Why Church History Matters (by Chris)
Below is an excerpt from The History of the Christian Church by Phillip Schaaf which is considered one of the best accounts of church history available today. Please read this and consider the possibility that there were two branches of the church: The Jewish Church and the Gentile Church which both practiced their faith in different ways.
The Jewish Christians, at least in Palestine, conformed as closely as possible to the venerable forms of the cultus of their fathers, which in truth were divinely ordained, and were an expressive type of the Christian worship. So far as we know, they scrupulously observed the Sabbath, the annual Jewish feasts, the hours of daily prayer, and the whole Mosaic ritual, and celebrated, in addition to these, the Christian Sunday, the death and the resurrection of the Lord, and the holy Supper. But this union was gradually weakened by the stubborn opposition of the Jews, and was at last entirely broken by the destruction of the temple, except among the Ebionites and Nazarenes.
In the Gentile-Christian congregations founded by Paul, the worship took from the beginning a more independent form. The essential elements of the Old Testament service were transferred, indeed, but divested of their national legal character, and transformed by the spirit of the gospel. Thus the Jewish Sabbath passed into the Christian Sunday; the typical Passover and Pentecost became feasts of the death and resurrection of Christ, and of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; the bloody sacrifices gave place to the thankful remembrance and appropriation of the one, all-sufficient, and eternal sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and to the personal offering of prayer, intercession, and entire self-consecration to the service of the Redeemer; on the ruins of the temple made without hands arose the never ceasing worship of the omnipresent God in spirit and in truth.
So early as the close of the apostolic period this more free and spiritual cultus of Christianity had no doubt become well nigh universal; yet many Jewish elements, especially in the Eastern church, remain to this day.
History of the Christian Church by Phillip Schaaf
What do you think?
Posted by: Chris
Leave a Reply
My Control Panel
Some of the passages refer...
By Lisa (Editor)@April Your kidding!!! Thats awsome!...
By April@April Hey girlfriend, I don’t seem...
By April
By April
By Lisa (Editor)Yep, the list is so...
By Larry (Editor)I thought this was an...
By Steven
By April
By Larry (Editor)
By Larry (Editor)
Comments
Larry,
Do you know how to read a lexicon? I am serious. The lexical info above proves my point.
Chris,
You said that repent doesn’t mean return, I proved you wrong. You choose the Greek, because it is mental, no action, typical to Christianity, you prefer that, while the Hebrew is always action. I’ve learned about the concept of repent/return/t’shuvah from serious Hebrew scholars, by studying the entire Scriptures, not by listing meanings and word counts and reading a lexicon. Sorry bro, but that’s not gonna help and doesn’t prove your point.
Revelations gives clear evidence that 5 out of the seven ‘churches’ was in fact straying already.
John the immerser preached BEFORE THE MESSIAH did in the flesh, so how can you say that the “repentace” he was preaching was “accept the teachings of Messiah”? John’s message would have been inline with the previous prophets; “Walk in my ways, turn your hearts from you wicked ways, and keep my commandments”.
You refuse to acknowedge that the Torah is the Word of Messiah as well as the red colored words
Remember, John Preached repent BEFORE the Red letter Words. There is a chronology to the gospels you know.
You are correct…simple.
It is simple.
God’s grace is Him loving us.
Our obedience is us loving Him back.
That is the relationship.
We do not get to choose how we want to love HIm. He told us how.
We love Him because He first loved us.
There are some who want to focus on God loving us (grace) and ignore or dillute our love for Him (obedience)
Loving God is our purpose, thus keeping the commandments is our purpose.
http://torahresource.com/EnglishArticles/2000Years.pdf
By the way, Chris, here are some “loving” comments made by one of those “great”, revered churchmen: “As for me, I hate the synagogue…I hate the Jews for the same reason.” –John Chrysostom (from http://www.yashanet.com/library/fathers.htm)
You can follow your traditions and those who put them forth (Matthew 15:9 “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men”) or you can follow HIM. The choice is yours.
I read through the opening statement about Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians that Chris made quoting from “The History of the Christian Church” by Phillip Schaaf. Fact is there was no such thing as Christians in the first / second century or what we today call Christianity until around the third or fourth century.
I probably won’t be jumping in on this conversation again, it’s a waste of time. To make the statements that Chris made is proof that he has done zero studing about Church history, the history of Christianity, or the Truth and if he had any love for the Truth he wouldn’t be wasting Scot Dryer’s time, he would be studing and searching out the Truth for himself rather than being a mouthpiece for the status quo.
Chris 14. Jul, 2009 at 5:57 pm #
I will read the article.
First regardless of how it is spun the passage in Deuteronomy destroys the entire thought that Torah was given and practiced before Sinai.
Again this statement shows Chris’ lack of study in the Word of God!!!
Genesis 4:4-5 4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
Do you think God forgot to tell (Instruct) Cain what was an acceptable offering? (God’s instructions = Torah) I didn’t see any response from Cain stating “Sorry, I didn’t know”.
Genesis 6:9 9 ¶ These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. (Can two walk together unless they agree?) If you are walking outside of Torah, take it to the bank, God is not walking with you or you with Him.
John 14:10 10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
John 14:23 23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words (Torah): and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Genesis 6:5-7 5 ¶ And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
Romans 4:15 15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
If there was no law (Torah) why did God destroy the whole earth except Noah and his family?
This wasn’t the first time God destroyed the whole earth.
2 Peter 3:5-6 that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: Genesis 1:2 2 And the earth was (became) without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. (First time God destroyed the earth)
2 Peter 2:5 5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
Noah was a preacher of righteousness (Torah).
Genesis 26:4-5 4 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; 5 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. (Torah)
I didn’t even break a sweat to find these verses that clearly show there was Torah (Instructions) from God before Mount Sinai.
Allen,
These verses prove nothing. Is that really your argument? You really cant do better than that? You my friend need to study more.
Chris,
Yahweh is patiently waiting for you to cast aside your arrogance and pride, so that He can open your eyes.
Stephen God is patiently waiting for you to repent of your false doctrines and embrace the historic Christian faith given by Yahweh
Matthew 15:7 Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said: 8 This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. 9 They worship Me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commands of men.” 10 “Summoning the crowd, He told them, “Listen and understand: 11 It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”
Scot
We have to come to the knowledge of the truth, some how. We are in a very critical time and there has got to be a strong desire to know truth as well as to receive truth. The church was originally made up of Jew (first) and then Gentiles. We are grafted in and are to receive the Blessings but are also obligated to the same holiness and righteousness as our Forefathers (Abraham, Issaic, Jacob), the Jews. For me, you cannot have one without the other. We sometimes want the blessings without the obligations. God gave Moses 613 laws, not ten. Sometimes I feel that we need to go back as close to the original as possible, as much is lost in the translations, includinjg the King James bible. The word says that “I and the father are one” (Speaking of Jesus Chirst). God forbid that we look at Jesus as someone who is emnity with God, who came to destroy what God established. Jesus said I only do what I see the Father do. He is not seperate from God but one with him, who loves the father.
Love the article, I jus wanna know.. Why call “Yeshua” jesus christ??… I dont like that one bit.. churches today call lucifer the devil when cleary “Yeshua” refers to himself as “A” Lucifer not “The Lucifer” meaning morning star, that he an other morning stars were present when allah created the earth… can u make an article about that.. thanks! .. peace.
This is a definition of the word allah Dasize shared: dasize 03. Oct, 2010 at 10:48 am # Edit
Duncan,
There are different opinions on this subject. A Muslim will tell you that Allah is simply the Arabic translation for God, but this is incorrect. Allah is a specific deity. Allah is the supreme God of the Kabba in Mecca which is the black stone. Muhammad cleansed the Kabba by smashing all the other 360 idols in the Kabba, but he kept the black stone which was the supreme idol. Muhammad’s father was named Abduallah (Slave of Allah).
That’s why when you become a Muslim you have to recite the shahada which states “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messengerâ€. Notice it doesn’t say there is no God but God or there is no Allah but Allah. The word actually used there for God is ilâha and not Allah. So it sates there is no ilâha, but Allah. Ilaha is closer to the Arabic word for God than Allah. Allah is one of the many pagan pre Islamic gods of the Kabba. Allah was the supreme deity of the Kabba, but not the only deity,
The reason both Jewish and Christian Arabs use the word Allah for God is due to the fact of Islam conquering the middle east and Arabicizing it.