Where did the Church first go wrong?

[MichaelS]

First of all, let's look at more of the context of the passage in question:

And while staying with them he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, "you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

So, as was mentioned earlier, the charge is not to wait before doing anything, but simply to not leave Jerusalem before being baptized with the Holy Spirit. After that they would begin to spread out from the city, as Jesus mentions a few verses later:

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samar′ia and to the end of the earth.

In other words, they were not to start witnessing about Him openly until they had received the power to do so through the Holy Spirit.

Also, recall that Jesus, in Matt. 19:28, tells his disciples "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." It would have been natural to think of that as referring specifically to the apostles, yet the twelve were not the only ones who followed Jesus and who would have been there to hear this statement. Hence, Peter's insistence that the replacement for Judas - i.e., the one to fill the vacant "twelfth throne" - be "one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us...", a group Paul did not belong to. (Note that the Matt. 19 verse does not necessarily mean that the twelve will literally sit one to a throne with each judging a particular tribe of Israel - such things can be symbolic - yet even if it is symbolic, such symbols do often have a fairly concrete manifestation)

Finally, note that Paul specifically relates in Galatians 2:7-9 (regarding his meeting with the apostles in Jerusalem) that "they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for the mission to the circumcised worked through me also for the Gentiles), and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised...". Paul explicitly references a distinction between him and his ministry, and the twelve and their ministry, while acknowledging the common gospel they preached (i.e., one Church). Thus, far from representing the Church "going wrong", the selection of Matthias by lot was all perfectly in line with God's plan. For with Matthias was filled the number of twelve representing Israel, and with Paul is added in the salvation (and judgement) of the Gentiles.

 

[Monna]

--- Not many consider where it first began to go wrong for the church:

"Church" is used in at least three ways today. 1) the building or place and the ceremony one goes to, usually but not always, on Sunday. 2) the organisation of people with a particular set of beliefs, and often with a leadership hierarchy - e.g the Roman Catholic Church, the Presbyterian 'Church' (as an organised denomination); 3) the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, being all those who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ - He knows who they are, they may or may not go regularly to one place or building to worship, they may or may not be associated formally with a particular denominational organisation.

All who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ are subject to an on-going process of transformation, and most of us are keenly aware that this process is not smooth, nor without its setbacks. We all come into the process with out own "baggage" and are all on unique journeys. We know that things all too often "go wrong" for us as individuals, and sometimes we are part of local groups of believers where things go wrong collectively. If we use an analogy of heaven as a mansion with God in it, and we are alive on earth, Jesus is like the large glass "french doors." When we look through these glass doors to get a glimpse of God, we see (through) Jesus. When God looks 'out' at us through the same glass doors he also sees Jesus. In this sense he sees us perfect in Jesus. The Father sees his son's bride as perfect. (perhaps from this view, and in this sense the church (# 3) has never "gone wrong.") We look at ourselves and each other, and we look at Jesus our goal and our model, and we see that we fall far short of what we should or will be.

Of course God is also fully aware of all our shortcomings, and the Holy Spirit is constantly working with us and in us to take us from where we consciously are to where the Father intends us to be - fully and actually transformed to the image of his Son.

If we ask the original question about the group of original followers of Jesus, my own view is not so much that they "went wrong" as that they started "wrong." Throughout Jesus' three years of teaching, then following the resurrection, and in spite of all his attempts to get things straight in their heads, they STILL clung to their cultural baggage, believing that the Messiah would establish a kingdom of power, based in Jerusalem, re-establishing David's throne, and throwing the pagan Romans out of the promised land. They preached a gospel of POWER and vengeance. The cross was a dreadful mistake that fortunately God had corrected. Peter's message at Pentecost was very much "You killed the Messiah, God raised him from the dead, and (according to their sincere belief) He is coming back within their lifetime, so woe betide you, if you don't repent he will bring God's wrath on you." Peter exercised this raw power when he accosted Ananias and Saphira and they fell down dead. That was not the way Jesus had treated him after his denial of his Lord; instead Jesus had very gently brought him back and given him responsibility in spite of his earlier weakness. But Peter seems not to have understood this different approach. Much later Paul did when he advised mature Christians how to deal with fellow believers who had "gone wrong."

They did not understand that a new covenant was in effect; that the old one based on the temple and the curtain between ordinary people and God was torn open. They continued going to the temple, participating in temple worship. They continued to teach circumcision. They continued to live under the law, with the corrollary being that this law must be enforced (there is no forgiveness under the law, even if there may be mercy). They continued to discriminate agains non-Jews, or gentile proselytes to judaism in their support activities. And their action in choosing a successor to Judas Iscariot was entirely necessary to meet their understanding of the prophecies, with 12 being such an important number in their concepts of complete organisations. And the one Greek born believer, Stephen, who seems to have understood more than they themselves, was stoned to death. Not a single one of the apostles was there to support him in his final hours! They could not accept his understanding of the good news.

The Lord did tell the apostles to remain in Jerusalem until they were filled with the Spirit came. But then his command was clear - go out to Judah, the rest of Israel and to the utmost parts of the world. Why didn't they do that? A very plausible reason was that the headquarters was (in their mind) Jerusalem, the Messiah would come back there, and they saw it as essential that THEY be present to welcome him and form his cabinet. If they were in India or Spain or anywhere else, it would be years before they heard he had returned, and they would miss out. (Their attitude is evident in Acts 1:6.)

So they got it wrong from the beginning.

It wasn't until Paul's second missionary journey, possibly between Athens and Corinth that he had a vision that totally shook him to his roots and filled him with fear as he entered the city to preach something NEW ("you were the first to hear MY gospel" he wrote to them). This fearless man who had endured beatings, imprisonment, earthquakes while in stocks inside an unstable prison building, stonings, mobs. What could have shook up this eminent well educated Jew? Personally, I believe he was shown, and finally understood, that the cross was not an aberration that God fixed, but was the WHOLE POINT of Jesus life work! He himself described it as anathema to the Jews and foolishness to the gentiles. This was the birth of his gospel, the good news of God's LOVE, his GRACE and redemptive work of reconciliation - the very opposite of POWER. And so began a very tough campaign to convince the apostles of this gospel. Apparently, what Jesus had described to Cleopas on the road to Emmaus had never filtered through.

As long as the people of God have emphasised power, and exercised power, in whatever form, they have "gone wrong." Whenever they have emphasised love, compassion, reconciliation, grace, in humility the Spirit has been able to work. Power is not listed among the fruit of the Spirit.

Creating formal organisations automatically gives power to a few. It automatically creates the need for rules - the law - and then needs someone to enforce them. However good these rules are (and the scriptures are clear that at least in some sense "the law" is good), they ultimately remove responsibility from people, stunt their growth towards maturity, and "kill." And they directly hinder the full freedom of the Spirit to work in and through us. We forget that humans were not alone in the Fall. All of nature was, and all institutions also. Organisations and institutions by the nature of the fall, ultimately end in death, and are often the instruments of "death" where death includes all things associated with hindering our movement towards becoming all God intended us to be, individually and collectively. The church (#2) as a man-made organisation is not exempt.

That's my own personal "short answer." I'm very sure many readers will not agree with this, will challenge it. But before you do, look carefully at this narrative and consider what you know about the exercise of power in the church (or anywhere for that matter), and the association of this power with the use of fear. Remember that love does not force its will on the loved one. God has given us all free will and he respects that. From the beginning he established principles of cause and effect that apply even to interpersonal relationships. We can choose what we wish to do, but we cannot choose the consequences afterwards - they come automatically. I find the use of fear to be very inconsistent with God's love. God is love, He can do nothing except in love because it is his intrinsic nature, and we are told clearly "perfect love overthrows fear." Think of all the times God's messengers and the Lord himself said "Fear not." He does not use tools like terror to win us to him, his means are never inconsistent with his ends. (That we become afraid when we see him in his glory and we see our own shortcoming is not his doing, but ours.)

Sorry for being so long...
Monna

 

[Dave-W]

No valid reason for that assumption. Even in English, rock can be used as a compliment or an insult. Do you think Jesus was insulting Peter when he named him rock?

What makes you think it is an assumption?

That is from someone (George Lamsa) that grew up speaking Aramaic in a version that was pretty much unchanged from the first and 2nd centuries.

 

[Albion]

All very good but James was only mentioned as attending in Acts 1, nothing about his being a host or ordinary.

But that is universally accepted as the case, even by your own church and even though she puts a different twist on the meaning of it all.

 

[Guide To The Bible]

Then why don't you belong to it instead of running off Lone Ranger style to do your own thing?

The congregation of God (eklessia or "church") of the first century had one set of teachings, not thousands, one set of heads, not everyone being his own little pope, and one place of worship with similarities in worship, not hundreds of styles from the Jimmy Swaggart Traveling Dog and Pony Show to the Dour Reformation Hour.

In other words, there was unity, and as the Church grew from a mustard seed to the full grown tree of the apostolic succession, that unity became more and more clear as councils answered the challenges of heretics and the tough questions about theology. But even by the early second century, that one Church came to be called "katholicos," which is understood to mean "of the fullness" or "universal."

No other Church existed until the Protestant Rebellion in the 16th century. Therefore, I ask you again, why are you not part of the Church which goes all the way back to the beginning?

Because I am doing what each of us are instructed by God to do but most fail in this because they do not even know what that instruction is. Instead they get together and start telling each other what to do and like sheep they follow whoever sounds like they know best, rather than listening to the Holy Spirit Who resides within them, who given a chance, would lead them into all truth as long as they are patient and read their Bibles daily. Then they would begin to learn what it is that the Holy Spirit wants them to do and to ultimately fulfil there personal destiny in Christ in order to obtain an incorruptible Crown. .

 

[Thursday]

What makes you think it is an assumption?

That is from someone (George Lamsa) that grew up speaking Aramaic in a version that was pretty much unchanged from the first and 2nd centuries.

So from one guy among thousands. Feel free to find one Christian in the first 1000 years of Christianity who believed this.

Who cares.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

....Hence, Peter's insistence that the replacement for Judas - i.e., the one to fill the vacant "twelfth throne" - be "one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us...", a group Paul did not belong to. (Note that the Matt. 19 verse does not necessarily mean that the twelve will literally sit one to a throne with each judging a particular tribe of Israel - such things can be symbolic - yet even if it is symbolic, such symbols do often have a fairly concrete manifestation)

Finally, note that Paul specifically relates in Galatians 2:7-9 (regarding his meeting with the apostles in Jerusalem) that "they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for the mission to the circumcised worked through me also for the Gentiles), and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised...". Paul explicitly references a distinction between him and his ministry, and the twelve and their ministry, while acknowledging the common gospel they preached (i.e., one Church).

Thus, far from representing the Church "going wrong", the selection of Matthias by lot was all perfectly in line with God's plan. For with Matthias was filled the number of twelve representing Israel, and with Paul is added in the salvation (and judgement) of the Gentiles.

Strong's Number G3101 ~ disciple~ matches the Greek μαθητής (mathētēs)
(am I over romantizing to say that sounds much like Mattias that replaced the other disciple Judas in Acts 1:26)
(well maybe)(but maybe not)
Number G3101 ~ disciple, occurs 268 times in 252 verses in the Greek concordance of the KJV
Food for thought
Remarkably the word disciples is not found at all in the epistles. That's because Christians are being addressed corporately , as saints or separated ones.

 

[Thursday]

Because I am doing what each of us are instructed by God to do but most fail in this because they do not even know what that instruction is. Instead they get together and start telling each other what to do and like sheep they follow the whoever sounds like they know best, rather than listening to the Holy Spirit Who resides within them, who given a chance, would lead them into all truth as long as they are patient and read their Bibles daily. Then they would begin to learn what it is that the Holy Spirit wants them to do and to ultimately fulfil there personal destiny in Christ in order to obtain an incorruptible Crown. .

Jesus only started one Church and he told you to listen to it.

You don't.

 

[Guide To The Bible]

Your logic is based on the same thing our catholic brother is saying which pre-supposes a hard break between OT Judaism and New Covenant reality. That is replacement theology and needs to be rooted out of the church in every sector. Off the rails.

What I am saying is that each of us should be instructed by God but most fail in this because they do not even know what that instruction is. Instead they get together and start telling each other what to do and like sheep they follow whoever sounds like they know best, rather than listening to the Holy Spirit Who resides within them, who given a chance, would lead them into all truth as long as they are patient and read their Bibles daily. Then they would begin to learn what it is that the Holy Spirit wants them to do and to ultimately fulfil there personal destiny in Christ in order to obtain an incorruptible Crown.

 

[Dave-W]

So from one guy among thousands. Feel free to find one Christian in the first 1000 years of Christianity who believed this.

His entire community which was pretty much cut off from the rest of the world from the 2nd century. That was common knowledge to them.

 

[Guide To The Bible]

Casting of lots though would have been what these Jewish men knew to be a valid process for such important matters in which the Lord had also participated in the past. It is hardly even imaginable that a very short time after the Lord had left them one could declare they had abandoned their Jewish traditions or their belief that the Lord would answer their prayer in following those traditions. Again another declaration that has no merit at all.

There is no evidence that Jesus ever drew lots. This was only for the priests to do in the temple.

What I am saying is that each of us should be instructed by God but most fail in this because they do not even know what that instruction is. Instead they get together and start telling each other what to do and like sheep they follow whoever sounds like they know best, rather than listening to the Holy Spirit Who resides within them, who given a chance, would lead them into all truth as long as they are patient and read their Bibles daily. Then they would begin to learn what it is that the Holy Spirit wants them to do and to ultimately fulfil there personal destiny in Christ in order to obtain an incorruptible Crown.

 

[Guide To The Bible]

I think the original poster thinks that the seat should have gone unfilled until Saul of Tarsus came along to claim it, that Saul of Tarsus was the God intended 12th apostle. Very neat and tidy. Except it is subversive of Luke's canonical narrative.

It is not subversive because Luke simply didn't realise that an error had occurred, just like most people now as well.

 

[Guide To The Bible]

The Church -Ekklisia - those who are "called out" - has never gone wrong or astray. The Orthodox Church of the East and now all over the world has remained true to its genesis with Christ the Lord at Pentecost.

Oh year you Eastern Orthodox guys have got it all so right. That why we're all following you. Not.

 

[MichaelS]

But that is universally accepted as the case, even by your own church and even though she puts a different twist on the meaning of it all.

I'm not sure where you get that idea. As chevyontheriver noted, the council in Acts 15 is universally accepted as being presided over by James. Not the upper room meeting in Acts 1.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Well what's your position? Where is the line drawn for you? Are there apostles today? Are you one? Am I?

I reckon that - for example - if you wrote what you regarded as the 28 book of the NT, I wouldn't read it as God-breathed.

 

[Guide To The Bible]

I don't think that your quote backs up what you are asserting. If you look at it, it says, "Do not leave...but wait" the "but" is directly related to "don't leave" not to the choosing of another apostle. Don't blame the Apostles for how their actions, and the scripture that records them, were twisted by later frauds to justify their own nefarious use.

I believe that the biggest mistake the "church" made was when it was subsumed by the Roman government under Eusebius and Constantine, blended with the Mithra cult (including the role of Pontificus Maximus, priests, nuns, monks, Madonna worship, etc), adopted Mass (from Masa, the sun disc wafers representing Ba'al, the sun-god, whose body it was supposed to represent [hence the word canniba'al]), and the mystery cult ceremonial structure. Then, once the government proclaimed "Christianity" the official state religion, they promptly outlawed all other forms of it that weren't "orthodox" and drove the true church underground. What's amazing is that despite all of this, true believers still emerged from this new, Christianized Mithra cult. They would pop up now and then, be labeled heretics and killed (see Foxes Book of the Martyrs), until Martin Luther. True believers STILL emerge from the RC church despite all of this. but that just shows you the power of God, not the rightness of the organization.

I agree that was a complete b***s up and you're right Jesus also told them not to leave which seems like one thing they did right but 'waiting' is passive not active and yet they took action with out instruction. I have said elsewhere here that I do have the benefit of hind sight, to be fair.

 

[Guide To The Bible]

Yeah - I got that. So it would have been vacant for almost a decade.

No, only a matter of weeks.

 

[Albion]

I'm not sure where you get that idea. As chevyontheriver noted, the council in Acts 15 is universally accepted as being presided over by James. Not the upper room meeting in Acts 1.

It's the Council of Jerusalem I was referring to.

 

[Guide To The Bible]

Again, Saint Paul's conversion is probably at least a year or more after the events depicted in Acts 1. Many place the first martyr's death around the year 36AD. Whether that is valid or not, the role Saint Stephen was elected to and operating in when he was condemned to die would not have been something occuring within weeks of Matthias's election. The Church could not even be said to have really formed such an administrative role, much less function, weeks after that event.

No your wrong, the church was well over 3120 strong on the day of Pentecost. Paul was tackling this problem full time from that day and Steven was stoned within days if not weeks. The Believers fled Jerusalem soon after this and Paul took chase and was converted with in a matter of weeks from Pentecost.

 

[MichaelS]

I agree that was a complete b***s up and you're right Jesus also told them not to leave which seems like one thing they did right but 'waiting' is passive not active and yet they took action with out instruction. I have said elsewhere here that I do have the benefit of hind sight, to be fair.

It's not an "also", the "do not depart" and "wait" are in this case identical commands. The "wait" is explicitly "remain in Jerusalem", not "sit on your hands and do nothing". While Paul was "waiting" in Athens for Silas and Timothy, he did a fair bit of arguing and preaching (Acts 17).