Worship

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Mat 4:10

Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:13 in this response to the devil’s attempt to get Jesus to worship the devil. This speaks to the high importance of the worship of God in every aspect of our lives. Every Church is centered around worship. From the Catholic Mass to the Protestant Sunday morning service to the Pentecostal hand raising, to maybe even dancing in the aisles worship services are at the center of the church.

Worship services from a huge variety of denominations and associations all feature singing, praying, reading from the bible, and often holy communion. Is is a common thread in the vast doctrinal diversity that makes up Christianity as we know it.

But it is important to note that worship is more than singing and listening to a sermon to see how it will benefit us. Worship in the above verse is translated fear or reverence. The Greek word in Matt 4:10 means to bow down or prostrate yourself. The image is of someone who is completely submissive, someone who obeys every command. That is the core of what worship is; obeying the Father in every area of our lives.

Worship services do their job when they motivate us to submit to God. Our God is overwhelmingly awesome. Singing songs of praise helps us focus on the great things that God has done for us. Praying helps us focus on communicating with God and developing a relationship with God as our father. Giving to the Church worships God in helping to do his work. Listening to the reading of the scriptures and the sermon gives us insight on how to know and serve God better. Holy Communion is a worshipful act as we focus on the tremendous sacrifice of Christ whose blood was shed for our sins and whose body was broken for our sicknesses.

So it should be obvious by now that worship is not limited to a period of time on Sunday when believers get together to worship. That service, that meeting is only as fruitful as the individual acts of worship committed by people not only in the service, but in their everyday lives.
© copyright 2009Â Mark W Smith, All rights reserved.

Original Christianity

This web is a look at primitive, original Christianity, how it developed over time into innumerable denominations and divisions and how original Christianity compares to current practices. It is a resource for looking systematically at the beliefs and practices in the original Christian church, numerous movements and churches since, the modern Christian church, with discussion about how all these changes happened and especially focusing on how well each of these compares to scripture.

Why?

"Jesus Christ is Lord" is the common belief of billions of Christians. But there are tens of thousands of denominations. While ancient denominations like the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox claim to be the original and consequently "true" church, innumerable churches and denominations have started citing error in these ancient bastions and/or the leading of the spirit to reform the church and restore the church.

There are numerous disputed issues. Cessation doctrine (prophecy and the gifts of the spirit ended with the apostles), infant baptism, the inerrancy of Scripture, the form of Church government, the role of women in the church, and currently, the acceptance of homosexuality are just some of the many disputed doctrines that cause the Christian body to be so divided.

The Reformation movement performed an invaluable service. But instead of simply reforming the church or simply working to create one more correct alternative church the Reformation movement worked to increase the number of disputes over scripture and consequently the number of splits has increased exponentially.

The problem with looking at all the denominations is that it can become confusing to just compare this church or denomination to that one. The complexity of looking at all the theological implications can become overwhelming. For many busy people that means just making the best, less than fully educated decision they can, and staying with the church of their heritage or finding a church where they feel they can grow. Just finding the information can be an overwhelming task. Putting it into some understandable framework is an even more complicated task.

This web site, rather than trying to just compare all the current positions on the differences goes back to the beginning (primitive, original Christianity) and evaluates Christianity starting at that point. This includes looking at the gospel accounts, but also includes looking at early church documents as well as other ancient documents, both secular and religious. (There is also a section on Philosophy because its profound impact on Christian theological development.) The articles have numerous references to works both in print and online.

Next the web site looks at the developments in Christianity from original Christianity forward to see how the church developed over time comparing each development with what we know about original Christianity. The goals are:

To trace the development of the church from start to now to see how the church at large wound up with all these competing churches/denominations today, and

To equip people with the knowledge of original Christianity to enable people to make an informed decision on what is the true faith and practice of the church Jesus Christ started.

For an overview of the articles by category, go to the Table of Contents Page.

This is a work in progress. My prayer is that sharing my journey is helpful to you and that together we can grow in the faith that Jesus Christ made available some two thousand years ago.

Also Please Pardon our Dust. There are hundreds of posts and some of them still have typos. If you find typos You can contact Mark at [email protected]. Please be so kind as to mention the name of the post as well as to copy and paste the section with errors. Thank you and God Bless You.

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