I received a very thought-provoking e-mail recently from a blog reader who asked about a subject which doesn’t receive much consideration. He asked, “How does the church of Christ claim (or at least imply) to be something like the first century church, when the first century church didn’t really have the New Testament like we do today?” That’s a great question and there was certainly a period of time when no one had access to all 27 books of the New Testament, so let’s consider what the church was like then.
Thank you for your teachings. Historically, there was no "church" as we understand the word today. The earliest followers of Yeshua were a sect of Judaism, just like the many sects around them. Before the destruction of the temple, they went to the temple to worship and also assembled in homes and edified each other. There were no worship groups, just edification groups. After the destruction of the temple, they attended synagogues and then assembled separately in small groups in order to share the message of the Messiah. The Jerusalem Council was convened to decide just what the gentiles had to observe in order to be "grafted" in. As verse 21 clarifies, these gentiles would be started on milk and then they would learn meat when they heard Moses, and grow from there. Acts 15:20 Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood. 21 For Moses has been proclaimed in every city from ancient times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. The early assemblies of ekklesia, or called-out ones, were, including the gentiles among them, a sect of Judaism. The Messiah understood that his sheep would begin to scatter shortly after his crucifixion, and as mankind usually does, the sheep eventually divided, through politics and power plays, into a totally new religion. Today's Christian churches really don't have any resemblance to the assemblies that Yeshua/Christ called out of the world.
Thank you for your teachings. Historically, there was no "church" as we understand the word today. The earliest followers of Yeshua were a sect of Judaism, just like the many sects around them. Before the destruction of the temple, they went to the temple to worship and also assembled in homes and edified each other. There were no worship groups, just edification groups. After the destruction of the temple, they attended synagogues and then assembled separately in small groups in order to share the message of the Messiah. The Jerusalem Council was convened to decide just what the gentiles had to observe in order to be "grafted" in. As verse 21 clarifies, these gentiles would be started on milk and then they would learn meat when they heard Moses, and grow from there. Acts 15:20 Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood. 21 For Moses has been proclaimed in every city from ancient times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. The early assemblies of ekklesia, or called-out ones, were, including the gentiles among them, a sect of Judaism. The Messiah understood that his sheep would begin to scatter shortly after his crucifixion, and as mankind usually does, the sheep eventually divided, through politics and power plays, into a totally new religion. Today's Christian churches really don't have any resemblance to the assemblies that Yeshua/Christ called out of the world.