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You know, as a missionary having served in two countries where the churches either have to meet in secret underground, or have had to do so in their recent history, I have viewed hundreds of illustrations of why what you say concerning “primitive” or early Christianity to be correct. I mean that they form a basis for illustration for the plausibility of your position being correct.

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.