What is the history and development of the Christian Churches?
- Posted:
- 3+ months ago by anonstude...
- Topics:
- christian, churches, history, development
Answers (2)
You will find it all in the book of Acts. At that time, churches met in someone's home, and there was only one sect. When the Roman emperor took over the church, all the instructions in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 were forgotten, and they are still ignored today.
If you want history of the Catholic Church, you can go to any library and ask the librarian to help you find some material.
When you read the bible, always be sure you understand TO WHOM it is addressed. For instance 1 and 2 Timothy are addressed to a bishop, so instructions that you find there apply specially to bishops, maybe not to everybody. Much confusion has been caused because people forgot that simple distinction. Another example is "words of Jesus". Jesus was a Jew speaking to Jews. He had no clue about Christianity. Ephesians 3:2-6 says so.
We should not think of that first-century congregation as “a world-wide, universal, organized society such as we mean nowadays when we talk about the catholic church,” says The New Dictionary of Theology. Why not? “For the simple reason,” it says, “that such an organized, universal society scarcely existed.”
No one can rightly disagree with the fact that the early Christian congregation bore no resemblance to the institutionalized church systems we see today. But it was organized. Individual congregations did not operate independently of one another. They all recognized the authority of a governing body in Jerusalem. That body—consisting of the apostles and older men of the Jerusalem congregation—helped to preserve the unity of the congregation as the “one body” of Christ.—Ephesians 4:4, 11-16; Acts 15:22-31; 16:4, 5.