When did the Church begin?

*sigh* clearly if it was a church it would have been on the first Wednesday following the 2nd Sunday of the month. I mean come on now... :saint:

 

Whoops. You got me.

That's why I'm a youth minister. I can skip out on those confounded things.

 

Here are some good reasons the church did not start in the Gospels.
1. No one got mad at the Preacher and left the church.
2. There is no evidence of pot lucks where all came out stuffed like pigs.
3. There is no mention of the Bible Explorer guide for Sunday School.
4. There is not one mention of who to vote for in an election.
5. No evidence of a building project fund raiser is present.
6. There is no evidence that sermons and Bible studies were limited to one hour.
7. No mention of high attendence Sundays.
8. No alter calls.
9. Psalms had not been renamed the Baptist Hymnal in the Gospels.
10. Not one mention of an argument about Calvinism.
11. The KJV did not exist.
12. Obviously, there was no choir director, hence no church.
13. There is no mention of begging dropouts of coming back to church.
14. No agruments about alcohol.
15 And most important, to be honest, I doubt any of them cared about what day the church started. It seems they were much more concerned with the eternal destiny of lost souls, loving and worshiping God, and caring for their fellow man.

Really, why would that date be important. From whatever date that was, we as humans took a perfectly good church, unified in the Spirit, and systematically ripped it into thousands of divisions because we cannot read the Bible and believe what God says. Imagine that.

Can you imagine such happening on a message board.

 

Make fun of it all you want, but the scriptures say that's exactly what the disciples did in Acts 1.

 

Enjoyed your criteria on the establishment of the church. They're a hoot, rooted in an uncomfortable truth.

I know you think I obsess about this subject. But I don't remember ever starting a thread about it.

There are certain doctrines that we agree not to use as tests of fellowship, and eschatology is one of them. We tend to call them secondary doctrines. But doesn't mean they're unimportant. Partly because none of them exist in isolation. They're connected to other doctrines.

The doctrine of the Pentecost founding of the "Church" is part and parcel of dispensationalism. They are inseparable. You're a dispy, that's what you believe. (Except for some Baptist pre-tribbers who don't realize that they're not supposed to be Landmarkers.)

I don't know a dispy who doesn't believe in a Universal Church. In fact, most Baptists I know hold that belief, dispy or not.

Universal church folks generally hold to Open Communion.

Most dispys also see the gospels as actually still part of the Old Testament economy. The NT didn't start until, guess when?--Pentecost.

They say the gospel preached by John the Baptist is not the same gospel preached by Peter and Paul.

See what I mean when I say all our beliefs are connected with each other in some way?

So when a thread like this rears its head, my view of the founding of the church strikes at the heart of so many doctrines. It attracts strong attacks, and even ridicule. Now you know why.

 

You missed the entire point of the post. Frankly, I do not know when the first day of the NT church started, nor do I care. That was the point. It makes no difference in the lost being brought to salvation by God. It is a nice intellectual discussion, and that is all.

As far as the issues we seem to debate all the time on this board being put into one broad grouping, it is hard to see the pattern. For example, you hold to Calvinism, closed communion, and I cannot figure out what end times doctrine.

Brother Bob believes in closed communion, but is strongly against Calvinism. An entire denomination (Presbyterian) are very strongly Calvinistic, but do not give a second thought to closed communion.

There are plenty of people who believe the church started in the Gospel who believe in pre Trib rapture, premil, etc. There is just no connection here.

I cannot recall where the idea of me being a "dispy" came from, maybe because I mentioned I used to read Hal Lindsey books, but I do not, nor have I ever had a concrete order of end time events pasted in my mind, in either camp, nor does it make a bit of difference which way one does believe on the matter.

It is a good thing to pursue these studies and come to a conclusion, but I have come to none. At the moment, it is hard to see how anything but the premil point of view has any validity, but that alone does not make a "dispy."

Why can't God have a covenant the same throughout history dealing with man and still use the end time events so many believe, such a pretrib. I don't have any opinion whatsoever about when the rapture, or if it occurs.

It may be that one could say lots of people "tend" to believe doctrines bunched together, but the mix and match is the usual.

 

YOu, YOu, Rbell, YOU!

How do you get to skip those, when I didn't when I was a youth minister?

Ours has been on the first Thursday of each quarter but we are moving them to the third Thursday in the month beginning a quarter unless we have an associational meeting (3 times a yr) Then it gets moved to the third Tuesday... Now that is confusing...

Seriously, I don't see how it really matters when it started, it started!
And here we are almost 2000 yrs later...

Let's focus on what we are doing now.

 

Can Israel be saved now or are they cut off, is it impossible for Israel to be saved now?

Did Christ's blood cover those who died in faith in the OT?

Are we grafted into the tree as a wild olive branch of which Israel is the natural branch?

Is it no longer Jew or Greek but the twain have become as one and the middle wall of partition is broken down?

If Israel can be saved individual now, can they all come in individual and be saved now?

These are important questions about the church and need to be answered. We can't shy away from Israel not believing in Christ.

Did Jesus come to Israel first and some were saved.

Was the beginning of the church under the New covenant all Jews?

Are we living under the New covenant now, the grace covenant that was to be made with Israel?

Was Christ an Israelite, and does Israel belong to Him?

What is the "fullness of the Gentiles"?

Somebody please give me some answers????


Rom 11:17And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; (it says with them, not they will be grafted in later.)

2Cr 3:14But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which [vail] is done away in Christ.

 

I wouldn't go so far to say it makes no difference. Partly because I don't want to ever say that anything in God's word makes no difference.

You know that when we are together in a congregational setting, or just at a fellowship meal, you and I don't argue or debate these things. That's because we do not believe they're worth breaking fellowship over. It doesn't mean we don't have strong views.

But the purpose of the BB is to allow us to air our opinions. So I do, and sometimes pretty strongly. If you remember, I've said one of the things I like to here is to challenge some conventional thinking that gets regurgitated over and over. I don't expect to change minds, but I do want to challenge thinking. And I want to get challenged, as well.

 

The OP should be "when did the NT church start?"

 

Who's buried in Grant's tomb?

 

I'm not saying anything without my lawyer present.