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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alexander_English" data-source="post: 1519895" data-attributes="member: 18147">Thank you, I benefit often from reading St. John Chrysostom, but I have not looked deeply into many other early Christian writers.  I suppose the next people to look into would be St. Basil the Great, and St. Gregory the Theologian, the other two early leaders who make up the Three Holy Hierarchs.  Who else specifically do you recommend to start with?I am encouraged in starting to look at the Book of Concord, which was written to unify Reformed doctrine in Germany about 40 years after Luther's death, to see how it begins with "Three Universal Creeds" that come from very early in the Church: the Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed.  Also, in the works of Luther I've read, he frequently refers to certain saints, St. Gregory and St. Augustine come to mind.From a Reformed point of view of reclaiming the true, simple faith from layers of hypocrisy and false holiness that inevitably build up over time due to natural human unbelief in things that are not seen, I think it makes a lot of sense to learn from the ancient sources as you said, obviously (for me) in submission to the word of God itself.  Hopefully that's not considered a "sola scriptura" point of view, because I don't really have a problem with tradition.  The problem that required the Reformation was traditions had replaced and contradicted the clear commands of God given in scripture.  So, in my opinion we have to be critical of traditions when necessary and always subordinate them to the commands God already gave.  For example, I would see it as wrong to try to propitiate God with false works based on man's traditions, such as praying rosaries, lighting a certain number of candles, etc. and make a false supposed atonement by myself, then allow myself to continue in sin and feel I somehow satisfied God's demands.  That would show a lack of understanding that Christ died to make me holy, because I could not do it myself, least of all with false holiness and traditions made up by men.  In my opinion it is very important to always stay humble by recognizing my own inherent bad nature and inability to follow God's will, attributing everything I think, say and do that is good, to God's kind and undeserved help.  Man-made traditions and rituals seem to get in the way of that, at least for me.  People like to make idols out of things they can see, that they made by themselves, then expect good from those things instead of from God.  That goes against His first commandment to have no other gods before Him and is the sin He equates with a woman's adultery.  He destroyed Israel for it many times by sword, pestilence and famine.  I know there are many Christian people who benefit from specific traditions and rituals, even bowing down in front of images and statues made by men's hands, and specifically praying to people who are not God.  Christian people benefit from those things, and I am not saying they should stop.  To me these practices seems like they can be very useful or very destructive, depending on how they are used.  It seems like a very dangerous and fine line that I, for one, am not willing to go near.Protestant theology came out of an environment of toxicity that took 1500 years to mature, so I wouldn't expect the early Church Fathers to be on exactly the same page.  From the little I've read so far, the Church Fathers were very much occupied with encouraging the faithful to endure the violent persecution they faced for spreading Christian truth in a hostile world, which was a similar environment to what the Reformers were in 1,000 years later.  As Luther wrote "there will not be peace as long as Christ and His word are in the devil's world."  One can see that from the very beginning of Christianity, in the enmity between Christ and the Pharisees, who were the "holiest" of all at the time.</blockquote>

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