History is
His Story
Today,
many American churches seem to be declining. What if there were no beautiful
buildings or polished worship services?
What if there were no Bibles, and clinging to the few Words of God which
you knew would put you on a government watch list? Your children’s ability to get an education
is threatened. Your ability to make a
living and join the marketplace is forbidden. Would you still go to church?
The 1st century
Christians not only held onto belief, but stood proudly proclaiming their faith
in the face of sure death. They
witnessed the Gospel far and wide without a written gospel, for those were
written 30 years after Jesus was crucified.
Nor did the church advertize itself with a cross. That didn’t commonly occur until after 250
AD, when Rome stopped the practice. It
is as if the cross were too horrible and vivid, too common a fate to be a
brand. So what did the early Christians have that made their churches
grow? First, they had the New Testament, not the books but, “This is the new
testament [covenant] in my blood.” Luke 22:20. That was the only time Jesus ever
said the words. But it stuck. For Luke writes in Acts 2:42 that from
Pentecost forth, “They continued with…the breaking of bread.” And still 2100 years later, churches
throughout the world continue communion. It’s uncanny. We agree on virtually all the Bible’s
miracles—Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus making water into wine, walking on
water--yet we are split into factions when Jesus simply said, “This is my
blood…This is my body.” For 1500 years no one questioned it was anything other
than miraculous. But now we argue. Moreover, the gospel writers no doubt inserted
“is”. Jesus either said those words in Aramaic or Hebrew to his disciples. Neither language has an “is” in usage, rather,
it was assumed. (literally “This, my blood.”) But when all 3 gospel writers wrote
it down in Greek, they chose “This is…” Greek can either not use an “is” (like caveman
talk (“Og dumb”), or put one in for clarity (Og is dumb). There’s no explanation by either Jesus or the writers of
this mystery. Just believe the new covenant.
The early Christians weren’t looking to find God, they had found Him, true,
mysterious, and a personal Savior. They
belonged to something that doesn’t end but lasts into eternity. Faith was given by the mystery of God who
saves us. Before there was a Bible to hold us together, there was the Lord’s
Supper.
But when the faith started to become
widespread geographically the temptation among no doubt well-meaning people to
teach a few words of their own crept in. The “apostles’ teaching” [doctrine,
“didakay”, Greek] was sometimes corrupted into ‘hetero-didiakay’, heterodoxy/heresy.
The apostles then knew they had to write
Jesus’ true words down. Formerly, listeners had memorized verbal repetition. (Even centuries after, Bibles were scarce and
memorization was a preferred tool to instill the Word in ones heart.). Men of faith believed the gospel
writers were ‘ortho-didakay’ [“straight doctrine”, ‘orthodox’]. Why?
Because the apostles were living by the Spirit and inspired by the
Spirit to write and in II Tim. 3:16 Paul claimed it. That was the third key to why the early
church spread. They lived by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit was there in faith (I
Cor. 12:3), prayer (Rom.8:26), supernatural fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5),
many special gifts, and the Spirit’s infusion of The Word. In the Word, believers saw absolute Truth. So
what if you don’t understand part of it? So much the better—that’s God! Modern man demands an explanation and
quibbles over the uncertainty of words. Worse, moderns prefer only what they
find likely. But impossibility defines a
miracle and requires the Spirit by which we live.
Fourthly, they were the Body of Christ. Paul’s earliest epistle was
Galatians, to dispel the heresy of the Judaizers. But during Missionary Journey
3 he was compelled to stay in Ephesus and saw an explosion of Christian
converts. Without time to return to
Corinth where factions had broken out, he wrote instead. I Corinthians was actually a second letter
and he dedicates it to “the body of Christ”.
Moderns have toyed with the Body as just a metaphor. But the early
church believed it flat out. The Ascension took Christ to heaven where, in the
Godhead, He can exist everywhere. Yet as an undead man, He can also be
localized where He choses to be. As such He chose to be in us as His Body on earth--“you are the body of Christ”. You are then, Jesus with skin on. You’re the
only Jesus some will ever see. And
you’re the only words of life some will ever read. When the Christian ingests Christ’s body and
blood in the New Testament communion, there is the stunning guarantee of this.
Thus the early church grew. Few scriptures, but they had an absolute
trust in what they did know and took pains to memorize and etch it in their
hearts. Not relative truths (“well,
that’s your interpretation.”), they believed that God imparted real meaning and
truth through the words—through His Spirit.
God was no theory, He was ever-present in relationship with them. And He
was in their hearts, connecting them
to all the world of other believers. If one lives like this, what does it add
up to? It means complete dependence on
God, almost like discovering an added dimension that goes beyond space-time. In
that dimension, God is remaking the soul and imparting His hunger to bring
others who are lost.
Should the modern church return to its roots?
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