Quote:
Originally Posted by Rose
Do we have any churches today that come close to the original New Testament Church? I would love to see some answers instead of opinions or theories!
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Yes, I believe there are many. However, after having said that I think the major problem amongst these who endeavor to imitate the "original New Testament Church," is that they fail to take into account a major impediment that our Lord Jesus warned about, and which Paul expounded upon in some depth in his writings of
I Corinthians 11:18-19
Please note that Jesus warned:
"Woe unto the world because of offences! For it MUST needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh." (
Matthew 18:7; see also
Luke 17:1)
The English word "offence" derives from the Greek "skandalon," which implies
'a stumbling-block or anything that hinders' (the very basis for a 'heresy'). And Jesus advises that not even the Spirit would undertake steps to prevent the subtle, deceitful infiltration of 'things which would hinder or cause one to stumble in their effort to serve the One True and Living God. But it was through the writings of the apostle Paul wherein we are able to find what is perhaps the foremost "reason" why God would 'allow' this disruptive condition to exist amongst His chosen people.
'For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there are divisions among you: and I partly believe it. For there MUST be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you."
Whereas Christ Jesus stated that this 'highly-disruptive' condition amongst His chosen disciples (the Church) '
must needs be,' we find it is by way of Paul's writings which exposes this condition amongst the saints of the early Church at Corinth that the underlying "reason" why God would 'allow' it to prevail is made known. And what is this "reason"? Well, Paul advises us that it was so that those to whom God had disclosed the truth which would expose such "heresies" would be made known among the members of the Church (
"they which are approved").
The major problem as I have been made to understand it, is that within the present-day groups which endeavor to 'mirror' the original church of the New Testament, an elect caste, called the "clergy" or "licensed ministry," has wrest control, and therein 'quieted' the voices of those to whom God has made known the "heresies" which serve to hinder His chosen people from fulfilling the mission which He has ordained that His church perform upon the earth during these perilous final days preceding the 2nd coming of our Lord. I am comforted in knowing that even this shall soon come to an end, but perhaps not until the One True Church comes under the prophesied severe persecution of the anti-Christ that is to come.
There's much more that can be written about these matters, but I pray that this brief explanation will serve to answer your question. In a nutshell, yes, there are many groups (of which the UPCI is perhaps the largest and best known) which do truly seek to 'mirror' the original church of Acts, but because of the 'human condition' of pride and conceit, I fear that we will not realize the fullness of the greatness of all that God had entrusted to us until persecution comes (as surely it will).