1) You meant to say, “Not all the believers were in the Catholic Church.”
NO! NOW WAY. Not all believers were Vatican sheeple--PARTICULARLY before the Vatican's existence about 300-400 AD. Through the centuries, God has always kept a remnant here and there who worshiped HIM IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH.
The Vatican power-mongering committee driven pile of heresies beginning 300-400 AD enjoyed military backing . . . but NOT God's anointing nor backing. The same is essentially true only worse today. Thankfully, Some Vatican reps in some Charismatic communities have returned to a Biblical focus . . . largely in spite of the Vatican vs because of it.
2) That is objectively wrong since there was only one Church and believers at the beginning could only be part of ONE Church.
UNMITIGATED HOGWASH!
There were clusters of believers in house churches all over the known world without a shred of authoritarian anything from any political power-mongering oversight commttee AT ALL. Even Paul and crew going down to Jerusalem to deal with the circumcision etc. nonsense did not end up in any kind of routine lines of ecclesiastical authority. INSTITUTIONAL lies to the contrary do NOT turn authentic history into rubber history for the thoughtful and well read.
3) You are admitting that the Catholic Church was there in the beginning. Where was your sect?
BALDERDASH. UNMITIGATED HOGWASH.
A) The Vaticons were NOT there in the beginning. Their political power-mongering military supported pile of stinking bureaucracy didn't arise until 300-400 years later.
B) This compulsion to glorify brazenly fantasized pedigrees is akin to the Jewish Magicsterical's obcessions 2000 years ago with blood descendancy. Christ spoke rather starkly about their priorities then and has not changed HIS TUNE on such in 2000 years.
Prott's spiritual heritage roots are the same place all believers in all Christian groups has always been--rooted and secure in maintaining the overwhelming focus on CHRIST, HIM CRUCIFIED, HIS BLOOD, HIS RESURRECTION LIFE, FOLLOWING HIS SPIRIT into all truth as HE INSTRUCTED.
He didn't think much of the corrupt middle-men in the Jewish Magicsterical 2000 years ago and has routinely removed the anointing from every group's bureaucratic magicsterical ever since. INSTITUTIONS ARE NOTORIOUSLY DEADLY toward authentic RELATIONSHIPS with God.
Father's not all that thrilled with bureaucrats trying to usurp Holy Spirit's roles, either.
“Good grief, there were many different churches in early Bible history, during and after Christ’s death and resurrection.”
No, there were not. There was ONE Church and then there were breakaway sects too.
MORE UNMITIGATED, UNHISTORICAL, INACCURATE BALDERDASH.
There were a plethera of house churches all over the known world from Paul's day to this. Some eras they were few and far between and some eras they were plentiful. God always had at least a remnant who worshiped HIM IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH--REGARDLESS. And usually, those closest to HIM walking most IN HIS SPIRIT were the FURTHEST AWAY from CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS--particularly !!!!TRADITION!!!! BOUND, BUREAUCRATIC POLITICAL POWER-MONGERING HERETICAL INSTITUTIONS such as that which worsened by the century by the Tiber.
“To say they are all Catholic is a falsehood from the Church.”
You sure got that right, Mary.
No, it is simply the truth and reality. Logically, there was only one Church established by Christ.
MORE UNMITIGATED HOGWASH.
ALL THE BELIEVERS in the myriad of house churches worshiping God in Spirit and in Truth were part of the Church Universal--and often--exclusively so as various "CHRISTIAN" institutions LEFT GOD IN THE DUST in favor of their gods of bureaucracy; power-mongering; !!!!TRADITION!!!!; vain-glory; self-righteousness; magicsterical power plays; . . .
Thankfully, God has always had a people, even when INSTITUTIONS which bore His Name have behaved the opposite of His priorities.
The original term catholic was for all believers of The Gospel. The term was twisted later.
How they must have hated the printing press. Now, no matter how many times these fairy tales of a hierarchy having a say in our salvation are told all we have to do is search the Scriptures for the Truth.
Thank you, Quix. Good answers.
In these countries are congregations which form two basic types with regard to the circumstances surrounding their founding:
1. There are those that form as a result of an evangelist/missionary/apostle - type of preacher out of another indigenous congregation who goes to a place where the Gospel has never been preached. Or sometimes the Gospel had been preached there in the past but not accepted by a sufficient number of people to bring forth a stable congregation.
2. There are also those that formed when individual believers, who learned the Gospel of the sufficiency of Christ's Redemption work directly from the Scriptures, began to meet, and pray, and study the Scriptures, and worship and serve, and evangelize. From within that group, the Lord would either call and raise up an undersheperd, or the Lord would send a pastor to them as a result of their prayers.
Churches have been established by both of these methods and led by the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures without any kind of “world-wide” religious organization ever being within a thousand miles.
When, from-time-to-time, many of these churches come across each other's existence, it is amazing how that they are able to fellowship with each other around the Person of Jesus Christ their Saviour. It is amazing how that they come to doctrinal agreement and position from the Scriptures, and even their practices.
Now to be honest and fair, with the global proliferation of the Internet, there are new congregations forming that are simply copy-cats of something that they might see on the Internet (or now on TV). But this wasn't the case before the mid 1990s, where the smaller towns and more remote areas of these countries yet didn't have ready access to the Internet.
It didn't take long during the days of the Apostles for the Gospel of the Grace of God to spread by the agency of simple Christian people who moved around the Roman Empire. And the Scriptures were spreading by copy after copy after copy pretty quickly, too. To think that, for example, the Book of 1 Thessalonians (Paul's earliest book) didn't begin to be copied locally in Thessalonica and distributed widely, would be ridiculous.
The Scriptures were not sitting unused, uncopied, and undistributed before some councils somewhere, 150 years later, thought that they were smart enough to decide what was the Word of God. Someone might want to argue that it was some council that “determined” the canonicity of the books of the New Testament. Guess what! every Book of Scripture was ALREADY being read, copied, carried far and wide, and being believed, L O N G before any council ever got so big for their britches that they thought they could decide the issue.
Let's take the Corinthian Epistles for example. At some point, some council (we don't care WHAT council it was!) came up with the conclusion that Paul's letters to the Corinthian church were genuine and canonical. So what?! What if they hadn't? It would not make them any less the Word of God! And by the time that council decided for their canonicity, there had already been hand-written copies of the Epistles by the hundreds, and perhaps thousands. First and Second Corinthians were being proliferated far beyond the reach of any council L O N G before that council ever thought there need be an examination of them.
Just as indigenous congregations of believers form (as described above) in communist countries, so congregations formed all over the Roman Empire and beyond. And it was happening without a hieraechy, without a council, without a missionary society, without a denomination, without a so-called “successor of Peter,” or anything else liturgical or regurgical.
It was only later that bishops in certain areas got together under Constantine (who had armies and police and assassins, etc., etc.) and appointed themselves the judges over the churches, and decided that they would pretty much rule a big church like the Emperor ruled Rome, which was a violation of the instructions to the Apostles in Matthew chapter 20 altogether.
Thanks, Quix, for your remarks.