Posted on 08/17/2007 11:11:00 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Q:My grandson is marrying a lovely young lady of a different faith. She did not want a wedding in her church because instrumental music was not allowed. She also did not want to get married in our church. She wanted a backyard wedding.
Would you please enlighten us on the beliefs of the Church of Christ?
Elaine, Piedmont
A:Each Church of Christ traces its heritage to the Restoration Movement that swept the new American nation in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Baptists in New England, Methodists along the Middle Atlantic Coast and Presbyterians in the Appalachian Mountains, among others, grew distressed by what they saw as too much highlighting of denominational beliefs and not enough emphasis on what Christ taught and the earliest Christian church practiced.
Led predominantly by transplanted Scotsman Alexander Campbell and Presbyterian clergyman Barton Stone, some worshippers withdrew from their denominations and established individual, self-governing churches that sought to restore Christianity to ancient practices and biblical teachings. They threw out all creeds, such as the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Apostles' Creed, and announced they had only one creed, the Bible.
They saw no reason to name themselves in any way other than as believers in Jesus Christ. Individual congregations, therefore, were called churches of Christ, disciples of Christ or Christian churches. In the beginning, these groups found it important to use lower case rather than capital letters when referring to themselves, to avoid the appearance of denominationalism.
They opposed any organization that was not at the local church level alone. For example, the Restoration Movement believed the New Testament showed that ancient churches engaged in mission work individually and did not form umbrella organizations for that purpose. The movement, therefore, eschewed mission societies in which various churches pooled their efforts for evangelism, charity or any other work.
In 1906 and 1968, divisions occurred in the Restoration Movement, leading to three groups: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the most liberal, which has become a denomination in the traditional sense; Christian Church/Churches of Christ, the centrist group, which retains complete local church autonomy, and the Churches of Christ, the most conservative of the groups and the one about which you asked.
Using the Bible — and giving great weight to the New Testament — each Church of Christ decides for itself what it believes and teaches. Despite this autonomy, there is a surprising degree of similarity among churches in practice and doctrine.
As your future daughter-in-law mentioned, Churches of Christ typically prohibit the use of musical instruments in worship. Members tend to read the Bible literally and to allow in church only those things that the New Testament specifically authorizes. They find direction for singing in Ephesians 5:19, "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord ... .”
While the Old Testament mentions the use of musical instruments, the New Testament does not, so Churches of Christ practice only a cappella singing during services.
Adherents often point out that instrumental music was not used in Christian churches until the 600s, and the term "a cappella,” meaning to sing without instrumental accompaniment, is Italian for "as in the chapel.”
Churches of Christ tend to teach that each person has free will to accept or reject saving grace offered by God. In keeping with this teaching, they believe that predestination is limited to God ordaining that those who are righteous will be saved while those who are not righteous will be damned.
A person accepts God's offer of grace by being baptized, according to most Churches of Christ; therefore, only a person who has reached the age of accountability and can make such a decision may be baptized. Baptism is by immersion because it is believed that John the Baptist submerged Jesus when baptizing him and because the New Testament Greek root of "baptize” means to dip, plunge or immerse.
While some Christian denominations believe "once saved, always saved,” Churches of Christ typically teach that a person may lose or reject the salvation he or she once accepted.
Churches of Christ do not consider themselves as Protestants, nor do they count themselves as Orthodox or Roman Catholic. They do, however, celebrate Holy Communion every week, using grape juice instead of wine.
Churches of Christ interpret literally I Timothy 2:11, which says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” Therefore, the congregations are led by male elders.
You don’t baptize three times and you don’t have nearly the Word of God in your services that even some of the other apostate and heretical denominations have.
Read up on your history and the men that founded your denomination. I’m not kidding about Sidney Rigdon. Your sect is false and you would do well to be well rid of it.
Peter’s faith is the stone upon which the church is built. And it is the littlest faith of all which provides the beginnings of sanctification in each and every believer.
I don't know who your translator is but the Apostle John says that Peter is a 'Stone'...
Joh 1:42 And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
I think we can stick with John's translation...Don't you???
And then one would have to take a massive leap of faith and assume that when Jesus was addressing Peter, He then turned away from Peter, likely put his arm around Peter while addressing someone else and said, 'upon THIS rock', I'll build my church...
Otherwise, Jesus couldn't have been referring to Peter, but the One who is KNOWN as the Rock thru out the scriptures...
Wrong. Jesus was and is the Jewish Messiah and He spoke Hebrew, which may have included Aramaic words, but it was still Hebrew --- not Aramaic. The name "Cephas" comes right out of the Hebrew [Strongs #3710 keph] and means a "hollow rock" --- which is hardly anything that one can or would want to build their house upon, much less a church. Thus if the RCC has built itself upon Peter as Cephas, it has been built upon a "hollow rock" --- not a solid one --- which explains its hollow foundation.
We confess Christ before men. (See Acts 8:26-40, Luke 12:8)
We are baptized (1 Peter 3:21)
Big deal; the Mormons say no less.
Are you baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Do you baptize three times? Do you eat the Body and Blood of Christ? Do your holy men forgive sins in front of God as we are commanded?
How much Scripture and how much prayer did your service today encompass?
Faithful obedience to the Word of God validates any action. If God commands it, it is valid. It is simple obedience to God's command, not mystical magic voodoo. There is nothing in the scriptures with prescribe any method or setting of setting of baptism beyond mere obedience and "much water" to "validate" it. No matter what anybody may claim, there is nobody who baptizes in the Holy Spirit today. That event was the event described in Acts 2.
And talking about bishops, scriptural requirements for bishops are laid out in 1 Timothy 3. The requirements starts in verse 2 with:
"A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife..."
That verse has to invite a question. How many Roman Catholic bishops are husbands of one wife?
I meant to say:
There is nothing in the scriptures with prescribe any method or setting of baptism beyond mere obedience and “much water” to “validate” it.
And I will add.....Peter never set one foot in Rome! They always get their "Simons" confused.
A bishop must be a man of no more than one wife. It doesn’t say that he cannot be married. Read Paul for some corroborating evidence. Also; how many of the Apostles married? Let’s get real here.
You also have not addressed my points. Your church does not do certain things that you are instructed to do. You do not baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit as you are instructed. How Christian do you guys think that you are? By all indications, you’ve gone further astray than the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Pray tell, are you still Trinitarian?
Some of us get our Simons confused, anyway.
How many books are in your Bible?
If there are less than 72, you have an abridged copy and material has been deleted. If your Bible is incomplete, then so is your theology. You are in theological error, therefore.
Follow the bouncing ball of power throughout the myriad of CoC gangs and you will be truly enlightened.
Of course a verse that says that a bishop must be the husband of one wife does not say that a bishop cannot be married. But beyond that the verse does not sat a bishop CAN be the husband of one wife, it says that he MUST be the husband of one wife. If that is the case why are no Roman Catholic bishops married?
Verses 3 and 4 in that chapter go on to require of bishops that he be:
" One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)"
How many Roman Catholic bishops have believing children?
You also have not addressed my points. Your church does not do certain things that you are instructed to do. You do not baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit as you are instructed.
Where do you get that? I've never seen a baptism in which the person administering it did not do so in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
I Cor 7:1 It is good for a man not to marry…An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs —how he can please the Lord. 33 But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— 34 and his interests are divided.”
Matthew 19:12 For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
There are many good reasons to keep celibacy but the best is because the celibate Priest most closely models Jesus Christ, who was celibate. He also, stands in Persona Christi in most of the sacraments and since in Heaven there will be no marriage, the priest also models life in the age to come.
This is a discipline, not a doctrine. There are married priests, and a lot of them in the Church. We balk at the post of bishop because of the requirements. We ask much more of the Bishop than we do of the Priest. It has been found through the millennia - not the hundred years that you guys have been around - that this model of personal sacrifice works better. I have known and been friends with many ministers of many denominations and they, to a man (no, I don’t know any female ministers closely enough to engage in such a conversation) have admitted that the very condition of marriage and children have severely handicapped their ability to perform their duties, as opposed to an unmarried and celibate Priest of the Church.
I have witnessed a baptism where the invocation was In the Name of Jesus.
Perhaps you have, too.
Your source?
According to mine, Acts 1:15-26, the first thing Peter does after Jesus ascends into heaven is implement apostolic succession. Matthias is ordained with full apostolic authority. Only the Catholic Church can demonstrate an unbroken apostolic lineage to the apostles in union with Peter through the sacrament of ordination and thereby claim to teach with Christ's own authority.
In Acts 1:20, a successor of Judas is chosen. The authority of his office (his "bishopric") is respected notwithstanding his egregious sin. The necessity to have apostolic succession in order for the Church to survive was understood by all. God never said, "I'll give you leaders with authority for about 400 years, but after the Bible is compiled, you are all on your own."
But it is in Acts 6:6 that we see how apostolic authority is transferred through the laying on of hands (ordination). This authority has transferred beyond the original twelve apostles as the Church has grown.
There are miraculous signs and power associated with the office of apostle.(2 Corinthians 12:12) The would be apostle must exhibit the 1st Century signs of apostleship such as the ones we read about in the book of Acts and the last verses of Mark.
Interesting that you should post this as it demonstrates the errors inherant when one subscribes to Sola Scriptura.
In the sixth decade of the first century A.D. the Apostle Peter and his disciple Clement, are building up the Church at Rome. Elsewhere in Rome, another shepherd has also been working tirelessly among God's lost sheep. Like Peter, his given name is Simon. As a matter of fact, to most Roman minds he will seem cut from precisely the same cloth as Peter. Both men refer to themselves as "apostles". Both have been associated with reports of miracles and other unexplained happenings. And both have come to Rome preaching in hte name of Jesus the Nazarene, crucified God of the Christians. Though Simon of Gitto is technically a Samaritan rather than a Jew, the majority of the pagans will regard him as simply another Semitic prophet out of the same hot, distant backwater.
Yet in the memory of the Church herself, Simon of Gitto is Simon Magus - Simon the Magician - founder of the ancient heresy called Gnosticism, Christianity's oldest and most obstinate rival. Former disciple of Philip the evangelist, Simon apostatized to become the first person in recorded history to teach falsehood in the holy name of Jesus. He was, in fact, the original fulfillment of one of Christ's darkest warnings: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits." (Mt 7:15).
So how did the early Church respond to this new generation of false shepherds? Interestingly, several of the ancient histories relate that it was Simon's evil work at the Imperial City that first drew Peter himself to Rome. Leaving his original ministry at Antioch in the hands of other approved men, Peter followed Simon Magus to the capitol in order to combat his malignant influence there among the gentiles.
But, what about recent converts? How would they have reaced to the bewildering presence of a second set of "Christian" apostles preaching on their streets? Simon, by all accounts, was an eloquent orator preaching a sophisticated message. Simon has many "miracles" to his credit and a large number of converts as well. How on earth are common Roman laymen in AD50 - only just hearing of Jesus for the first time - supposed to know which are His true disciples and which the false?
We in the 21st century realize that these Romans could not pull out their pocket New Testament because the New Testament did not exist in 50 AD. No orthodox Christian today believes that the Spirit guides independently of the Bible; we rightly insist that individuals must test their private spiritual insights against the written Word of God. So what filled this crucial role in the first century Church - a Church where the Word of God for Christians would not be fully known for literally centuries? What kept the Body of Christ from collapsing into doctrinal chaos in a world where most (if not all) believers lived their entire lives without even knowing what the New Testament was?
The solution to this seemingly insoluble conundrum turns out to be deceptively simple. Can you figure it out?
Recall that Jesus was obedient to His Father who chose Peter. Luke 12:41-42 - when Peter asks Jesus if the parable of the master and the kingdom was meant just for the apostles or for all people, Jesus rhetorically confirms to Peter that Peter is the chief steward over the Master's household of God. "Who then, (Peter) is that faithful and wise steward whom his master will make ruler over His household..?"
John's Gospel is no different from the others. In what language was John's Gospel written?
This may come as a surprise but before the Christian era, Aramaic had become the language of the Jews in Palestine. Jesus preached in Aramaic, and parts of the Old Testament and much of the rabbinical literature were written in that language. Christian Aramaic, usually called Syriac, also developed an extensive literature, especially from the 4th to 7th centuries.
Aramaic began to decline in the 7th century AD. Aramaic survives today in Eastern and Western dialects, mostly as the language of Christians living in a few scattered communities in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.
Hebrew, dear friend, was reserved strictly for Synagogue services. At that time, Hebrew was the liturgical language.
BTW - I am truly blessed to be a member of a Maronite Catholic Church where, to this day, Aramaic - the language of Jesus - is retained for the Institution Narrative. It is as close as one comes to the Last Supper.
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