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The telephone call came just after we had finished our evening meal at the Knight's Palace Hotel in the Old City of Jerusalem in May 2005. The message instructed me to come now to the library of the Greek Orthodox patriarch if I wanted to see the manuscript. I changed my clothes quickly and scurried through the labyrinthine lanes of the Old City. After entering the Greek Orthodox monastery, I made my way to the library. Soon, the librarian delivered what I had waited years to see—a 950-year-old, 200-page manuscript containing, along with a dozen other early writings, a little work only 10 pages long. Its name is the Didache (the "Teaching," pronounced "didakhay"), short for The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. While no one believes that any of the twelve apostles wrote it, scholars agree that the work is a faithful transmission of the apostles' teaching, intended primarily for the training of Gentile believers.

Why do I have such an interest in this piece of parchment, the only manuscript copy known to exist? Although scholars fiercely debate many issues about the Teaching, most agree that it was written toward the end of the first century, by an anonymous author who probably lived in the area of Syria near Antioch. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that the believers were first called Christians in Antioch. This term also appears in the Teaching.

The fact that the Didache comes from such an early period of church history should make the Teaching of interest to every believer. But, while scholars have discussed the Teaching for years, the average Christian has virtually no knowledge of this little treasure, which can be found in The Apostolic Fathers in English (Baker, 2006) edited by Michael W. Holmes. That's too bad, because this earliest of church manuals contains some instructions that may help us to "do church" today.

Let me disappoint any reader who is hoping to find in the Teaching evidence of a "lost Christianity" that will forever alter our understanding of the early church (like some Da Vinci Code conspiracy). The Teaching is thoroughly orthodox in its doctrine and, hence, from its discovery and subsequent publication in 1883, it has been included among the writings known as the Apostolic Fathers. But it is not just a simple repetition of information we already have in the New Testament. The initial point of the Teaching is that we should love God and others—taken from Deuteronomy 6:5 and from Jesus' command in Matthew 22:37-39. The Didache, however, adds a form of the Golden Rule familiar to Jewish readers: "Whatever you do not wish to happen to you, do not do to another." Ancient Jewish sources record the great rabbi Hillel expressing this idea in its negative form.

Other Jewish themes, adapted to a Christian context, abound in the book. Ethical behavior is commended in the form of "two ways," a theme adapted right from the Old Testament (see Ps. 1:1-6). The Lord's Prayer is to be offered three times a day, just like the time-honored Jewish practice (Ps. 55:17). The prayers accompanying the Lord's Table, or the Eucharist, are forms of a familiar Jewish prayer called the birkat hamazon offered at meal times. Unfortunately, most of our churches today know little about the Jewish roots of early Christianity. To return to our Jewish roots involves more than occasionally inviting a Jewish believer to speak in our pulpits.

The Teaching also can guide us regarding false teachers, and it does so in a surprising way. While it commends strongly the ministry of hospitality, it uses equally strong language for those teachers who prey upon the kindness of believers. It sets the limit on traveling teachers' stays in believers' homes at one or two nights. Also, in accord with Jesus' teaching, such traveling itinerants were to be compensated by meeting their physical needs. With a refreshing straightforwardness, however, the Didachist admonishes concerning guest teachers: "But if he asks for money, he is a false prophet." One wonders what the Didachist would say today if he could witness the tearful requests for monetary gifts that come from some of our modern day "prophets." And what would early Christians think of preachers today who demand a certain fee for preaching at a church or conference?

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June 2006, Vol. 50, No. 6