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“Justin was born toward the end of the first century. He died in 165 as a martyr for his faith in Jesus Christ.

Around 150, he wrote a defense of the faith to the Roman emperor—called his First Apology—arguing that Christianity should not be illegal. In the course of his defense, he describes what a typical church service was like in his day.”

If I wanted to find out what the meaning of the Constitution as written was, and to find out how those who debated and ratified it would conduct government business, who would be better to ask, one of those founders or a Supreme Court Justice who served some 50 or 60 years later?

There are plenty of direct statements in the NT and plenty of strong hints in canonized Epistles to know a lot about the “faith once delivered to the saints”. That is the faith that I seek, and there are tens of thousands in the US who practice that faith, not some paganized or Gnostic substitute.

In technical language such people are called “primitive Christians”. The first hallmark of this group is simple: do they accept what the Bible plainly says or do they accept what some later authority claims it says.

A good first few questions would be to ask:

1) did the Church that met on the first Pentecost keep the other Holy Days too such as the Sabbath?

2) did the Church that met on the first Pentecost also observe Xmas and Ishtar, or would they reject Xmas and Ishtar as being pagan, syncretic, abominations?

3) did the Church that met on the first Pentecost believe that man had in innate immortal soul, so that without a savior humans would still have eternal life, just not in heaven?

4) did the Church that met on the first Pentecost know that Jesus had conveyed a body of beliefs that was not to be altered and they only had His permission to elaborate and explain, not to abrogate and nullify.

5) did the Church that met on the first Pentecost know that Jesus was indeed going to return to earth to sit on the throne of His father David? That this means the royal lineage of David must continue to the day He returns? (Luke 1:32, Acts 2:29-30!, Acts 15:16, Amos 9:11)

Not a single mainline Church can answer these questions in the affirmative. People who are committed to practicing the exact faith of the Church that met on the first Pentecost will.