Have you ever looked into Christianity from a history book, and noticed how different it is today than it was then? When there was only one form of Christianity, it was very weird, and only now does it seem like we actually follow the bible.
What is your opinion on that?
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9 comments:
Can you elaborate a little more on what you mean?
Remember that in the first century, Christianity was new. The apostles were going around everywhere spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and establishing churches everywhere. Then they would go back to those churches or send letters to them giving them continued teaching and correcting errors that were being taught among them. The early Christians did not have a Bible in the form that we do. They only had individual letters that were sent, not just to one church but many times then shared with another church. And each person did not have a letter from Paul to take to bed with them at night to read and study. They depended on those who could read the letter to them. Then they would no doubt talk about the things in the letter. The Christians were trying to follow the teaching of Christ as it was taught to them by the apostles.
They had problems with understanding and following teachings just like we do today. In many ways the problems were the same...a man is committing adultery, some are saying there was no resurrection, some were afraid for those who had died before the resurrection, some were not loving their brothers as they should. We have many of these same problems today. They and us must deal with these and learn the truth about these teachings. Adultery is wrong, there will be a resurrection, those who die before Christ comes back will be raised, if we love God we must love our brothers. As it says in Ecclesiastes, "There is nothing new under the sun."
But we have a new set of problems as well. There was one church back then. Slowly over time the church split because of differing teachings. Then there were 2, then 4, then 8, etc. Now there are hundreds. Today we have many churches who believe a multitude of things. Sorting all of that out can be difficult. Are some of these churches teaching and practicing error? Or does it really matter what they teach and practice? Can we know what is right and wrong according to the scriptures and try to teach others the truth, or is it all a matter of interpretation? Can we all understand the bible alike? Should we even bother to teach people if we all can have a different opinion about what's in the Bible? We have all the scriptures put together in one book we call the Bible. This makes for a challenge of sorting out what one passage means when another passage seems to say something different. How can we understand those two things that seem to contradict? Studying why Paul or whoever wrote what he did to the people he did can help some with that. What was their culture? What problems were they having that caused him to write that? Also, if Paul says a particular thing in, say, Romans, and leaves that out of, say, Colossians, might it be because only the Romans were in need of hearing that particular teaching and not the Colossians at that time? Maybe that's why he mentions something like baptism in one scripture but not in another.
I'm long winded. I know. Whether we lived in the 1st century or now, we still need to study to understand what is being taught and face our own set of problems that we are faced with because of our culture and our circumstances.
I hope some of what I said makes a little sense.
It made sense.
Eric, can you still explain what this entry is asking?
Yeah, I mean like the crusades and such. Also, there was only one church, and now it's seperated. Why did it seperate in the first place? Martin Luther believed the church was worshiping wrong, but how did it get to be wrong? It surley didn't start out that way.
Martin Luther seems to be the one with a differing opinion. Not to say that Martin Luther did horrid, terrible things to the church -- if it weren't for him then we might not all have our own copies of the Bible. But it seems like you're making the assumption that Martin Luther was right and that everyone else was wrong. And to me it seems that in the case of one man vs. an entire church that the church might be right and that the man might be wrong.
But I don't believe that everything can be boiled down to "right" and "wrong." I think there are a lot of sides and that you can't necessarily choose just one.
Martin Luther had a problem with church leaders. He thought they had too much power and were exploiting it on the members of the church. So, Martin Luther decided that men and women should be able to have their own Bibles, read them, and come to a conclusion for themselves. I would agree with that. But when you look at Protestant church leaders compared to Catholic church leaders I would say that they are probably both equally corrupt. So neither one is more "right" or more "wrong" than the other.
As far as the crusades go, it seems to me that we have our own way of doing that in modern day, protestant churches. Although we don't execute people because they aren't Christians, we do in a sense. Often times we refuse to show them love. We refuse to build relationships with them. We attack them for their non-Christian beliefs. Jesus would say that if you are angry with someone then you have murdered them in your heart and that you are guilty of the sin (Matt 5:21-22).
So, I would say that the true church has always existed. Not that it existed in the first century, died away, and then came back with movements started by Martin Luther, Thomas Campell, or Barton Stone. I think that there is only one church and that denominations are silly little cliques. You would probably say that there is only one Kempner High School, but that there are many different social clubs, cliques, groups, right? That's what I say about the church.
How can you say there is no right or wrong way? The only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ, right?
I suppose you're right about everytrhing else. However, your "High School" comparison could've been better: It didn't relate much to this topic.
I believe that if you boil things down to "right" and "wrong" that you'll eventually end up with the only way to the Father being through the Son. All Christians believe this. Martin Luther believed it, so did the church that he broke away from. When you get into more specifics than that I think it's hard to pick a "right" and a "wrong" side.
How did the "high school" metaphor not relate? We're talking about the church. In the same way that there are various denominations in the church there are various groups in a school. I think the metaphor is good in that regard.
In the early church when there were questions the apostles were there to answer the questions. In acts we see people being concerned over whether people have to become Jews first and then Christians. So, the apostles and Elders had a council in which they made a definitive statement. They said that you do not have to become a Jew before becoming a Christian. Their specific wording was that
"It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to lay any heavier burden on you than the following requirements: to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will be doing the right thing."
Earlier in that same letter the council said that the people had been hearing teaching from men who did not have the authority of the council to teach. The church back then managed to settle the dispute without breaking over it. There was one right answer to the question and one wrong answer, but it took the church fathers (who knew the mind of the Holy Spirit) to make a definite answer. Throughout history other church councils have occurred to decide other questions. These councils also claimed to know the mind of the holy spirit. For instance, is Christ truly God or was he created by God. Or, what should be in the bible (this was decided in 367 in the third paschal letter of athanasius and later definitively put together in the council of Trent in 1545.) It was on authority of the council that the bible was put together, around 300 years after Christ's death and resurrection. If the bible is the source of authority, then the council must have had authority to put it together.
So, when the church split over and over, starting only about 500 years ago, the basis for the split was that people interpreted the bible and the teachings of Jesus different than how the church interpreted them. Different than how they had been interpreted by the councils and the one church for well over 1500 years. The people who began interpreting the bible differently were people such as Martin Luther. He decided the bible said we were saved by faith alone. So, he went to Romans 3:28 and added the word alone after the verse saved by faith. He then chucked out Hebrews and James because those books disagreed with his view. When Luther advocated the view that everyone can interpret scripture and go based on what they think, he through out the idea that the church as a whole should remain whole and should, as a whole, make decisions. He through out the idea that the councils, under the authority of the holy spirit, could make decisions. His view resulted in the plethora of churches and splinter groups alive today each claiming to be THE church. How we have forgotten the unity that was clearly shown in the scriptures.
Greg Jeffers
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