If the Church didn’t have authority, it would have been every individual for themself: a plethora of churches of one or two or a dozen or more, disagreeing with each other, and all without any authority.
Wouldn’t have worked any better back then than it does today.
Wouldn’t have worked any better back then than it does today.
It worked OK in the book of Acts and there was no mention of that sort of stuff in Jesus' letters to the seven churches in Revelation.
And it's not true that there was no authority. It's more loose knit than the hierarchy of the RCC, but it's still there. Besides, Scripture gives the criteria for the men who are called to be pastors and elders.
There are plenty of local, independent assemblies of believers under local authority which work just fine, with no fighting with others.
Besides, some of the doctrinal differences which have resulted in different denominations are not a matter of fighting nor do they continue in it.
The problem is, when the churches get along and co-operate, nobody hears about it because it's not newsworthy.
There's plenty of ministries which involve several different denominations co-operating with them and each other.
The portrayal that just because there are differences by default means fighting is not correct.
Lack of centralized authority works fine now as it did then.
The charter of the NT church is found in the NT ..no where is there authority to add doctrine , or to change Gods revelation to the Jews.. The NT churches were functioning independently only loosely joined by the doctrine that had been preached to them ...
That's the way it's supposed to be....If we are all under one Catholic umbrella, and the umbrella get a little leaven, the whole bunch is full of leaven...
We all have the same words of God...As individual churches it is up to us to follow God, or not...
With slight variations, most of the Protestant type churches end up under the umbrella of God's scripture in unity...
Must seem strange to you guys that we are so independent of each other but yet so united...You guys just can't fathom that...
The thing that unites us is the Teaching Authority of the Holy Spirit teaching thru the scriptures...