Doctrine in the Life of the Early Church
The word "lesson" is didaché . The gathered church was a teaching assembly. Prophecy, tongues, and interpretations were evaluated, but teaching was central to edification.
Paul also distinguishes the modes of his own ministry: "Now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching?"
Now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching?
1 Corinthians 14:6
Here "teaching" is didaché . It is listed alongside revelation, knowledge, and prophecy as a means of benefiting the church. Yet unlike tongues, it required no interpretation. It was intelligible, orderly, and foundational. The normal diet of the church was the didaché .
Doctrine in the Life of the Early Church The early church was not a doctrinally minimalist movement. Their experience of the Spirit did not diminish their commitment to teaching; it deepened it. The Spirit was given to guide into all truth, not to bypass it.
Where the didaché flourished, the church flourished. Several functions of doctrine in the apostolic church must be observed.
1. Doctrine Defined Identity The first Christians were known not merely by ethical distinctives but by confessional ones. They were those who "confessed Jesus as Lord" and who held to the "form of teaching" delivered to them. Baptism was the initiatory oath of allegiance to Christ and His doctrine. The didaché told them who they were: saints, brothers, the body of Christ, the temple of the Spirit.
Without doctrine, identity dissolves into moralism or mysticism.
2. Doctrine Directed Unity Acts 2:42 places the apostles' teaching alongside fellowship. The two are wed. True fellowship is not achieved by minimizing doctrine but by sharing
it. The Jerusalem church was unified because they were devoted to the same didaché . When divisions arose, as in Acts 15, the resolution was doctrinal.
The apostles and elders met, searched the Scriptures, and issued a definitive teaching. The letter sent to the churches was not a compromise; it was a clarification of doctrine. Unity was preserved by truth, not by avoiding it.
3. Doctrine Fueled Worship The prayer and breaking of bread in Acts 2:42 flowed from devotion to the teaching. The more the early church understood Christ, the more fervently they adored Him. The hymns recorded in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 are saturated with doctrine. Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom through psalms and hymns was the means of letting the word of Christ dwell richly. Doctrine was not the rival of doxology. It was its fuel. A church empty of doctrine is soon empty of worship, for there is nothing left to sing about.
4. Doctrine Shaped Ethics The apostles never separated indicative and imperative. Every epistle moves from gospel declaration to ethical instruction. The "therefore" of Romans
12 rests on the eleven chapters of doctrine preceding it. The didaché told believers not only what to believe but how to live as those who believed it.
Repentance, holiness, love, marriage, work, and citizenship were all brought under the authority of the teaching. To receive the didaché was to enter a new ethical universe governed by the risen Lord.
5. Doctrine Enabled Mission The church in Acts did not advance by strategy alone. It advanced by doctrine. The apostles reasoned from the Scriptures in synagogues. They taught daily in the temple and from house to house. Acts 5:42: "And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus." Teaching and preaching were the twin engines of evangelism. The gospel was proclaimed, then explained.