First Christian Voices: Practices of the Apostolic Fathers

Chapter 6 The Church

Chapter Summary What is the church? This might be one of the most pressing questions Christians have today. Over the past several decades, many have come up with answers believed to harken back to the early centuries of Christianity. In searching for the New Testament church, evangelicals and other Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, and Coptic believers all claim to be the expression of early Christian practices. The Apostolic Fathers do not add many details to what we already know about the church from the New Testament. Several things are noticeably absent from the Apostolic Fathers. For example, there is no mention of worship songs or choirs. We have nothing about a Sunday sermon or a pulpit. In fact, there is nothing about a church building. The Letter of Barnabas, for instance, seems to criticize

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