Church History – Page 3 – What Does This Mean?

The Real Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra

Encore Post: Christmas in America doesn’t seem possible without Santa Claus. In an image first drawn by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly in 1863 and shaped to his current form by Haddon Sundblum for a Coca-Cola advertising campaign, the jolly Saint Nick is said to live at the North Pole, making toys for children to give on Christmas Eve. Our Santa’s legend has grown from the Dutch form of the Father Christmas story, where candies were distributed on December 6. Through poems, songs, and TV specials, the story continues to change each year. Many Americans tell their children that Christmas gifts come from him.

Yet the image did begin with the story of a real St. Nicholas, a Greek Bishop who cared for God’s people during the most intense persecution of the Church prior to the 20th Century. Nicholas was born to wealthy Christian parents who died during his early manhood. Nicholas followed his uncle into the priesthood and was chosen Bishop of Myra, a town in what is now Turkey. His legend says he gave away his parents’ wealth to the poor, but since he was a humble man, did so secretly. One story tells of a father who lost his wealth during a tragedy. Unable to afford a dowry for his three daughters, he feared he would have to sell them as slaves or hire them as prostitutes. Upon hearing the story, Bishop Nicholas resolved to help. At night for two successive nights, he slipped a bag of gold through their girl’s window. In the morning, the father was greatly thankful to his mystery patron. So he watched on the third night for the donor to appear. Unmasking Nicholas, he was begged by the saint, apparently unsuccessfully, to keep his generosity a secret. The girls, now with generous dowries each, were married successfully and saved a depressing fate. From this story developed the Dutch legend of Sinterklaas, who is said to give children gifts on December 6. This story came across the Atlantic during the colonization of New Amsterdam (New York).

During the Great Persecution of Emperor Diocletian of Rome, Nicholas was thrown into prison and tortured in an attempt to get him to renounce his faith. Remaining faithful to Christ, he was released by Emperor Constantine the Great. One legend places Bishop Nicholas at the Council of Nicea, where he is said to have slapped Arius the heretic and to have temporarily lost his office for the incident. Restored to office, he stood up for his people, battled idolatry and heresy and intervened with authorities from time to time to protect his flock and the poor in general.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Stir up Your Power, O Lord, and Come!

Encore Post: Great forest fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and floods are all over our news. Acts of unspeakable evil and cruelty occur on almost a weekly basis. A nation routinely kills babies in the womb, celebrates immorality and lectures the church when it doesn’t join them. All the signs of the end of days fill our T.V.s, cell phones and computer screens. It makes you just want to scream, “Tear open the heavens and get down here, Lord, and do something about it! What are you waiting for? (See Isaiah 64)

To most of the world’s religions, the high god who made the world is a distant god, who made the world and tired of it, going away to leave it to lesser gods and our own devices. We are left alone to deal with the mess that is our world and our part in making it worse. Even more modern thinkers, like the Deists, thought of God as a great watchmaker, who made the world capable of running itself, wound it up and walked away. Pop songs muse: “God is watching us… from a distance” and “The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died.” We just have to cope, they advise.

Advent breaks into that mood and reminds us that is not true at all. The God who made the world and called it “very good” intends to do something about it. He promised to come himself, in the person of his Son, born of a woman, to become one of us. It reminds us that he kept that promise and to prepare to celebrate that coming, receive him as he comes to us each day and how he will finally come to set things right.

The season of Advent developed over the centuries to do just that. Like Lent prepared the church to celebrate Easter, Advent would come to celebrate Christmas. For some, it was also a season of repentance, as a deliberate counter to the wild and immoral way pagans celebrate their December holidays. So in many places, Advent’s color is purple or black, the Gloria is not sung and people fast. For others, it is a season of hope, with the color being blue and carols sung to anticipate Christmas.

Either way, the church cries out: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come!” Come as you did, born to die that we might live. Come with your grace and live among us. Come and bring us all home to be with you. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

At Just the Right Time

Encore Post: Time is a funny thing. We use clocks that measure the vibrations of atoms, coordinated with telescopes to record its passage with great precision and consistency from place to place, transmit them to us via computers, satellites, radio, television and other digital signals and synchronize our clocks with them. We barely notice that time is a human thing — except on leap year or when we change our clocks twice a year or move from time zone to time zone.

Time is the way we record the change we notice more and more with each year of life. Time passes quickly. When you are a child, an hour drags on forever. As an adult, it passes before your realize it. What is important, our culture has noticed, is not time itself, but what you do with it. It has become our new currency. We sooner will write a check than hang out.

The Greek of the New Testament has two different words for time. καιρός (Chairos) translates roughly “the right time.” χρόνος (Chronos) is about the passage of time, minute after minute, hour after hour, year after year. Seasons like Advent, days like Christmas and New Years Day are χρόνος, times that we plan for, come and go, forming a part of the rhythm of life. That Christmas when you opened your first present is καιρός

The fullness of time when God sent his son, born of a virgin, is God’s καιρός (Galatians 4:4-5). His acts and plans unfolded slowly, one building on another, leading to just that right time. The next big καιρός is the Second Advent, when time itself will come to an end in God’s eternal life with his people.

The persons, events and institutions leading to that first right time, the incarnation, life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of Immanuel — God-with-us — were called by the Early Church the praeparatio Evangelii (The Preparation of the Gospel).

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Just Another Day that Changed the World

Encore Post: On a chilly October morning, Martin Luther left the Black Cloister to walk to the Castle Church. A light breeze blew a few leaves across his path. When he passed Saint Mary’s Church, a few students hurried to join him. As they walked along, they asked questions about their last lesson. The town was busy that morning. Children played in the street. Farmers came to sell their crops and goods. Pilgrims walked along the same street. They hoped to see the relics on display in the church. Relics are parts of a deceased holy person’s body or belongings that are kept as objects of reverence. Luther walked up the stairs to the door of the Castle Church. He moved several notices nailed there to make room for his announcement. After nailing his call for a disputation — a conference — to discuss the power of indulgences, he headed for his classroom. It was an ordinary day, but one that would change the world.

Luther’s announcement on that ordinary day, October 31, 1517, touched off an explosion throughout the Western Christian Church. Known as the 95 Theses, Luther’s announcement seemed to suggest that the pope did not have the power to offer indulgences. Pope Leo X sent a messenger to convince Luther to apologize for his comments and to be quiet. Instead, Luther studied the Bible even more carefully. Finally, at a disputation between the reformer and Johann Eck was held in Leipzig, Germany, Luther said that much of what Jan Hus had said was right. Then, in the days that followed the debate, Luther wrote that the church was mistaken about other beliefs.

In 1520, Pope Leo X condemned Luther’s teachings as heretical and threatened to excommunicate him. Undeterred, Luther burned the pope’s letter, as well as many of the church’s books, in a bonfire in Wittenberg. Later, at the Diet of Worms in 1521, an assembly of the officials of the Holy Roman Empire, Martin Luther was condemned as an outlaw.

The 95 Theses themselves were not all that important. Yet because they were like lighting the fuse for a bomb, they set off the explosion that brought the precious Gospel back to light in Christ’s Church. From the rubble of that explosion rose the Lutheran Church. That is why we thank God for Martin Luther on October 31st.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Last Things #11: Rapture and Tribulation and Millennium — Oh My!

Encore Post: Many of our evangelical brothers and sisters are fascinated by Biblical prophecy. Seeing the evil around us, they are convinced that we are living in the very last years and months before Christ returns to raise the dead, bring an end to sin, death and the power of the devil, gather all in the final judgement and begin the marriage feast of the lamb that has no end. They are not alone — in every period, Christians were convinced they were living in such times — even St. Paul and Martin Luther!

What makes their view unique in the church’s history is they accept a theological view called Dispensationalism, a Christian school of thought that was born in the 1800s. It adopted the ancient view that Christ would reign on earth literally for 1000 years after he returned in glory. It set this view in a way of looking at history inspired by the 19th century cultural movement known as Romanticism. Dispensationalism was developed by Charles Nelson Darby, D. L. Moody and C. I. Scofield.

Dispensationalists believe God divided the world into seven dispensations (also called economies and administrations). In each age, God supposedly revealed himself in different ways. Salvation was offered according to different plans for each age (for example, under the Law of Moses, salvation was by works, but in the church age, by grace) and humans were held accountable to the set of rules for that age. They get to these views by treating at face value prophecies written in figurative and symbolic language and using the interpretations they discover to understand in a complex way the simple and clear words of Jesus and the apostles.

For them, this age will end when events predicted in prophecy occur. They look to current events to fulfill these prophecies, treating the Bible as a giant algebra problem. Some have used such calculations to predict end-time events. Among these are the rapture, when all true Christians will suddenly be removed from the world, leaving only unbelievers, the Tribulation, when they will be punished, and those who come to faith seeing these events are persecuted and the Millennium, when Christ and the church will rule the world a thousand years. Two problems with this: Christ promised he would return suddenly and the last judgement follows immediately (so the Bible is not an algebra problem) and these versions of a rapture, millennium and tribulation are not in the Bible.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2018-2023 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Sunday School: Three Men in the Furnace — or is it Four?

Encore Post: Ancient peoples looked upon their leaders as lesser gods, worthy of worship. They built statues to honor themselves and required all people to worship them. This practice continued even in Roman times to the pagan Caesars. It was seen as a patriotic act, similar to saying the pledge of allegiance and saluting the flag. From time to time, kings would enforce public worship of their statues or the statues of their gods to test the loyalty of their subjects.

For Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, loyalty to God was more important than life itself. They trusted God could deliver them and placed full trust in Him. Yet they were prepared for God to take them to His side instead. God sent his Son as the Angel of the Lord to protect His servants in the fire. The writer of the book of Hebrews included these men in the great chapter on faith. (Hebrews 11:32-34) Christian martyrs throughout the centuries looked up to these men for inspiration when called to choose between God and country.

Faith is trusting God to keep his promises. It holds on to the fact that God kept the most important of his promises to his people in the Old Testament. In the person of the Son of God, he became a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, lived a perfect life for us, suffered and died at the hands of a pagan government, rose again from the grave and ascended to heaven. Because he has done these things, we are certain that he will keep the rest of his promises — to bring us to be with him forever when we die and raise us from the grave on the last day. It is that faith that sustained Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, their friend Daniel, all the martyrs for the faith who obeyed God rather than man. With them numbered may we be, here and in eternity.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Is Christmas Based on a Pagan Holiday?

Encore Post: As we discussed in an earlier post, non-Christian scholars, liberals and some conservative Christians, believe that the church created the celebration of Christmas to displace pagan celebrations. The reason for this conclusion is that Christians did not universally celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th. Yet the Emperor Aurelian did declare that the day be celebrated as the Birthday of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Son). These scholars theorized that the Church decided to replace this pagan holiday with the celebration of Christ’s Birth to keep people out of the temples of this popular pagan god.

When Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar, December 25th fell on the winter solstice. The word solstice means “The Sun stops.” On this day, the northern hemisphere has the least amount of daylight. From this point on until the summer solstice, the Sun would seem to gain strength. So December 25th was celebrated as the beginning of its return.

Most pagan societies worship the sun as a god and Rome was no exception. Beginning with Nero Caesar, Roman emperors associated themselves with the Sun God Sol and its Greek equivalent, Ἕλιος (Helios). This god became a favorite of the Roman armies. As Christianity became more widely believed in Rome, pagan Emperors increased the persecution of the Church. Aurelian promoted the worship of Sol as a kind of pledge of allegiance and promoted December 25th in the same kind of way Americans celebrate July 4th. When Constantine the Great came to be Emperor, he ended the government sponsorship of the worship of Sol.

So, did the Church decide to put Christmas on December 25th to counter the worship of the Sun? Not exactly. There is no reference to the celebration of Sol Invictus in the works of the Early Church fathers related to the date of Christmas. It appears that the reverse is the case, that the Emperor instituted the pagan festival in order to counter the rise of Christianity and the first celebrations of Christmas on the date.

The early church did associate the metaphor of the Sun with Jesus, but not because of the Roman holiday. The Prophet Malachi had prophecies of the Messiah that he would be “The Sun of Righteousness” who would rise with healing in his rays. In the earliest Christmas sermons, this theme was often used. The church did use the occasion to its advantage, but not always successfully. Christians would retain ancient customs, but would pour new meaning into them. Over time, Jesus would become the reason for the season.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Digging into the Old Testament: The Theological Schools of Alexandria and Antioch

Encore Post: You might remember the Ebionites and those who followed Marcion from earlier posts. In this post I want to introduce the two theological schools that ruled the day and effectively have left marks on the way we interpret the Bible still today.

But why are they called schools? Don’t think of them so much as buildings but the way of thinking. The first is Alexandria. The other is Antioch. Both cities were centers of Christian thought. Paul and other apostles spent time in Antioch, and Alexandria was known throughout the world as another great center of learning.

So what was the difference between Antioch and Alexandria? Well, let’s look at Alexandria first. Alexandria was the melting pot of cultures. Greek philosophy was alive and well. Many theologians, Origen, for example, had a background in philosophy. If you were to read Origen’s writings that we have at our disposal you would see him interpreting the text not just literally but also philosophically or in an allegorical fashion. Words meant more than just the literal word for him and others that came after him in the Alexandria School. Now this is not always a bad thing, but we need to always be careful to always consider the literal text.

Antioch and the theologians there were of a different style. They interpreted scripture in a literal, historical sense. Antioch generally steered clear of the allegorical approach to interpreting Scripture. That being said, they did not always have a lot of opportunities to find Christ in the Old Testament.

Both schools had men fall of either side of the the proverbial horse. Origen allowed his mind to go too far. Some men in Antioch did not go far enough to find Christ in the text, and questioned some of the Old Testament’s use for the Christian. Again, we should be looking back to what Jesus says. The Scriptures are all about him. He fulfills what was said in the Law, Prophets, and Psalms. If we keep that in mind, we ought to be able to see Christ not only in the New Testament but also the Old.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Meet Frederick III, “the Wise,” Elector of Saxony

Encore Post: Frederick III grew up in the noble German household of Ernest, Elector of Saxony. His father gave him a fine classical education in the Humanist tradition. Frederick grew up to be a patron of German renaissance painters, especially Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger. He founded the University of Wittenberg and systematically built it up to become prominent. He was a pious and faithful Christian, a collector of relics, a supporter of the Augustinian observant movement in Saxony.

A skillful diplomat, he negotiated major reforms in the structure of the Holy Roman Empire, increasing the power and freedom of its electors, nobles and free cities. In 1518, he was the Imperial Vicar, second only to Emperor Maximilian I, who was approaching death. When the Emperor died in January of 1519, he was regent of the Empire. The Pope, the electors, princes and cities of the Empire preferred that Frederick be crowned the next emperor rather than young Charles V of the Hapsburg dynasty. Charles was already king of Spain, Austria, and Hungary, ruler of territories in the Netherlands, France and Italy. Becoming Emperor would make him the most powerful monarch in Europe.

Yet Frederick did not want to be Emperor. He negotiated with Charles to have the Empire repay its debts to Saxony and a number of other concessions in exchange for his vote and support. After Charles was elected Emperor, Frederick used his considerable political skills and influence to protect Luther and advance the Reformation. When he died in 1525, he was succeeded by his brother John, who was an ardent supporter of the reformation.

©2018-2021 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

The Great Cloud of Witnesses

Encore Posts: Once every four years, the world pauses to watch the Olympics. Among the most exciting of the sports contested are the foot races, where the fastest men and women to ever walk the earth run nearly as fast as each other, the winner crossing the finish line a few thousandths of a second ahead of the others. The crowds That pack the stands cheer them on. The loudest are coaches urging them on.

The Book of Hebrews uses is image to describe the assembly of the church triumpant — all of God’s holy ones — his saints — who have died and now live in God’s presence forever. They form a “great cloud of witnesses” cheering us on. (Hebrews 12:1-2) Also our coach, Jesus, stands at the finish line. We focus on him as we run our race because he endured the cross before us and for us. When we worship, we enter eternity and join them, the “whole company of heaven”, in praising God.

All Saints’ Day is an ancient celebration — begun in the Eighth Century (700s AD) It was intended celebrate all the Saints that did not have a special day assigned for them. Lutherans have kept this day a sort of Christian Memorial Day. We remember the Christians in our lives who have died and now rest with Christ, especially those who entered eternal life in the last year. It is a joyful day, more so than the day of their funeral, where grief is more intense. Most parishes read their names during worship. Some use other ways to remember — distributing flowers, lighting votive candles or other practices special to them.

Yet our celebration is not about the saints — even our loved ones. It is about Jesus, their Savior, who by his death has destroyed death and by his resurrection opened the kingdom to all believers. He is the author and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of God. It is because he is risen that they — and we — will rise on the last day. So, we dry the tears in our eyes, for he is risen! He is risen indeed! Allelujah!