were all wonderfulbecause they all were
charismatic people and they allhad a lot of great things to say
and they all claimed to be ofGod.
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 of whatthey proclaimed in the church,
it was how they lived in thehome.
And you would start to go.
(18:22):
Oh, you know, and there was oneparticular 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 defend themand defend this guy, whatever.
(18:44):
But the number one thing Ithink my dad knew we never
really talked about this, butthe thing is because what would
happen after church is my dadwould have dinner waiting and
they would talk until likemidnight or later, like every
night.
It was like crazy, but thething is is over the years you
started to notice this guy lovesJesus.
He acts the same way in churchas he does around the dinner
(19:05):
table.
This guy is the real deal andthat was why my dad would have
him come back over and overagain.
And so what the Didache is doinghere 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 they're
prophets because of how goodthey are with the crowd.
(19:26):
But that's not how you're goingto know if they're of God.
And they even kind of go thisway and they kind of say and
they may even say a whole bunchof true stuff.
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'spowerful and that is very
(19:47):
convicting.
Let's pray together right now,god.
Thank you so much for today.
Thank you, god, that we alllive in this spiritual community
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.
(20:08):
I'm thankful for books like theDidache that give us a window
into what they were goingthrough, what they were learning
, 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 Amen and amen.
(20:29):
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,
but for now, I love you and I'llsee.
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
(01:05):
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
meeting, if we can put it likethat, once a month and so to
(01:26):
kind of give you a bit of abackground.
And then we're going to jumpinto today's idea, 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 this stuff.
We are slowly turning that intothe hub for all things Bible
(01:50):
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 isbecause a lot of people who are
reading the Bible with us arenew to reading the Bible every
single day.
They don't really have a dailyhabit of reading an entire
(02:13):
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
day in, day out is relativelynew, and so that gives an
opportunity to kind of let offthe gas a little bit, also to
(02:34):
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
in various ways.
Many times we will go through abook, encourage you to read it
with us and kind of sum up eachchapter.
(02:55):
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
through a book called Tactics byGreg Kokel and it is the idea
(03:16):
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.
So three things to know.
Number one is you have probablybeen hearing me talk about a
(03:37):
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
primarily it was for peoplereading the Bible with us as
(03:59):
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 it was
Matthew, then Genesis, mark,then Exodus, and then it was
excuse me, wherever it was.
(04:21):
We got to Leviticus.
You can tell this is me justtrying to be off the cuff.
And we got to Leviticus.
And as we went to wherever itwas, we got to Leviticus.
You can tell this is me justtrying to be off the cuff.
And we got to Leviticus.
And as we got to Leviticus, mywife said peace out, she's like
I will see you when we get toanother book of the Bible, but I
am not reading Leviticus.
I was like, why not?
(04:44):
It's awesome, it's great.
She 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 explainto my wife that Leviticus was
worth reading, and it wasn'tthat she didn't want to read it,
she just didn't understand itand had trouble with it, right,
(05:08):
and so we started passing it offto people.
That is also why we haven'tactually read.
You know, matthew and Markuntil recently is we were
finishing it up, right?
Well, as we started doing that,we first put it on YouTube as
just because it was free, right,and then we wanted to put it
actually on a podcast channeland that's where we got the
(05:28):
podcast.
So we so.
Then we had two differentgroups.
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 podcastalways my favorites.
We got some of you folks.
Man, I want you to comment, Iwant you to YouTube and comment.
If you are a real one, give mea one in the comments if you
were one of the first peoplethat started listening way back
(05:49):
in the day.
These are the OGs.
And so we had YouTube over here, we had podcast over here, and
then we started a Facebookdiscussion group where we wanted
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
(06:09):
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 is as
our audience, let's say it likethat.
(06:29):
Our community has grown.
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
(06:49):
and to do it again, make it ahabit for our life.
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.
(07:10):
Isaiah prophesied about that.
Now it's showing up here inMatthew.
This really cool.
And as you read, you're goingto start to notice that.
So we're going to do it again.
But we also have some ideas thatwe want to start some other
podcast called the BibleBreakdown Apologetics, and the
Bible Breakdown Deep DiveApologetics is learning how to
defend your faith Deep dive.
What I want to do is I want togo back over the Bible again,
(07:32):
but we're going to go deeperinto things.
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
.
I want to find a way to get myhands dirty.
I want to be part of the BibleBreakdown 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
(08:15):
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
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
(08:38):
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 1stcentury or the early 2nd century
, and so we kind of have lostthe 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 alwaysbeen that way, but it wasn't.
Even though most of the booksof the Bible that we have now
the New Testament was already incirculation.
(09:23):
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.
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 and itwas considered to be a holy time
because it was a reminder ofthe cross.
And then it was saying now,today, it's saying after you
(10:49):
receive those prayers, thosecommunion this is what you do
After you finish the meal givethanks like this we thank you,
holy Father, for your holy namethat you have caused to live in
our hearts and for the knowledge, faith and eternal life.
You are revealed through Jesus,your servant.
To you be glory forever.
(11:11):
You, lord Almighty, created allthings for your namesake.
You give food and drink topeople for their enjoyment so
that they may give thanks to you, but to us you've given
spiritual food and drink andeternal life through your
servant, jesus.
Above all, we thank you becauseyou are mighty.
To you be glory forever.
(11:33):
Remember your church, lord, tosave it from all evil and make
it perfect in your love.
Gather it from all the fourwinds into your kingdom that you
have prepared for it.
Yours is the power and theglory forever.
May grace come and may theworld pass away Hosanna to the
God of David.
If anyone is holy, let themcome.
(11:55):
If anyone is not, let themrepent.
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
(12:16):
from the apostles and what we'vebeen learning from the life of
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 truly
(12:36):
close to God and so they maywant to pray a little
differently.
They're going to have somethingto do.
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 be someone like Titus,like missionaries.
Paul would send Titus to do thethings and stuff.
(12:57):
Silas was one, timothy, for alittle while, was one, paul was
a church planter 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
(13:18):
know.
And so there's some clearboundaries about what this is,
and here's the reason why it'salso important.
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
(13:39):
well-meaning Christians becausethey love Jesus so much and
they want to serve God so muchthat they will let themselves be
taken advantage of, and that isterrible and that is sad.
And so they are trying to helpthese people.
So here we go.
Chapter 11 says thisinstruction about traveling
teachers and prophets Anyonewelcome, anyone who comes and
teaches you.
All that has been said before.
(14:01):
But if the teacher turns asideand starts teaching something
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 prophets.
Treat them as high andrespected figures in our
(14:23):
community.
Let every apostle who comes toyou be welcomed like the Lord
himself.
Every apostle who comes to yoube welcomed like the Lord
himself.
But he shouldn't stay more thanone 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
(14:43):
for the journey.
If he asks for money, he is afalse prophet.
Now pause, now the.
The reason why that was isbecause god had told them to
live 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.
You know at the time, yourlocal uh, presbyter is what it
(15:05):
would be.
It was people who weretraveling through.
So they would say, whilethey're traveling and they're
with you and you notice thatthey are an apostle or a prophet
or whatever, 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
(15:26):
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.
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
(15:47):
not be judged by you.
His judgment is in God's hands.
In the same way, do not test orjudge any preacher who speaks
in the Spirit, unless it'sobvious that he's speaking
(16:17):
falsely.
Not everyone who speaks in theSpirit is a've got people who
are going around claiming to besomething and they're trying to
find boundaries to fix this.
Because think about it now andI get to experience some of this
as a young church planter of anon-denominational church right,
the good thing aboutdenomination and there's a lot
(16:38):
of good things aboutdenominations is they have set
rules and boundaries for how youare to do things.
But we're in anon-denominational church.
You have to set these rules andboundaries, and the reason why
I say that Christians can besome of the most gullible people
is because I are one.
You know, I've gotten a lotbetter, but I was like that.
I thought, well, man, surelynobody's going to come here
trying to do anything bad.
(16:58):
And then I learned differentlyand so they're trying to set
boundaries, to go.
Hey, listen, I know that yougot a lot of people and they all
claim to be 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?
(17:19):
By how they live?
And I got to see this a lotwhen I was a kid.
So I grew up in a denominationin the state of Alabama where
they had these people calledevangelists who would travel all
over the state of Alabama andthey would go and they would
preach at churches, and it gavethe pastor kind of a break, but
then also was intended to besomeone who would come in and
(17:40):
would 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
(18:00):
think they were all wonderfulbecause they all were
charismatic people and they allhad a lot of great things to say
and they all claimed to be ofGod.
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 of whatthey proclaimed in the church,
it was how they lived in thehome.
And you would start to go.
(18:22):
Oh, you know, and there was oneparticular 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 defend themand defend this guy, whatever.
(18:44):
But the number one thing Ithink my dad knew we never
really talked about this, butthe thing is because what would
happen after church is my dadwould have dinner waiting and
they would talk until likemidnight or later, like every
night.
It was like crazy, but thething is is over the years you
started to notice this guy lovesJesus.
He acts the same way in churchas he does around the dinner
(19:05):
table.
This guy is the real deal andthat was why my dad would have
him come back over and overagain.
And so what the Didache is doinghere 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 they're
prophets because of how goodthey are with the crowd.
(19:26):
But that's not how you're goingto know if they're of God.
And they even kind of go thisway and they kind of say and
they may even say a whole bunchof true stuff.
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'spowerful and that is very
(19:47):
convicting.
Let's pray together right now,god.
Thank you so much for today.
Thank you, god, that we alllive in this spiritual community
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.
(20:08):
I'm thankful for books like theDidache that give us a window
into what they were goingthrough, what they were learning
, 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 Amen and amen.
(20:29):
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,
but for now, I love you and I'llsee.
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