Are We There Yet?
by Harley Pinon
I think most of us can remember traveling when we were children. Whether we put in in words or not, we kept wishing we were there. I always knew we weren't, if we weren't, but that didn't mean we didn't ask questions related to "Are We There Yet?" One of mine was, how much farther do we have to go, or how much longer will it take? With respect to the church, we need to ask, "Are We There Yet?" I recommend Becky's article which I captioned, The Wisdom of a Special Sixteen Year Old. Another great article of Becky's is Why Should I Study My Bible? I highly recommend both articles. Don't let her age of sixteen fool you. I think her articles are very serious challenging thoughts.
Are we there yet? Many in the church feel confident that the answer is yes. Others feel the answer is no, but they are not sure where to turn. I would say that we turn to the Bible. That must be the ultimate answer, but sometimes a bit of church history helps us see where we came from. Sometimes that is shocking. What we thought we learned from the Bible may actually be straight from Catholic theologians of the fourth century, or another time. See for example The Rise of Millennialism There are numerous other teachings which we have examined on this website because I believe the answer to the question is no. No, we don't have it all figured out yet.
“The Church, The Falling Away, and the Restoration.” That’s easy enough to say, but so profound in so many ways. First of all, we are talking about nearly 2,000 years of history. As good as the records are, it’s difficult to put it all back together. It is my intent to make this an “ongoing article.” I plan to add to it, and I would appreciate your input. I will give my e-mail at the end of this article, and please feel free to drop me a note. Tell me what you like, don’t like, and what you think I need to add. I reserve the right to be editor of my website, but I do sincerely welcome your participation, and I will do my best to use the input that I receive in a good way.
The Church
“The church” will be used in more than one way in this article, but as it is written in the title of this article, I think of the church as it was originally in the first century. For many years, I had the idea that it should be pretty easy to understand what the New Testament church was like in the first century. Then more years passed, and I came to realize that it is extremely difficult to know what the church of the first century was really like. That's true for several reasons:
1.
The
New Testament is not written as a church manual.
There are very few "basic" instructions about
the church. It is more difficult than we may at first realize to even be
dogmatic about our day of meeting. Usually we turn to two passages for most
of our support of Sunday: (Acts 20:7 NKJV)
"Now on the first day of the week,
when the disciples came together to break
bread, Paul, ready to depart the next
day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight." and (1 Cor
16:1-2 NKJV) "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given
orders to the churches of Galatia, so you must do also: {2}
On the first day of the week let each one of you lay
something aside,
storing up as he may prosper, that there be no
collections when I come."
While we use these two passages as well as other
implications such as Pentecost falling on Sunday, and Christ being raised
from the dead on Sunday, the New Testament falls short of being written in
the form of a church manual. Where does it state: "The saints are to
remember the Lord's death every Sunday by gathering together on Sunday
morning for worship. An evening service will conclude the worship on
Sunday. A "mid-week" service should be held on Wednesday." As we all know,
the Bible does not give these details. If we have an example of
anything, it is that the church met daily. (Acts 2:46 NKJV) "So
continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from
house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,"
Even the pattern of our church service cannot be
found. For example, I'm sure that there would be somewhat of an outcry
if a service of the Church of Christ were to concluded without an invitation
hymn, yet the invitation hymn was added to the Church of Christ by Alexander
Campbell after he saw how effectively it was used by one of the
denominational churches. I'm not saying that the invitation hymn is
wrong: the fact is, many of the things that we do in the church today are
not because we have specific commands given in the New Testament. Yes,
we have the verses that support praying, preaching, giving, partaking of the
Lord's Supper and singing, but what was the "order of worship." We are
left with very little guidance for that.
2.
"The
Church, the Falling Away, and the Restoration."
It's difficult to grasp the entire concept of
expressed by this title, but it is necessary to really understand where we
are. The church has come through a "Falling Away." The falling away, is an
established fact, and was predicted before it ever happened. Paul warned of
coming problems: (Acts 20:29-30 NKJV) "For I know this, that after my
departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. {30}
"Also from among yourselves men will rise up,
speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples
after themselves." John also
warned of problems in his day, "Little children, it is the last hour; and as
you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have
come, by which we know that it is the last hour. {19} They went out from us,
but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have
continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that
none of them were of us." (1 John
2:18-19 NKJV) Once the apostles were gone, there was much less
authority to stop the errors that soon began to to creep into the church. Once
the church drifted into error, it is difficult to know exactly what it was
like before it all took place.
3. We now see things through tainted lens! When I was in my late teens, I asked my dad what he thought about commentaries. Dad didn't have any commentaries at the time, so I thought he was opposed to their use, but I was surprised at his answer. He said in effect, "They're probably good. You can read them, and then you either agree with them, or you can see that you disagree with them." Dad was right in some cases, but not in all. With respect to the "black and white" issues, he was right, but not all of the Bible is that easy. There is a lot of gray. For example: what is the kingdom? In the Church of Christ, we are taught that the church is the kingdom. Is that right? Yes and No. I find myself using that seemingly ridiculous answer more often lately. I believe there is a sense in which the church is a phase of the kingdom, but Roman Catholicism, with the leadership of Augustine, equated the church with the kingdom, in effect, saying that they are one and the same. Since the church is a phase, or an aspect of the kingdom, it becomes to easy to accept the Roman Catholic teaching that the church and the kingdom are one and the same. It's hard for us to look back and see the first century with 20/20 vision. It's too far away! Too much has happened! Too many things have tainted our vision which includes our next point:
4. Even our Bibles are Biased! Who translates the Bible? Men! Are they infallible? Of course not! Are they without bias? Of course not! We refer to one of our Bibles as the King James Version, but is that it's only name? No. It's also called "The Authorized Version." That tells us something. If it's authorized, it was authorized by someone, and who is the someone? The king of England. Did he have a bias? Ask another way, is there anyone who doesn't? More importantly, are there errors in the translation? Yes! How serious are they? That's a topic beyond the scope of this article, but to illustrate the point I'm trying to make, consider this: (Acts 12:4 KJV) "And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people." What's the problem? The problem is that Easter is not in the original language. It was put there by those whom King James authorized to do the translation. What is the correct translation: (Acts 12:4 NKJV) "So when he had arrested him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover." Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that the KJV is wrong and the NKJV is correct, but this is a case where it is rather easy to check the original language. Passover is the correct translation, and three other versions that I checked all agree. This is a single illustration, but I think there is something important here. If all I have is a King James Version, how would I get the idea that Easter came to be associated with the resurrection of our Lord many decades after the church was established? Easter originally came from a Pagan festival as a worship of the pagan goddess of fertility. That's why we have Easter bunnies, Easter eggs, and other things associated with Easter that have nothing to do our Lord's resurrection.
The Restoration
So how do we get to the restoration, or stated differently, how do we restore the New Testament church of the first century? I guess I’m making an assumption: The assumption being that we want to restore the New Testament church. How do we do that? I think the first thing that we must accept is the fact that it is a much tougher assignment than what we may have first thought. It is made tough, in part, because of what we have outlined in the four points we have just made. It is tough because we have been taught by those who may have been confused or mislead by their teachers.
How can we Sort it out?
The Church, the Falling Away, and the Restoration. How do we get back to what the church once was? It isn’t easy. I think before we can get back, we have to understand, at least in part, what has happened in the centuries between us and them. I’d add another element: there has to be a desire to get back.
When I was about to graduate form Abilene Christian College, my best friends, Doug Sikes, said, “Harley, do you want a doctor’s degree.” I said, “Kinda.” He shot back this reply, “You’ll never get it!” I said, “What do you mean?” His response was, “It takes a lot more than ‘Kinda wanting’ to get a doctor’s degree. That was 46 years ago. He was right. I got my masters degree, but that was the end of my college education.
What’s the lesson? We have to go beyond “Kinda wanting" to restore New Testament Christianity if we will ever accomplish it. There are too many obstacles in the way. It takes a hardy spirit because not too many will want to leave the comforts of the way they have always been taught even if it’s wrong. I have a great admiration for men who are willing to look for truth and then stand before people and say, “I used to believe this, but I was wrong.” There is another huge obstacle that stands in the way of restoration. Thousands believe that we have already restored the New Testament church completely. That what we now have is perfect, and therefore to change anything is to change the perfect. Once this mind set is adopted, a whole system of "study" falls in place. We no longer study to find out what the Bible says, instead, we study to find support for what we already believe. In other words, we will no longer change any views because of our study, we are only "studying" to reinforce what we already believe.
The Restoration: how badly do you want it? Are we willing to admit that we may be wrong on some points? Do we really want to know what the New Testament church was really like?
This is intended to be only a beginning. I hope to add to it. I would really appreciate your comments and suggestions. You can click on the button below for my e-mail address. Thanks
Scripture quotations marked "NKJV™" are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Welcome to Bible Study If you were any closer you'd be off!