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Post by BrentKoivopolo888 on Mar 5, 2022 16:33:49 GMT -6
570
EARLY CHRISTIANITY FROM THE APOSTLES TO THE APOSTASY BY R. BEN MADISON, M.A. WITH COMMENTARY AND ADDITIONAL RESEARCH AND MATERIAL BY BRENT SOHLDEN
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Post by BrentKoivopolo888 on Mar 5, 2022 16:35:45 GMT -6
I CLAIM FAIR USE under US Copyright Law for Transformative and Educational Purposes
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Post by BrentKoivopolo888 on Mar 5, 2022 17:17:19 GMT -6
BOOK ONE: JERUSALEM
CHAPTER ONE:
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST
And there appeared a great sign in heaven, in the likeness of things on the earth; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And the woman being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up unto God and his throne.
And there appeared another sign in heaven; and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman which was delivered, ready to devour her child after it was born.
And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore years.
(Revelation 12:1-5)
"What Kind of Church?"
A few "ecumenical" persons still profess to believe that Jesus never founded a church, but only established some vague "fellowship" that was twisted by his followers into an "organization." Genuine scholarship has driven many stakes into the heart of that monster yet it still roams. But Latter Day Saints can take comfort from the work of scholars without doctrinal axes to grind. The Encyclopedia of the Early Church declares:
It is beyond dispute that the Christian communities were from the start ordered organisms, in which the different functions (pastoral, liturgical, charitable, etc.) were exercised by appropriate ministers.... Far from being slaves of charismatic or democratic anarchy, the first communities, following synagogue, priestly, Essene or other traditions, formed organizations, churches, under the direction of responsible leaders invested with appropriate authority.1
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1
Angelo di Berardino, ed., Encyclopedia of the Early Church (Cambridge:James Clarke, 1992): Authority
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Post by BrentKoivopolo888 on Apr 18, 2022 12:33:39 GMT -6
Somewhat less prosaically, Jalland writes of Early Christianity in the days after the Resurrection:
The Church is present in the Upper Room, made visible in the persons of our Lord and the Twelve. It is symbolized in the sacrificial act by which Broken Bread and Outpoured Wine are offered, like the life of the Messiah, Himself, to be 'a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.' His Body and His Blood are Himself, with whom he solemnly identifies the the εκκλησία (Church) of His institution to be a 'reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice.' The historical sequence and logical connexion is continuous and unbreakable. The identification of the true Messiah with the ideal Israel does not exist only in the heavenly sphere. It becomes incarnate in the Church of the Upper Room. It seems then that we have every reason to discard any theory of the original character of the Christian Church which would identify it with a purely invisible society.2
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2J.T. Jalland, The Church and the Papacy (London: SPCK, 1944)
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Post by BrentKoivopolo888 on Apr 18, 2022 12:54:40 GMT -6
Many parallels have been drawn between the Essenes of Qumran who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Jerusalem "nerve center" of Early Christianity. To be sure, the early Christians and the Qumran "holy scrollers" were different communities. But similar doctrines and organization (much like the Christians and the early Druids-B.L.S.) show that each drew from the same streams of Jewish tradition. The Qumran Manual of Discipline contains a passage about a future "Council of the Community" (Joint Council?) which would govern the coming Church of the Messiah. The text--written around 130 BC is not a description of the Qumran sect.3 Rather, it is a prophecy looking forward to the messianic Church of the future:
(There shall be) in the council of the community twelve men and three priests, perfect in all that has been revealed from all the Law, for the practice of truth and righteousness and justice and love of mercy and walking humbly each man with his neighbor, for the preserving of faith in the land with a lowly disposition and a broken spirit ....
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3A.R.C. Leaney, The Rule of Qumran and Its Meaning (Philadelphia: Westminister Press, 1966)
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