Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

  - Jude 1.3

For all we Irish, inhabitants of the world’s edge, are disciples of Saints Peter and Paul and of all the disciples who wrote the sacred canon by the Holy Ghost, and we accept nothing outside the evangelical and apostolical teaching; none has been a heretic, none a Judaizer, none a schismatic; but the Catholic Faith, as it was delivered by you first, who are the successors of the holy apostles, is maintained unbroken.

  - Columbanus, Letter to Pope Boniface, Irish, 7th century[1]

A continuous line of faithful belief and teaching stretches from the apostles through the fathers of the early Church, and faithful teachers, preachers, and theologians in every era, right up to the present.

This is the faith of the Church, which has been maintained unbroken in orthodox communions throughout the Body of Christ for nearly two millennia. We ignore, deny, or depart from this faith at peril to ourselves and those we teach.

Certainly, there are differences among the various communions of the Body of Christ, and some find points of teaching or practice among others to have so departed from Scripture as to be unreliable, if not false. Still, a common core of conviction, captured in the early creeds of the Church, continues to define all who believe in Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, as a distinct fellowship.

There is no virtue in ignoring, denying, repudiating, or otherwise cutting ourselves off from this glorious heritage. The peculiar take on truth of our postmodern generation will, indeed, require us to rethink how we communicate the Good News; but it must not cause us to compromise or accommodate the truth of God to the relativistic and individualistic temper of the times, as though the Gospel could be made agreeable to anyone and everyone on their own terms. Such a view does violence to the Gospel and denies people the truth that is in Jesus.

Yet this is everywhere the fashion in our day, even among evangelical Christians. Long-standing views on such matters as the reliability of Scripture, eternal damnation, the nature of sin, the importance of the Law, and the nature and role of marriage have been called into question. Preferring the winds of contemporary doctrine to the solid Biblical and historical foundations of Christian truth, church leaders today are practicing a hermeneutic of convenience and leading their congregations away from Christ and His Kingdom, rather than into them.

Faithful preachers, teachers, and students of the Word of God will always want to make sure their teaching is in accord with the heritage of faith, so that the line of orthodoxy will be maintained unbroken. This is why it is so important that we know our Christian past and allow ourselves to be taught by those who have gone before concerning how we are to understand and communicate the faith of Christ in our day. For when we cut ourselves off from those who have preceded us, we risk drifting from our moorings, carried away by the subtle currents of whatever contemporary stream of thought may be wending our way.

Are you a teacher of the Word of God? Are you certain that the line of orthodoxy is continuing unbroken through you? Without some discipline that connects us with the great teachers of the past, all we can do is hope for the best.

Today, let Columbanus’ claim begin to be your own as well.

Psalm 78.1-4 (Foundation: “How Firm a Foundation”)
Give ear, O my people, attend to my word,
Dark sayings and parables sent from the Lord,
Things we have before by our fathers been told,
Which we would not dare from our children withhold.

Lord, let me follow my course and reach the heavenly Kingdom like those who have gone before, and let me learn all I can from them as I run my race. Adapted from Oengus mac Oengobann, Feílire Oengusso

Kingdom Documents
How confident are you that you have a good grasp on the basic teaching of Scripture, and on the understanding of Scripture which laid the foundation of our faith in those early centuries? Order a copy of the book, Kingdom Documents, by clicking here. In this brief volume you’ll receive a concise overview of the unifying themes of Scripture as delineated in the Old and New Testaments, and as then isolated, defined, and encoded in the early creeds of the Christian movement. This is an excellent study for individuals or groups, and it can help to set your feet squarely on the solid foundation of doctrines and sources of historic Christian faith.

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T. M. Moore, Principal
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All Psalms for singing from The Ailbe Psalter. Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.