Do That Which Thou Canst

Almost every line the church has drawn ends up telling somebody they cannot have the thing at all, because the room is wrong. The water is standing, not running. The bread is the wrong bread. The words were not said in the right order by the right man. The oldest Christian manual we have anticipates all of it, and refuses.

The Didache says it twice, one chapter apart

First about the whole Christian life, in a single sentence that most of the arguments since would have been shorter for reading:

"For if thou canst bear all the yoke of the Lord thou shalt be perfect; but if thou canst not, do that which thou canst."

— The Didache 6, around AD 100

Sourcing note: our library holds the Didache's chapters on baptism and the eucharist, not chapter 6, so this sentence is quoted from the standard public-domain text and has not been checked against our own copy.

Then, a chapter later, the same instinct applied to the sacrament people argue about most. Running water is best. Standing water will do. Cold is preferred, warm is fine. And then:

"But if thou hast neither, pour out water upon the head thrice, into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."

— The Didache 7

Notice what it does not do. It does not say the pouring is a lesser baptism, or a provisional one, or one to be redone when a river is found. It says do it. The document that gives us the earliest church order will not let the ideal cancel the thing.

Paul makes it a principle

He is talking about money when he says it, which is why it is easy to miss how far it reaches: "For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not" (2 Corinthians 8:12).

Read the second half slowly. Not according to that he hath not. God does not assess us on the strength of the resources we were never given. The willing mind comes first, and then the accounting is done against what is actually in the room.

Christ keeps accepting the insufficient thing

The widow. Two mites, and He calls it more than all the rest: "all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living" (Mark 12:44). Not adequate by any measure anyone else was using. Accepted, and held up.

The father of the boy. Asked for faith, he produces a sentence that contradicts itself and hands it over anyway: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24). Half a faith, offered honestly. The child is healed.

The thief. No water, no hands free, no time, no church, no opportunity to do a single thing about any of it. "To day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). The site has a whole letter arguing that he did more than believe, and even there what he did was done with nothing but a voice.

What this does not mean

It is not permission to aim low, and the Didache guards that in the same breath it grants the concession. "If thou canst bear all the yoke of the Lord thou shalt be perfect" comes first. The allowance is for what you cannot do, not for what you would rather not. And it does not touch the thing itself: the same chapter that lets you use warm water insists on the Name, and the same chapter that says bear what food you can says refrain utterly from what is offered to idols. There is a floor. The concession is above the floor, not through it.

Why it belongs on this site

Nearly every line drawn beyond what Scripture plainly says eventually produces a person standing outside it holding what he actually has, and being told it is not enough. The wrong water. The wrong words. The wrong hands. The wrong hour of life to be starting.

The oldest manual in the church answers before the question is asked, and Paul, the widow, the father and the thief all answer the same way. Bring what is in the room. It is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.

The Didache is teaching rather than proclamation, and the difference is in What They Preached, and What They Taught Next. Related: The Didache, Baptism, The Thief Did More Than Believe, The First Door, Lines Drawn. The Didache in the public-domain Lightfoot text, carried in full on this site. Scripture from the King James Version, linked to BibleHub.