The Result of Churches Teaching Different Things While Claiming to be Led of The Spirit

It would be so great if we could go to a church and hear God’s instruction and be loving Christians without any doubt that what is taught there is God’s absolute truth. However, what we hear about many issues depends on the church we enter. In today’s Christianity, churches are all over the board on many issues. While God speaks on abortion, baptism, eternal security, gambling, giving, holiness, the holy spirit, leadership, salvation, scripture, sexuality (including homosexuality), the role of women in ministry, worship, and many other topics, from church to church you will hear different reports on what he commands and instructs in these and other areas.
There are several problems that this dichotomy causes:

The incredible amount of variations possible makes it overwhelming for many Christians to try to resolve, so they don’t try.
a. Many churches don’t encourage or even tolerate real investigation into these matters.
b. Most churches have a policy where the denomination or the pastor purely decides doctrine, so there is no questioning.
This gives fuel to Christian detractors who point to how Christians can’t agree on what is true.
People forsake trying to resolve these issues.
The doubt caused by doctrinal confusion weakens faith

I can’t tell you how many people I have heard say that doctrine isn’t important. They don’t try to learn all the subtleties of the bible because it is too confusing and becomes a pointless exercise for them.

And there is the famous quote, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity,” upon which modern tradition has arisen. In this tradition, many of the issues that churches disagree on are considered nonessential. Of course what is essential and nonessential varies from church to church and denomination to denomination. However, that allows people to dismiss concern over so many disagreements among the many churches in the Christian faith. See T 19.1 Modern Christian Traditions – The In Essentials Unity Doctrine for more on this.

The truth is that the Bible is not always clear. According to Rick Warren, the great evangelist Billy Graham struggled with the accuracy and integrity of the Bible. In the early years of his ministry, Billy Graham struggled with doubts about the accuracy and authority of the Bible. One moonlit night, he dropped to his knees in tears and told God that, in spite of confusing passages he didn’t understand, from that point on, he would completely trust the Bible as the sole authority for his life and ministry. Billy’s life was blessed with unusual power and effectiveness from that day forward.ⁱ

This is certainly a heartwarming story. If even one as great among us as Billy Graham struggled with confusing passages, where would that leave the rest of us? I agree that we need to trust at some point, but that doesn’t diminish the need to eliminate at least some confusion over the many doctrinal disputes. Yes, we stand on our faith despite the confusion, but we must work to eliminate it.

i THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE, Rick Warren, 2002, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, p. 187

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, and 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. (Denominations are not just the big guys like Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist; they include all the little groups of churches under the same authority, even if they claim to be nondenominational.) 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 errors in these ancient bastions or the leading of the spirit to reform or 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 creating one more correct alternative church, the Reformation movement increased the number of disputes over scripture, and consequently, the number of splits has increased exponentially.

The problem with examining all the denominations is that it can become confusing to compare this church or denomination to that one. The complexity of examining all the theological implications can become overwhelming. For many busy people, that means 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 website, rather than trying just to 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, early church documents, and other secular and religious ancient documents. (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 website 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.

"The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. (Acts 17:10-11)
This website looks to apply the same approach as the Bereans discussed above, who compared what all the apostles were preaching to the then-known Scriptures, which, at that time, were all Old Testament references. Some New Testament churches, utilizing the philosophies and writings of different writers and councils since the apostles, have developed numerous doctrines, some acknowledged to be beyond what Scripture says. These philosophies and extra-biblical doctrinal developments have all contributed to the a plethora of disagreements in the church.

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

This is a work in progress. I pray 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, some of which still have typos. If you find any typos, you can contact Mark at webmaster@originalchristianity.net. Please be so kind as to mention the name of the post. if you could kindly copy and paste the section with errors in your message, that would be fantastic. Thank you, and God Bless You.

The Result of Churches Teaching Different Things While Claiming to be Led of The Spirit

Original Christianity

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