Replies

I don't believe the Church is any one institution.

Do you believe that the Church ever was one institution? Meaning, of course, during the Apostolic era? It seems to me to be a crucial difference whether the Church was never a discernable institution, and whether it was briefly a discernable institution that then vanished.

You will not; however, get me to agree it is the "one" Church.

Understood, and I try to keep this in mind. Its interesting to me to see what kind of dialogue is possible between people like us who obviously are operating from very different assumptions. God Bless.

What if the only Word that we had received from God was that we were sinners and would pay for our sin by spending eternity in hell, but he gave us a way out, that Jesus would take our place by dying on the cross and pay our price if we would accept it from the bottom of our hearts, and admit we were sinners, and be ever thankful for what he was doing for us. Because all God ever wanted was for us to Love Him like He Loves us. One small page from God. What would you say?

BigMack

Do you believe that the Church ever was one institution? Meaning, of course, during the Apostolic era? It seems to me to be a crucial difference whether the Church was never a discernable institution, and whether it was briefly a discernable institution that then vanished.

This is a simple question, difficult to answer. I certainly can't answer it in an authoritative manner. I believe the original Church was a loosely knit group of cooperating Churches. I see no evidence in the beginning of a clearly defined "governing" body, yet they were able to get together and arrive at "group" decisions simply because they were still small and they were driven to do it this way.

Obviously, as this Church grew, spread out to new territory, and became more complex this type of informal "management" would not have been sufficient.

One thing I am certain of: There is no evidence in Scripture or the early Church of a Dictator (Pope). This, certainly, was a later development and the blanks were filled in retroactively.