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Where Do Denominations Come From? How Do We Know Who Is Right? · Rethink Revive with David Leake

• 0:00
  Unknown: Have you ever wondered why there are so many different types of churches, so many different labels for Christians, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, Eastern, Orthodox?
• 0:09
  Unknown: It's a good question. The topic we're gonna be talking about today is, why are there so many denominations, and, more crucially, how do we know who's right? If you want to learn more about how you can not just pick a church, but to find truth and go ahead and tune in. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Allison Park leadership podcast, where we have culture creating conversations. My name is Dave,
• 0:30
  Jeff Leake: and my name is Jeff, and we are glad that you are joining us. We want to wish you a Merry Christmas, as this was recorded just before the Christmas season, and we want to say this is the end of season four and we're getting ready to go into season five. But no, no, you're wrong. It's into five, end of five. And if you're Yeah, going into our sixth one, baby, yeah, yeah. Started in November 2019, and still going strong. So if you have become a recent listener, or this is your first time, we're glad you've joined us. Dave and our father and son were also pastors at Allison Park Church. Dave's at the North Side campus, and I'm the lead pastor. And
• 1:05
  Unknown: you always watching on live stream, you can see our Christmas decoration.
• 1:07
  Jeff Leake: There you go. How about that? And we got the little we have, actually the little Yoda Christmas ball.
• 1:14
  Unknown: It's also doubles as Matt's office. So,
• 1:17
  Jeff Leake: yeah. So, and since you always do this pitch, if you are what watching or listening on YouTube, Spotify or Apple podcast, if you can leave us a like or review, that would be amazing, because it helps us get the word out to other not just
• 1:28
  Unknown: a review. Give us a five star review. Five Star, yeah, not a one star. No, no.
• 1:31
  Unknown: Scrooge is on here. Please be I mean, you can, but we appreciate it. We love
• 1:37
  Jeff Leake: it when you comment on anything or especially whenever you you like, because it helps us get the word out, and we appreciate you. All right. What are we talking about today? Dave, on this final episode
• 1:47
  Unknown: of season five, not very Christmassy, but well, maybe it is, I don't know. Today we're talking about the title is where, where do denominations come from? And how do we know who's right?
• 1:57
  Jeff Leake: Yeah. And the reason why we're getting at this is because this is actually one of the questions you have asked us to address, because no one ever talks about this actually, like, you know, we know there's a bunch of them. Why are there a bunch of them? If there's if Jesus is the founder, so to speak, in a way, like he's the one that that we all follow, I guess is a better way to say it.
• 2:16
  Jeff Leake: Why are there so many splinter groups, and how? Well, how come they have different ideas, and what happened over all these 1000s of years that we ended up here, right? Because I'm not sure that Jesus intended it like this, that we would have all these denominations. So how do we end up in this space,
• 2:33
  Unknown: right? Well, and usually, if somebody says, like, Are you religious? And it might say, you would say I'm Catholic, or I'm Lutheran, or, you know, probably not just I'm Christian.
• 2:41
  Jeff Leake: Well, they might say I used to go to church, but I don't believe in organized religion anymore. I'm now spiritual, yeah? Actually, some of the reason why people might say that is because of this particular question, because they're confused about which church to belong to and why the conflicts and all that good stuff, yeah? So, so just recently, Dave, I think this brings attention to the surface.
• 3:01
  Jeff Leake: So I have been to Israel three times. I've led, led groups there a couple of times. And I'm doing a series right now at Allison Park Church called Don't squeeze the frog, which is one of the images that we use for the four topics. So the idea is, a picture is worth 1000 words.
• 3:17
  Jeff Leake: So we're looking at a cultural image, and then we're drawing a moral principle out of that idea. And the second week of the series, I used a symbol that we find in Jerusalem at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher called the immovable ladder. So let's give you that. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll be able to see this. This is the picture of the immovable ladder. So Church of the Holy Sepulcher built around 335 ad, so 300 years after Jesus resurrection, sepulcher means tomb. So, so best guess, researched guess is that this is where Jesus tomb was, which is right next to the goal area of Golgotha, where he was crucified, and so in 313 ad Constantine became the emperor of Rome. He made Christian.
• 4:07
  Jeff Leake: Christianity now one of the legalized religions of his empire, because his mama was a strong Christian. His mom went to Jerusalem, researched to the best of her ability, where Jesus would have died and rose from the grave, and they built a church there. Over time, it got bigger and bigger, and it has been there ever since. There are six denominations that share this space with great tension.
• 4:28
  Jeff Leake: So Orthodox, Catholic, Coptic, Egyptian, I think, is one of them, Armenian, and I can't remember the fifth. They all share the worship space, and they have some degree of tension over who gets to use which space when. And the tension had grown by the year 1728, somebody had cleaned the window, left the ladder outside, no one took responsibility for it, and so it just stayed there, and it has stayed there since 17. Eight, 296 years, this ladder has been outside because of the tension that exists between these denominations. What are they calling now the holy ladder.
• 5:08
  Jeff Leake: It's the immovable ladder, removable ladder, yeah. And it's a symbol of the tension that exists in the spot, which is really ironic, because you would think at the place where Jesus rose from the dead, you know, like Jesus said you'll know that they're Christians because they have loved one for one another.
• 5:23
  Jeff Leake: And on the place where Jesus rose from the dead and was crucified, you have a symbol of Christians who can't get along with each other. Most petty thing possibly bad. Yeah. And so the Ottoman Empire, who was in power in the 1700s over Jerusalem, got so tired of the infighting that they declared something called the status quo, which means no one can do anything in the building without the permission of the other five denominations. It's sort of like six, six, I'm sorry. It's like, it's like when you were little, and I had five kids, and I would come into the room when you were fighting, and everybody had to sit and be quiet because, because so non Christian Ottoman Empire had to make a rule status quo to keep the Christian denominations from fighting each other. So this is sort of a tragedy, right? It's a shame.
• 6:05
  Jeff Leake: It's not the way Christianity is supposed to be. Jesus said not they'll know you're Christians by the great cathedrals you'll build on holy sites, but by the way you treat each other. Yeah.
• 6:15
  Jeff Leake: And so denominationalism has oftentimes become a thing because one group splintered off from another over doctoral disputes or territory or divorces, like what happened with the Anglican Church and the Baptist who separated from them.
• 6:34
  Unknown: So whether the Holy Spirit is under Jesus or he's on the same level to the
• 6:40
  Jeff Leake: Father, doctrinal problems, other kinds of tensions. So almost always, you would say denominations splintered because of disputes.
• 6:47
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, so in some reason we would say we have denominations because Christians, over centuries, have disputed with each other. Yeah, that's
• 6:55
  Unknown: a pretty sturdy ladder, by the way. It's gotta keep thinking about, yeah, like, wow, that thing has been there for how many years now?
• 7:00
  Jeff Leake: Well, I'm sure that it's symbolic now, and they probably, because of its fame, make sure that it doesn't deteriorate,
• 7:07
  Unknown: but they're touching it then, yeah?
• 7:09
  Jeff Leake: So I don't know, yeah, I don't know. I think they don't move it now, because it's been there so long, it's become historical, right? It's not that it's a value, it's just that now it's a historical article.
• 7:22
  Unknown: I'm like, wow, that thing is lasting through because it's leaned up against the wall.
• 7:24
  Unknown: Yeah, storms and gusts. Well, you
• 7:27
  Jeff Leake: can see the the places in the wall where it's carved out, where it leans so much that it actually created a space on the rock. That's nuts.
• 7:36
  Unknown: That's they just built the railing around it, yeah,
• 7:39
  Jeff Leake: to protect anyone from touching it. Probably, Oh, got it, yeah. I mean, this is, this is the most unusual site, too. When you go in there, there are, there's a long line to go and kiss the rock, yeah, where they believe the blood of Jesus dripped, right? No one knows exactly was that rock. I It's too unsanitary for me. I wasn't going to do that. And, like, I'm not exactly sure what you gain out of kissing it, right? So, and then there's a place where you can go through this long hour and a half line to find the entrance to the tomb. Okay?
• 8:10
  Jeff Leake: There's another place in Jerusalem, by the way, which is called the Garden Tomb, which is created by contemporary Christian organizations. And it feels a lot like you would expect the tomb to feel. But most scholars believe it's not the accurate location for Jesus's resurrection. Probably the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the spot. But back to the topic, disputes, cause divisions, which cause denominations? That's the simple articulation of it. Now 2000 years later, remember, we're eight years away from the 2000 year anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus and the birth of the church. So over 2000 years we have hundreds of denominations because of hundreds of disputes that have been created over a long period of time. And so it's not pretty, it's not it's not what I would like it to be, but it is the case. And so now many of us belong to a recent denomination, like Allison parks, a part of the Assemblies of God, which is an organization that started in 1914 so it's, it's a very recent one. A lot of people might belong to a non denominational church. Doesn't have any denomination at all it, but it sort of functions unto itself with their own little relational environment, not necessarily belonging to any institutionalized place. So who do? How do what's, what's the title again? How do we get all these denominations come from?
• 9:33
  Jeff Leake: And how do we know who's right?
• 9:33
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, okay, let's talk about the how do we know who's right part.
• 9:36
  Jeff Leake: Because I think that's really interesting in a way, so I don't identify personally, like, Okay, I'm a third generation Assemblies of God guy. My family came into the Assemblies of God through my grandparents and then my parents, and so your fourth gen Dave. So somewhere on your body there should be an A. G all the gospel tattooed in a way so but my primary identification is not with the assignments of God, it's with the early church. So when I think about the church, I don't think about the assignments of God. I think about the book of Acts. I think about I want to go back to the raw origins like I want to read the Bible, and I want to say I want to be as much like that.
• 10:21
  Jeff Leake: I'm not going back to the fourth century or the 17th century, or a lot of people go back to the Reformation the 15th century, or the revival movements in America or the Azusa Street Revival in the early nineteens. I'm going back to Acts. And I'm saying I belong to the Assemblies of God, functionally, but my theological and emotional attachment is to the early church that was started when the Holy Spirit was poured out. And that's my measurement, is that now out of that we come up with doctrinal statements, what we believe and what we practice and how we function, which then ultimately tells you which denominational tribe you probably fit in with.
• 11:01
  Jeff Leake: But for me, that's where i i go back to.
• 11:04
  Unknown: So you mean, you simplified, let's get into the nuance, because you simplified so much that it's like you could, I mean, we're at 11 minutes of this podcast, like, that's it.
• 11:16
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, that's the frame of it. There's a lot of gaps to fill in. But for me, I mean, it is true. Disputes started denominations, yeah, no doubt. And the early church is the be all and end all, yeah.
• 11:26
  Jeff Leake: And it doesn't answer who's right, because
• 11:30
  Unknown: the early church is no longer around when we left them, we left them 2000 years in the past, yeah, you know. So we
• 11:37
  Jeff Leake: would say which denomination is the truest to the early church would be, would be the way I'd measure it. And how do we become more like that so, but I mean, there's a lot of history we didn't cover. We could, we could track through the disputes, if you want, and where the splinters began.
• 11:55
  Jeff Leake: Because one thing that you'll hear this is something I've noticed. Dave, I don't know if you picked this up, because you're not on social media. But I'll say, first of all, over the last couple years, I have felt more and more an affinity with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I guess you'd say in the Roman Catholic Church, like I understand, there's so much that we have in common. When we did this episode a couple of years back on Catholics, cults and Christians. We tried to distinguish between what do Catholics believe, and what do we believe, and what are the differences? And if you did listen to that episode and you're looking for that particular slant, that would be probably one to go back to. And what we were saying this like two years ago, we did that one, yeah, but Roman Catholics have taken to social media, and there's a lot of voices out there now that are saying, Why, why you should be Catholic?
• 12:45
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, there are. Yeah there are.
• 12:48
  Jeff Leake: And which, I don't begrudge that at all, it's a lot of the high church
• 12:51
  Unknown: denominations.
• 12:51
  Unknown: Actually. It's not just Catholics, but I think they're leading and leading the push.
• 12:55
  Unknown: But it's, I feel like it's loose.
• 12:56
  Jeff Leake: That was a space for the longest time. You would really rarely see the high church voices, but I've actually seen some tick tock dance videos by priests and things that are going on where it's actually fun in a way. It's like making the Catholic Church or Anglican church or whatever, more accessible. Well,
• 13:15
  Unknown: it's, it's, it's saying, okay, so they're positioned very well on the pendulum swing of there was a swing. Let's feel less and less churchy. Like, yeah, let's get away from your your grandma.
• 13:27
  Unknown: We're
• 13:29
  Jeff Leake: already less churchy. They're trying to move in that direction, to become more accessible. Don't
• 13:34
  Unknown: you think, yeah, yeah, no, but, but I'm saying, I'm saying with just the appetite of culture, yeah, people are.
• 13:39
  Unknown: People are like, well, I don't need to just be like everybody else, like, if you're, if you're looking for spirituality, there is something appealing about going to somebody who's wearing a big hat and a collar and a robe, because it's like, okay, at least they're fully there, yeah? As opposed to like, ah, like, I wear jeans and a you know what? I mean, yeah, we have haze. Like, there's not that. I mean, we do that and not, not that. I'm against that, but I think there's something that attracts people to be like, Oh, this is like the, this is like a they never stopped being this religious, not that religious is, I mean, the directory term.
• 14:14
  Jeff Leake: So the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are the oldest denominations, yeah, what you will hear from Roman Catholics on social media is that they're the original that it that Jesus started one church, and it was the Catholic Church founded on Peter as the first pope, and that it's always been the Catholic Church, and any Splinter has been away from the Catholic Church, that's actually not completely historically accurate, right? So at first, when Christianity became legal, like 313 it was legal to be a Christian. 380 ad Christianity became the recommended or state religion of the Roman Empire. In the early stages, there. Was no official, institutionalized church. There was a structure in place. And actually what there was is there were, there was a five leaders that were called the Five patriars, patriarchs, another word for Pope. So basically, there were five popes that operated like a committee.
• 15:15
  Jeff Leake: One was in Rome, one was in Antioch one was in Constantinople, one was in Jerusalem, and one was in Alexandria. And they were like a overseeing committee of all the churches that had been established and planted the local churches. And they would decide on governing principles for the raw early movement of the legalized Church, the in that they had church councils like the Council of Nicaea, where they decided on the official canon of the Bible, or there was a council in Laodicea where they made policies about how priests should function and how local churches should operate. Okay, but it was all one team of five leaders that were operating without really a label, because it was all Christianity like they they didn't need to name it Catholic or Orthodox, because there was only one. It was just the Christian church. Now Catholic actually means universal, so technically, this was the universal church in in that sense a Catholic church, because it was, it was, it encompassed everything, but it wasn't what we think of as the Roman Catholic Church, because it wasn't until 1044 when there was a split between the four Eastern patriarchs and the one Roman patriarch Rome became influential in Europe, and the Roman Catholic Church splintered from those other four, and the other four became leaders in what we now think of Eastern Orthodox and they were the two primary so for the first 1000 years, it was basically one church, five patriarchs. Then it became a Roman version and an Eastern version, Eastern Orthodox. And then about 500 years later, there was something called the Reformation, where Luther began to question the practices, especially the Roman Catholic Church, and he split.
• 17:00
  Jeff Leake: He actually, Luther did not want to leave the Catholic Church. He was a Catholic priest, but he was kicked out of it, and therefore formed a brand new movement based on reformation theology, which takes us back to some original ideas in the New Testament. And from there, you get the Lutheran church. So now we basically have three groups that that have formed, and then out of reformation, we get others, right? Eventually we get the Anglican Church, which basically is what happens in Great Britain, because the king wants a divorce and remarriage that the Pope won't give him.
• 17:40
  Jeff Leake: And so he's sort of their state religion. He forms his own church to just fit his he's the head of the church, actually, yes, I think so. To this day, he's like, I'm done with you Catholic Church. I'm going to do my own thing. That doesn't mean Anglican Episcopal is a bad church. Actually, it's become a very healthy church all over the world, but that's where it begins to get its founding out of the Episcopal church comes in the 1700s some really intense spiritual desire that is led by John Leslie, which he starts the Methodist Church. So Methodists were actually Anglicans that were more intense in their spirituality. Presbyterians kind of came out of that too. Same kind of way the Baptist split off of the Anglican Church because they want to separate from this state religion that was going on in Great Britain.
• 18:27
  Jeff Leake: And so you can see splinter groups that have happened over time. Then if you get to the 1900s you have the Pentecostal revival that happens. And you have a bunch of Pentecostal movements that start the Assemblies of God, the church of God, the church of God, and Christ the four square actually, in after Pentecost in the days, in the early days of the westward expansion across the United States. Of course, the United States made denominationalism multiply. So 1000s, I shouldn't say 1000s, hundreds of splinter groups formed over theological disputes. So you have oneness theology, which becomes its own Pentecostal version, and you have the there was one denomination called the Holy Spirit baptized in fire movement, which believed that when you baptize people, you had to say that they were baptized in the fire of the Holy Spirit.
• 19:20
  Jeff Leake: Like little now disputes became reasons for denominational separation. Well, they were even from the beginning, though, yeah, that's true. I mean, other than typically, they the raw, early, early, several 100 year church just said, That's not Christianity, and they faded away. But Catholic
• 19:37
  Unknown: and Orthodox split over the mean, one of the major reasons was the so the father, sorry, the father is at the top of the hierarchy, and then the Son and Holy Spirit are under but orthodox said it's like the from the Father precedes the Son and Holy Spirit. And Catholic said, from the Father is the son, then from the Son is the.
• 19:58
  Unknown: Holy Spirit. And that was, like, the, should the Holy Spirit be ranked lowest, or should he be on T like, I think, I think a lot of it was actually more geopolitical,
• 20:09
  Jeff Leake: yeah, well, it was power. Oh, absolutely stated reason, the reason why Rome split from the other four was because of Rome had become the most powerful branch and most influential in Europe. So, by the way, there's a, there's a great book that if you're interested in those five patriarchs and what happens in the years 300 to 1000 it's called lost to the west. It's written by a guy named Lars brown worth and it will give you the details on some of this historical stuff if you're interested in
• 20:38
  Unknown: that. Yeah, I was gonna look that up. Lost to the west.
• 20:40
  Unknown: Yeah.
• 20:41
  Jeff Leake: So I guess now the question Dave is, because we could go into various doctrinal splinterings that have happened, I'm not sure that's going to be helpful for anybody. Sure. Our goal here was to say, where did it all come from? And now, how do we know who's right? Yeah, is the second part of this. But I guess there's kind of a third question is, what do we do with all this? Like, if you're a follower of Jesus and there are all these denominations, and we're supposed to be loving each other, like, Okay, we don't want to be holy ladder. Or, excuse me, immovable ladder people who are constantly because for a long time, you didn't go to a church unless it fit your tribe that you grew up with, like, if you moved to Pittsburgh and you were now new to the area and you were Presbyterian, the only thought was to find a Presbyterian Church, right? Or, if you were Catholic, you went to a Catholic church. I don't think that's the thing anymore.
• 21:31
  Jeff Leake: I think people now maybe this is good and bad. People show up in a church not knowing what the Church believes. They just want.
• 21:38
  Jeff Leake: They want a church that makes them feel a certain way. Well, a Catholic church, you know, you're getting, yeah, yeah, it's true.
• 21:45
  Unknown: And maybe some of the high church denominations, I think some of the like the older ones, you're still looking for that. But I think largely in contemporary churches, of any whether it's Baptist or product, you know, sorry, Pentecostal or whatever it might be. I do think you sort of walk into like, Oh, let's see what this is.
• 22:04
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, for sure.
• 22:04
  Jeff Leake: Well, I like the pastors, the music, good kind of thing. I actually think it's probably not good that people don't know what they believe and what that church believes, and that they're matching something that they that they actually agree with. It takes probably a year or so to you like, oh, you believe that? Like, I didn't know you feel like that, yeah, well, if I want to stay here anymore, right? So that's part of, I think the, you know, the way things have changed in 2024 well, it
• 22:30
  Unknown: also like, so you have some, okay, the scenario you're talking about, the presupposition is a seasoned Christian with a set theology move somewhere, and should know what the pastor believes. Often people are like, I don't even know what I believe, yeah.
• 22:46
  Jeff Leake: Well, you should probably at least go on the website to read their statement.
• 22:48
  Jeff Leake: Yeah. But
• 22:50
  Unknown: how would you know?
• 22:50
  Unknown: This is the question. How do you know who's right? So it's like, within like, where do we understand theology from, and what like, All right, well, let
• 22:59
  Jeff Leake: me, let me, since I've talked for a lot of this, how do we know it's right? Well, let
• 23:02
  Unknown: me quickly, just by the way, say that loss of the West is included in Spotify Premium.
• 23:05
  Unknown: Okay, you can get it for free, yeah? Oh, nice, yeah. I mean, like so Spotify does audio books. Now, if you're the primary account holder, yeah, you
• 23:14
  Jeff Leake: can listen to audio books on there, which is nice.
• 23:16
  Jeff Leake: Just a little preparation. You have to like history to like this book. So it's going to be, it's going to wade through some things, but if you stick with it, you'll learn a lot. Yeah.
• 23:25
  Jeff Leake: Okay, so how do we how do we know it's right, Dave, what, what? Which denomination is the right one to belong to? How do I know I'm in the right church?
• 23:31
  Jeff Leake: What do I do with the fact there are all these Christian denominations that are out there? Is there a way that we can make peace with each other?
• 23:39
  Jeff Leake: Do we ever cooperate on anything. I mean, these are questions. I think that are good questions. So where do I start?
• 23:45
  Jeff Leake: How do we know who's right?
• 23:48
  Unknown: Well, I think it's, it's easier to start with shaving off the sides that you're like, Well, we know this isn't right. You know there are so there are major, major, major denominational splits right now over Christian sexuality, just as a really easy example, where the authority of the Bible is being challenged or it's reinterpreted, even though, I mean, it's it so okay, how do we know who's right? Well, there are core tenets of the faith that we would call dogmas that every Orthodox Church should hold to orthodox means every, every main line, well,
• 24:28
  Jeff Leake: even that word is difficult, every, every church that's true to the Scripture, that's
• 24:33
  Unknown: true to the Scripture and it's true to Jesus, yeah, should believe some basic So, for example, the Trinity, the fall of man, the authority the Scriptures that Jesus is the actual son. Let's
• 24:43
  Jeff Leake: just start with the one you mentioned, uh huh. So first, yeah, we believe in the authority of the Bible, yeah.
• 24:50
  Jeff Leake: Okay, go ahead. We believe that the Bible is the basis for what we believe and what we practice.
• 24:53
  Jeff Leake: Yep, yep. So a church that does not believe in the authority of the Bible. Bible would not be the place you'd want to
• 25:02
  Unknown: stay. Alright, you need to redefine what authority of the Bible means. You do it okay.
• 25:04
  Unknown: So the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God that has no errors. It is it is a it is perfect, and it is authoritative for our life. And I guess the other part of this should be that the Bible is meant to be understood from the intended meaning of the authors. So it's, it is, it is divine. Every word of it's divinely inspired by God. It has total authority. And we should try to understand it as the authors meant to be, because the where the Bible stops being, the authority is, what does it mean to me?
• 25:43
  Jeff Leake: Okay, so we believe, so dig
• 25:46
  Unknown: on to that. What does it mean to me? Because, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Okay, so, so, because the Bible does a personal meaning, I just think that if we skim that's going to be we're going to be lost. Does a personal meaning to me. But what did the Apostle Paul mean when he wrote Romans chapter one, for example, it's in his ended meeting his intended meaning to the church in Rome that he was writing to right, to the hearers, to the readers, whatever.
• 26:14
  Jeff Leake: So it's, it's making the truth objectified. Yeah,
• 26:17
  Unknown: yeah. Oh, this is what they because otherwise you're taking out of context. Even now, if you clip up my voice and you piece words I said together, you're taking what I said legit out of context, because that's not my intended meaning. It's your intended meaning using my words, yes. So the intended meaning is what we're what we're searching for. Actually, the whole practice of this is called hermeneutics, the study of the principles for interpreting the Bible correctly so any, any church believes that the Bible is the the inspired, authoritative word for God, Word of God to us, and we want to take that wholesale and interpret it to the best of our ability. So
• 26:51
  Jeff Leake: let's look at that historically. Yeah, the very first council that they could hold after the church became a legal possibility was in 325, where they determined, and I guess you would say where they finally came above ground and said emphatically, these are the books of the Bible that we see as authoritative, correct for our lives and the and that was important, because more than the patriarchs and popes, the the the written word was the preeminent guide for life. Now, eventually, over time, the Catholic Church has elevated the Pope's voice to be equal with the Bible. We would say the Bible supersedes any other human authority, because it's God breathed by the power Person of the Holy Spirit. So we aren't looking to any other human leader currently to set the standard for us, because the word of God is the final standard. But then there are other churches that don't follow the Pope or the Bible. They're probably more following the cultural flow, and they're taking certain parts of the Bible to make it fit what their world they're
• 28:01
  Unknown: following values of justice. They're falling. They would take principles out of the Bible, and where the Bible seems to disagree with their principles, they're like, well, that's outdated, or they might not have meant that anyway. Or, you know, we're gonna, we're not gonna allow the Bible to be that exclusive to people.
• 28:19
  Jeff Leake: Yeah. So it's an evolving theology, rather than a rooted one in in in the scriptures and in history. I would say that's one of the potential dangers with Catholicism as well, is that it's an evolving theology well, because the pope can change it, and he kind of has, and he is right currently. Yeah, right.
• 28:34
  Jeff Leake: Okay, so first is, it is the authority of the Bible. That's number one, right? What else would be key factors for us?
• 28:41
  Jeff Leake: Jesus is the Son of God, yeah.
• 28:45
  Jeff Leake: Okay, there you go. Without that, you have nothing really, yeah, right, absolutely, literally, physically died on the cross, that He was buried in the ground and that he literally, physically rose from the dead. Yep, there are a lot of, there are a lot of denominations that don't believe that, yeah, so they believe that was figurative or spiritualistic, yeah, not physical, right,
• 29:06
  Unknown: right? Yeah, yeah. And that, I mean it there. It's explicit in Scripture. If Christ didn't really race from the dead, I mean, Paul has whole,
• 29:14
  Jeff Leake: then we're just making it all Exactly. What point is there built on the resurrection?
• 29:18
  Unknown: Yeah? Um, okay, then, then sin, you know, the the fall of man into sin and his need for salvation is a dogma. Man
• 29:26
  Jeff Leake: is not basically good and getting better. We're, we're, we're evil, and need to be saved. Yeah? Salvation of man's next one, I would say. And we're saved not by our own good works, but by putting our trust in what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Yeah, I'm using editors now. We're getting to into reference Luthers, reformational thinking, right? Sure, solely.
• 29:43
  Jeff Leake: Sola scriptura, only the Bible is the authority, right, right?
• 29:46
  Jeff Leake: You know, sola Fauci, which is only by faith in Christ can I be saved, right? Sola Gracia, which means only by the grace of God can I be saved. So. So there are five of these principles that came out of the Reformation that brought. Biblical foundational ideas that had been lost over these hundreds of years prior, that we would definitely fall within that framework of that reformational thought. We
• 30:12
  Unknown: would fall under that but I would argue that it's pretty clear that those are principles that if you're reading the Bible from the perspective of what the author intended. They're there. They're there. Yeah, they're so they're apparent principles that Luther brought to the surface, but they've been there all the time.
• 30:27
  Unknown: So, so what happened, no, they're not new theology, yeah, part of the splintering was you have this historical church that has like, 1000, not 1000s, but hundreds. You know, I guess, over, over, over a millennia of history of he lost its way. It's it's culture, it's leadership.
• 30:47
  Unknown: And many people were used by God powerfully, and they were moved to the spirit all throughout those but they there had been an elevation of church leadership and hierarchy and tradition over scripture, sometimes in direct contradiction, overriding what Scripture actually said.
• 31:04
  Jeff Leake: So some of the denominations were formed not just out of dispute, but out of a call back to the source concepts. Yeah, Christianity is exactly I would say. The Azusa Street revivals in the early 1900s were that they were a call back to the working of the Holy Spirit and the demonstration of God's supernatural power, which had also been sort of lost from the church's experience. And the reason why denominations were formed like Church of God in Christ, Assemblies of God Foursquare wasn't because they set out to form denominations.
• 31:34
  Jeff Leake: As much as that they were kicked out of their pre existing denominations because they were practicing biblical, Holy Spirit oriented activities. So organizations were formed because these folks had no place to belong, right?
• 31:47
  Unknown: By the way, I am, I am rusty in my church history here, so I might say something ignorant, but if we're talking about dogma, the Nicene Creed would probably be a good place to start, right? So
• 32:01
  Jeff Leake: read it for us.
• 32:01
  Jeff Leake: Dave, okay, this is, this is one of these under so we're not a high church movement. We're more in the informal space. But the Nicene Creed, which was an old historic creed, sort of summarizes, yeah, okay. What is Christianity?
• 32:20
  Unknown: Okay, so here's the Nicene Creed. I believe this is it, at least. This is off of the Christian reformed church's website. All right. We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord, Jesus, Christ, the only son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God begotten, not made of the same essence as the Father.
• 32:44
  Unknown: Through Him, all things were made for us and for our salvation. He came down from heaven. He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made human. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried the third day, he rose again, according to the Scriptures, he ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.
• 33:09
  Unknown: His kingdom will never end. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.
• 33:20
  Unknown: He spoke to the prophets. And then here it goes into the Catholic part of it. But we believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Catholic
• 33:28
  Jeff Leake: meaning not what you think of as Roman Catholic, but universal
• 33:32
  Unknown: right. We affirm one Baptism for the begin this of sins. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead into the world and to life in the world to come, amen. But you know, the one part of I would say we maybe didn't cover in our dogma survey, is the hope of Jesus coming back, that one day he'll come back and, you know, judge every every person living in so
• 33:52
  Jeff Leake: this creed for centuries was read in almost every church service as the core skeleton of doctrine that those who are part of the Christian faith agreed with and stood for, and people who come back and read this creed now we would say those who align with this creed would have the skeleton, the backbone of what Christianity truly is. Yes. So we would be we would absolutely whole harm the Nicene Creed with some of those caveats of what the word Catholic means, right, right, so and so, knowing what you believe that way we sing that song. Is that the Nicene Creed? I believe in God our Father. I believe in Christ, his son. Is that the Nicene creed that we sing? I think it's based off of it, yeah, okay,
• 34:40
  Unknown: but I don't think it is the Creed itself. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's, that's the that based off the doxology, praise the father, praise the son, praise the spirit, three and one,
• 34:53
  Jeff Leake: anyway, regardless.
• 34:53
  Jeff Leake: I think, I think what we're, what we're getting around to, is that the early church is the be all and end all.
• 35:00
  Unknown: That? Well, the Bible is the be all and end all. That describes the function of literature. Yeah? Exactly, exactly.
• 35:06
  Jeff Leake: Who declares the a physical, resurrected Jesus, who is the hope of the world. What do you I don't understand, we're up reading here. No, I'm not reading. Oh yeah. I'm just saying stuff. Okay,
• 35:20
  Unknown: I'm just saying stuff, yeah, it's a good caption for our podcast. Just saying stuff.
• 35:22
  Unknown: Okay, so, so how do we know who's right? Well, first of all that somebody would affirm the essential tenets of the faith, the dogmas, the Nicene Creed, the things that everybody within the one true church would believe that's that's the first part that I would say. How do we know who's right? Beyond that, I think you've been hitting on this a lot, but I think other other tests, litmus tests, would be, Does, does the what does, what happens in the church reflect the workings of the early church?
• 35:59
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, right. Does the activity of the book back show up in your local setting?
• 36:02
  Jeff Leake: So, for example,
• 36:06
  Unknown: the great, great, great commission you know, that go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptize them, and then fathers and the Holy Spirit and teaching them. They all that I've commanded you. So, you know, go and make disciples. So winning the lost, making disciples that make other disciples. That is a praying for the sick, yeah, right, believing
• 36:27
  Jeff Leake: for the Holy Spirit to be poured out, helping the poor, doing the things that are
• 36:31
  Unknown: even having healthy, healthy community that cares for each other, studying the Word together, you know, having a high value for the word. So I think that there are, could I say it's not? I think that there could be a lot of churches within a lot of denominations that are healthy and that are pursuing things of the book of Acts. I don't, I don't know that there's
• 36:52
  Jeff Leake: because, and in that sense, we do believe in the Holy Catholic Church. Here's what I mean. It's the big C church.
• 36:59
  Jeff Leake: It's the church that that is the overarching umbrella, because ultimately, no denomination is the be all and end all. No, right, we're all a part of a larger movement of those who are trying to follow Jesus. And even though we might have differences of opinion with people on various doctrinal ideas or worship styles or whatever, you know, the the dispute or or or or difference would be, we still belong to the same Jesus. We still are a part of the same church of Jesus Christ overall.
• 37:28
  Jeff Leake: And we should be working to build bridges and to join arms with other people of different nominations, so that we close the gap of the disputes and the divisions that have existed as long as they they're they're in the zone of what we would call historic, established Christianity.
• 37:45
  Unknown: Yeah, they believe that the Orthodox Church, right?
• 37:48
  Unknown: Orthodox Christianity, or it's
• 37:49
  Jeff Leake: not Greek Orthodox, it's not Eastern Orthodox Church. But yes, they would be orthodox to the Christian faith.
• 37:55
  Jeff Leake: Yeah. So
• 37:57
  Unknown: what? How do we interact with those that maybe have the label of Christian, and they attend a church that falls outside of that, yeah,
• 38:06
  Jeff Leake: so that's a good question. I think, I think that's a tough one. So I think there's some general things that we do in the world that we can work with anybody on, regardless of who you are, right? So if we want to work for peace in a situation, if we're going to help the poor, if so, I'm a part of an organization called multi faith neighbors network, where we try to get evangelical pastors, rabbis and Imams together to work for the good of the local community. And when Afghan Afghan refugees moved into Pittsburgh, mosques, synagogues and churches work together to help raise money and provide clothing for these people who move into our city to benefit. So I think in these general do good circumstances.
• 38:50
  Jeff Leake: You can work with anybody. So someone who's not a Christian, let's say a Jehovah's Witness that we would call cult or Mormon, that may be completely different from Christianity, and they want to work together to serve the poor or make peace up.
• 39:02
  Jeff Leake: I think you can work with anybody, those that you're going to closely fellowship with, that you're going to join arms with, that you're going to be yoked together with. I think you have to be in agreement, at least on the basics of what it is to follow Christ. So let
• 39:17
  Unknown: me, let me throw a complicated scenario that I've experienced, you probably have to, I won't give the exact details, but like, you're working together in a or you have an opportunity to work with someone in a, you know, caring for people in need, type of ministry, and it's like, okay, You're going to have two churches, the grouping together that are so my church and another church that believes something outside of Orthodox.
• 39:46
  Unknown: Specifically, this is one that was, you know, they're, they're an affirming church that, you know, sort of leading biblical sexuality, Christian sexuality, behind. And so the dilemma is like, do we just, we're both doing some of. Benevolent. We're doing something out of love for the community, but is it going to cause confusion as far as like, oh, come to either one of our churches, like, are you we're basically
• 40:07
  Jeff Leake: the same, right?
• 40:07
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, right, yeah. That's a tough one. That's a tough one. I think in that situation, I would try to determine what your purpose is. So we're going into this community to serve with the intention of building a relationship with the people who live here to to get them to come to our church. The only way that I think that would work is if your church got top billing, and the other church was going to come underneath your name with an understanding of what your theology was, but they say we don't care about that, as long as these kids get resources, okay, yeah, or if you're saying we don't care if this community comes to our church because we're too far away, or whatever, we just want to get these resources to the kids. And we know this church is different from us theologically, but we're going to come and serve under their umbrella, and we're not going to even try to make a difference, because all we care is just that these poor people get what they need, I think. And that sounded patronizing people in need receive the resources, right? So I think that's probably the clarifying thing.
• 41:11
  Jeff Leake: But it's not an automatic like you can't just automatically say, Oh yeah, well, we're we both bear the label Christian, not any more than you could with a Jehovah's Witness, because there's definite theological I actually think in many ways, the churches that no longer adhere to orthodox creeds or biblical authority, they're probably something slightly different than Christianity, even though you might know the name of Christianity, so you have to sort of treat them as that.
• 41:39
  Jeff Leake: Yeah. But those who do hold to the Orthodox creeds and the authority of the Scripture, even where you have minor doctrinal differences, you can work with them, yeah? And we should be working together with them, yeah? And that's kind of one of these sticky places of of where things are today. So, but where you attend locally, you need to know that that church is a biblical, Orthodox theological situation, okay, in order to be rooted into something healthy, yeah?
• 42:11
  Unknown: So once you root into something healthy, what does it mean to actually root it root into something healthy, you know, like, let's uh,
• 42:17
  Jeff Leake: let's just, well, doctrine matters. Yeah, it matters what you believe. It matters your what your church believes it matters what you're being taught. You should be a student of the word. You should be a student of theology. I'm not. You'd have to be a theologian. Gotta know the basics. So, you know, I know in our next episode, just a little tease, we're going to talk about some things, about habits spiritually, getting on some like a Bible reading plan as we get ready to go into the new year, where you're really studying the Word, getting into a life group that's actually studying the Word, going through some membership classes where you understand what the church you belong to teaches, finding books to read or podcasts to listen to, like something like this that introduces you to biblical truth, like you need to be on a journey to root yourself in truth and into health. And that just doesn't happen. That happens because you were, you're intentional about
• 43:11
  Unknown: it. You know, there's a forget who it was by I think there was a book I wrote read in college freshman year, called that, everyone's a theologian or no, no. It's called, who needs theology? It's what it was. And the sort of the idea was, everybody's a theologian like you. Everybody has ideas about God and who he is, and the Bible, it's just how formed are they, how specific, how how concrete, how much are they researched and informed by, by actual, you know, scripture, I guess you could say so, I think.
• 43:40
  Jeff Leake: And ultimately the New Testament. The more you, the more you immerse yourself in the New Testament, the reading of the book of Acts, of the Gospels, the epistles that Paul writes and Peter and John and the others. The more you're, you're you're rooting into early church, thinking, yeah, right, which is really where we want to go. Okay,
• 43:56
  Unknown: next steps for you. Now at this point, because we've talked a lot about the splinters of the church and why, there are different things. And we've sort of set laid out some criteria knowing basic Christian truths, which is theological in nature.
• 44:10
  Unknown: And maybe you're like, Where do I even start? Well, I mean, there's a bunch of free resources. The Bible project is a good place to learn about books of the Bible in terms of what they actually say. It's not a theological website, or, I should say organization so much as is a hermeneutical one. We talked about trying to understand what is being said and what the intention of the authors is. Yeah, Bible project is excellent with that. Faosu is they have a lot of free
• 44:38
  Jeff Leake: talks about that one. I know a lot of our staffs into this now. Yeah,
• 44:40
  Unknown: there's a so I actually don't know who founded it or formed it, but I know they're based out of Texas. I believe one of the primary communicators named Nathan manokio, and they have a bunch of free courses that are theology courses.
• 44:51
  Unknown: They're very accessible. They also have degree programs that you can get into. But it's your online self study. Yeah, online self study, it's a good way.
• 44:58
  Unknown: Getting. But my personal favorite, that I'd recommend is the Alice Park Leadership Academy.
• 45:04
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, okay, right.
• 45:04
  Jeff Leake: That's that's some place, if you're attending here, or you want to come in here, from September to May, there's a school year. There's also global university, which is associated with our denomination, which is a good place to find. So global
• 45:15
  Unknown: university is a bachelor's or associate level program, but they have a option, yeah, but that's called Berean School of the Bible, right?
• 45:24
  Unknown: Which is the same essential material in the courses, but it's unaccredited, meaning that you can, you can spend a fraction, like less than a 10th of the price, to get educated without actually having a degree in Bible and theology.
• 45:38
  Unknown: Regardless, you don't have to go so, so, so hardcore, if you don't feel like that's where God's leading you, but you should know the basics, yeah.
• 45:46
  Unknown: And if you don't, that's not a judgment, it's just say, Hey, this is a great year to say, I want to learn about who God is, and I want to start to, you know, hammer out what I believe about Scripture. Yeah. And
• 45:58
  Jeff Leake: if you belong to Allison Park Church, or a church that's in the same flow as we are. You might want to go to ag.org, which is the Assemblies of God website, which will tell you some of the history and doctrine of this organization that we're part of. We'll get again, every denomination is imperfect in some way. No denomination is the Church that Jesus started. Right, right?
• 46:16
  Jeff Leake: But, but if you're in one, if you're in a church that's in one, it's good to know the framework of that too. Probably your church's website has some doctrinal statements on it too well. And look at that. Yeah,
• 46:27
  Unknown: absolutely, by the way, you know, I think there's a lot of videos circling the internet that are different other different religions, debunking the Bible, debunking, you know, Paul talks about being able to correctly handle the word of truth. That's that's part of why we need to know a little bit of theology. If all you're doing is in taking and being fed from sound bites and clips and preachers online.
• 46:46
  Jeff Leake: If someone has said something on a little clip that's disturbed you and said, I never knew that was true, it might not be true. It might not be true. Yes, yes. So don't, don't let tick tock be your theological framework
• 46:58
  Unknown: for your informant. I mean, if, if they, if they triggered you
• 47:01
  Jeff Leake: so that you want to learn more, that's good, but just don't take what's said on the internet as gospel.
• 47:06
  Unknown: Oh, man, they're really it's sort of like if somebody had said something with an edgy anti establishment type of tone.
• 47:13
  Unknown: You're like, wow, they've been lying to me. Yes. Like, no, maybe they're lying to you right now. Yes, right. You know what I mean, more likely they're lying to you right now. And
• 47:21
  Jeff Leake: that's why. So there is there, by the way, the song that we mentioned earlier, I believe in God, our Father, is called this. I This, I believe.
• 47:27
  Jeff Leake: And it's by Hillsong, and it's based on the Apostles Creed, which is another one of those ancient creeds like the Nicene one, that is one of the creeds that is like a skeleton for Orthodox theology. Good. I love it, yeah? So you can go to Spotify and type in this I believe, and sing some good theology if you want. Yeah,
• 47:47
  Unknown: okay, sort of to spin it all back around the denominations that we have formed for a lot of different reasons. But if you're trying to find out who's right, you have to start to learn the Bible for yourself, right? And if you want to be safe and make sure that your your family is in the right spot, that you're healthy and growing, because it's not just like, well, I feel like I'm learning or I feel community.
• 48:11
  Unknown: You could feel great community in a lot of cults, which is why people end up, in part why they join them. Yeah, so, you know, learn the Bible. Learn what the Word of God says and learn what the church you're in believes, learn what the church you're in believes, that's also a good thing. And we're not recommending that you leave just for anything like, oh, I disagree. If it's a small thing, it doesn't necessarily mean that that's the wrong place for you to be. There are, there are, like, tier four issues that it's like, ah, do we believe the same thing about pre trib Rapture?
• 48:36
  Unknown: Or, like, there's like, you know, really fine details that maybe aren't worth disfellowshipping. You could say,
• 48:45
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, but there are some guy that said this, Dave, this just popped into my head as you were talking. He said, this is actually a good summary for how do we deal with people of differing opinions, because you said, you don't just jump out with any difference of opinions.
• 48:58
  Jeff Leake: He said, Whoever this was. In essentials, we have unity. So in the key things, yeah, in essentials, we have unity. And in non essentials, we have liberty, which means you have the right to disagree with something like, like our last episode on predestination, that's non essential if you believe slightly different, it's okay, right? In essentials we have unity. In non essentials, we have live Augustine. And in all things, we have charity, which means in all things, we love each other. So in essentials, essential theological orthodox doctrine, we have to be unified on that, because that's the the keys to what it is to be a Christian.
• 49:35
  Jeff Leake: The Augustine
• 49:37
  Unknown: was one of the church fathers. And essentials, unity and non essentials, liberty and all things charity, yeah.
• 49:43
  Jeff Leake: And he was a leader in the fifth century, which is part of the first 500 years of the church, right? So, um, yeah, I think that's a good summary statement. That is a good summary statement, yeah. So you got to know your essentials. Got to know your essentials, right?
• 49:54
  Jeff Leake: That's kind of the baseline, not in everything, and in everything, regardless of. Who they are, where they're coming from. You gotta have love, yeah?
• 50:02
  Jeff Leake: Because that's the defining mark of the behavior and attitude and disposition of a Christian, yeah.
• 50:08
  Unknown: And truth, absent of love, is just mean spirited, and it's unlike Jesus, right? So that's, that's what we strive for. Anything else you want to.
• 50:16
  Unknown: Close on Merry
• 50:18
  Jeff Leake: Christmas, everybody. Hope you have an amazing holiday season. We look forward to next year in season six. Yeah, and
• 50:25
  Unknown: again, we would love to open presents of five star reviews that we can shout out your names in this new year won't be this next episode, because we will already have that recorded before, before the New Year's. You know, New Year actually comes. But we would love to say thank you for helping us spread the word. I talk to people all the time who are always like, I want to help you. I'm just not sure how to do it. You know, if you're not sure how to do it, and you're listening to this, and you're gonna see your family, ask your niece or your nephew or your grandkids, they will help you.
• 50:54
  Unknown: Hey, help me leave a five star review on this. They'll help you figure that out. And I know that that sounds like a pain in the butt. Maybe it's gonna like, I'm not even sure it's worth it. It really worth it. It really is worth it to us, because this helps us to become easier to find and access as we want to share resources with everybody.
• 51:09
  Unknown: So you can like and subscribe.
• 51:12
  Unknown: If you're on YouTube, you can leave a five star review. If you're on any kind of podcast platform, you can share this with your friends. You can text them the link. There's a little arrow to send this through text.
• 51:20
  Unknown: But whatever you do, we would super appreciate it. So again, we'll just say, one more time, happy holidays. Enjoy your Christmas. We'll see you guys again next year. Bye.