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The Desert Fathers Series | The Letters Series | Following God in Low Seasons
The Apostolic Constitutions are a collection of eight works detailing early church life, structure, moral conduct, church discipline, and worship. The work was compiled and written between 350-400AD. It was considered a compilation of what had been handed down from the first century. Book eight begins by dealing with the nature of spiritual gifts. It drew some of its inspiration from the earlier Didache.
In the 2nd century a man named Hermas recorded a series of visions. In these visions a heavenly figure appears to Hermas and makes himself known simply as the Shepherd. The Shepherd shares with Hermas things relating to nature of life in God and issues pertaining to the church. What followed was a series of ethical and moral lessons and instruction in the Christian life. Righteousness and repentance is heavily emphasized. It was instructive in the same way a work like Pilgrim’s Progress was in its day.
The Didache, otherwise known as the Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles, was an early church document that served as a series of instructions on spiritual and community life. The first part consists of juxtaposing the way of life with the way of death. The second part deals with specific practices within the church, the individual’s spiritual life (i.e. food, baptism, prayer, fasting, eucharist, etc...) and church governance. The Didache essentially functioned as a guide for new disciples to understand what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.
In the first 500 years of church history, aberrant uses of the gifts of the Spirit did not serve as a reason to reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit. What we have seen happening in the history of Christianity, we have seen happening today. Just as in years past, the true mark of Christianity was not the rejection of the ministry of the Spirit wholesale, but the rejection of the aberrant practices. Let no man call what God intended for good an evil thing. Rather, the problem lies within the heart of people, not the gift itself. As we have said earlier in this series, the gift is the Spirit, it is not the ability to work great things. Let us never reject the Holy Spirit and His working the people of God.
Writing a couple hundred years after Palladius’ account of Valens, Isaac the Syrian, a 7th century Christian monk, recounts that there were many people in the history of the church that had accomplished great things through the exercise of spiritual gifts:
“From history, we see that many have performed astonishing miracles, have raised the dead, and have labored to return those who are erring to the straight path and the true Faith; they worked great miracles and by their efforts led many to knowledge of God.”
In the 5th century, a man named Palladius wrote the story of Valens, a monastic from Palestine. Valens was a well regarded monastic whose fervor for discipline had won him favor in the church. The story of is Valens’ is of his slow descent into pride.
“By virtue of the great hardship that he endured, he attained to the highest measure of ascesis but fell into pride, being so deluded by the demons that he thought angels were conversing with him and ministering to his every need.”
In the 2nd century, in an area known as Phygria (present-day Turkey), a man named Montanus had been recently converted to the Christian faith. Asterius Urbanas, who wrote about the Monastist movement, described Montanus as a man with “excessive lust of his soul after taking the lead”. Montanus wanted to be the leader. In meetings, Montanus would become overwhelmed by some spiritual influence and he would prophesy. Eventually, he drew a number of people away from the churches in Phygria and they began calling themselves The New Prophecy movement.
“If somebody appears to have received the gift of healing or revelation, a hand is not laid on him, for the facts of the matter will reveal whether he has spoken the truth.” The Apostolic Tradition
The “facts of the matter” simply meant was the thing true, right or accurate. That prophetic ministry was alive and well in the first few hundred years of the church is not a question up for debate.
Ephesians 4:12-14 …for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.
The second major misreading of Ephesians 4 is that the passage itself is mainly concerned with defining special gifts. What we tend to miss when reading the passage is Paul’s drive to speak of Christ and the ascension. While the purpose of 1 Corinthians 12 is focused on teaching what happens when the Holy Spirit is given to the church, and Romans 12 is concerned with how God gifts certain people to function within a community, Ephesians 4 is far more concerned with the nature of Christ and the ramifications of what He has accomplished.
The first thing that can be said about these gifts is that at no place in the history of Christianity has this list been referred to as five-fold ministry. Looking at these gifts as leadership positions is an invention of modern authors. Scripture does not treat them positionally and history does not as well. They are graces given to the body of Christ to affect the equipping of the saints. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”
Each of us has been dealt a measure of faith and we ought to think of ourselves in terms of that faith that has been afforded to us. That faith has to do with how we all tie in together as members of one body, it specifically has to do with how we function as members of one another. These gifts are not about how the Holy Spirit moves through you and empowers you. These gifts are not as directly tied into the life of love and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (though our giftedness is always tied to that to some degree). They are tied into how you approach who you are.
The life of love was seen as intrinsic to spiritual giftedness. Throughout history, there have been many examples of those that appeared to be gifted, impacted many people, and then later, having fallen away, result hurt many more people than they helped. The wake of destruction left by gifted, yet hard and calloused people has left much devastation.
We have already spoken extensively about the gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12 (word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues) heretofore in this series. We made the case that what we refer to as spiritual gifts, the bible calls the manifestation of the Spirit. But can we say anything more about the purpose and usefulness of these activities?
There are numerous examples throughout scripture of the same taking place. The scope of prophetic ministry does not just cover the future and the present, as we have seen it can cover the past as well. Those who walk in some level of prophetic discernment can at times reveal future events, present circumstances, or past actions.
