(AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)
If you Google the words "define church", there are dozens of definitions and explainations and variants on the word. Click Here to see a few.
There are hundreds of denomination and splits and branches - and this in all in the "Christian" denomination? How did this happen?
In the Bible, the book of Acts clearly defines the activities of what is commonly referred to as "the Church". The "Big-C" Church - as it is commonly referred to - is the corporate, world-wide body of those who profess to believe in Jesus Christ as their Saviour. From Acts 2:42, "And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." (English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers)
The New Testament believers in Acts were already involved in the religious system of the day. They already had their regular meetings at the temple. What they participated in as the first church, was something radically different than what we generally define church as being today.
Over the coming articles, we will explore how something so straightforward - teaching; fellowship; supping; praying - has "transmorgified" (to use a Calvin & Hobbes reference) itself into a powerless and ineffectual system that makes in little to no impact in its surrounding culture. Please feel free to leave a comment, thought, question, or opinion in the spaces below!
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only 1 article? It's been over a week! Keep 'em coming! :-)
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