Over at Christianity Today there is an interesting article entitled: What the Teaching Can Teach Us by William Varner. It is about the Didache and what Christians can learn from it today!
I reckon forget the conspiracy theories of the Da Vinci Code, put away the apocalyptic soap-opera of the Left Behind Series, get over your Veggie Tales addiction, the Didache is the kind of book that Christians should be reading and cherishing; that and the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch.
9 comments:
I guess you know you've been reading too many blogs when you think that "CT" means "Chris Tilling" instead of "Christianity Today"....
Get over your Veggie Tales addiction?!?!
Them's fightin' words.
Mike, I just thought I would say that Dr. Varner is my Greek prof at my college. He is an amazing Greek prof who loves the Lord and his students. Earlier this month he brought the article to class for us to read. He has been working in the Didache for sometime now and is in the middle of writing a book on it, which is to be publihed, Lord willing in Oct by Univeristy of America Press. I have the privledge of helping him with research and compiling an index as well as the bibliography. I am excited to see him getting some recognition on blogs as well as CT.
Michael,
Thanks for the heads-up. As I read the CT article I couldn't help wishing that the Didache had made it in the canon and Hebrews was left out. Yikes, did I say that? Well, I guess what I mean is I've been trying to study Hebrews for several weeks now, even scanning a commentary this morning and I seem farther from understanding it than when I began. The Didache sounds comfortingly comprehensible.
Lingy, leave out Hebrews, "yikes" indeed! But I agree that the Didache would have been a worthy inclusion to the canon.
I'll try to get a copy. I wonder if there's an e-book edition...
Can I also recommend Aaron Milavec who has done two works on the Didache, a short and a long, both excellent works that we use as a community, both as a preaching text and as a guide to understanding the two way teaching...the Didache is so very superior to all our current discipleship materials...read it soon
OK, I looked this up online. Here: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/didache.html
Is the the whole thing? The text is shorter than the entire CT article! Anyone have a source for the Greek text online?
Neato!
I was able to get a e-text translation from the source above which I transferred to my Palm TX. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Didache. Speaking of the canon it is probably a mercy of God that the Didache or some similar document didn't make it into the canon. It is far more prescriptive than most of the books of the NT and I think the regulations would have stifled the faith. Even so, it is reminiscent of James and of course quotes Jesus in several places.
I think I'll go read it again.
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