Church
Comparison
The Traditional Church
|
The New Testament Church
|
1.
The church meets in a special building
|
Churches
met primarily in homes.
(Acts 2:46-47; 5:42; 8:3; 20:7-8; 20:20; Rom.16:3-5; 1Cor.16:19; Col.4:15; Philemon 2; 2Jn.9-11) |
2.
New converts are added to the existing church to make it bigger.
|
When
the number of believers outgrew a home, a new church was formed.
(Rom.16:3-5; 14-15; Acts 2:41-47) |
3.
The Christian church is fractured into hundreds of different denominations.
|
There
were no denominations; instead there was one church in each city, meeting in
various homes.
(Acts 3 Rom.16:1; 1Cor.1:2; Rev.2:1; Col.4:16; 1Thess.1:1; Rev.2:12; 3:7; 3:1; 2:8; 2:18) |
4.
Pastors are trained in seminaries and sent out to serve in a congregation
which has no real knowledge of his life or character.
|
Elders
were local brothers who arose from within a local church where their life and
character were known.
(Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5) |
5.
The Sunday “worship service” is characterized by passivity among the laity
with the Pastor or a select group of leaders doing nearly all the ministry.
|
Church
meetings were participatory and interactive – every member had a function and
contribution to make.
(1Cor.12:4-27; 14:26; Eph.4:15-16; Rom.12:3-8; 1Pet.4:10-11; Heb.10:23-25; Rom.12:15; 1Cor.12:26) |
6.
The Sunday morning worship service is characterized by a rigid and inflexible
order of service.
|
Church
meetings were characterized by informality, flexibility, and spontaneity.
(Acts 20:7-12; 1Cor.14:26-31)
|
7.
The goal of the meeting is worship, listening to a sermon or evangelism.
|
The
goal of the meeting was mutual edification.
(1Cor.14:3,4,5,12,17,26; Eph.4:11-12,16; Heb.10:24-25) |
8.
The church is led by the Pastor (or Senior Pastor in a large church).
|
The
church was led by a plurality of
co-equal Elders.
(Acts 14:23; 20:28; Phil.1:1; 1Tim.4:17; Heb.10:17; James 5:14; 1Pet.5:1-2) |
9.
The Senior Pastor is seen as set apart from and over the other pastors and
elders.
|
The
church was cared for by a team of elders who were accountable to each other
and the church; they were also known as elders or overseers. No one elder
functioned as the head of the church. (Acts 20:28; Titus 1:5-7; 1Pet.5:1-2)
|
10.
The Pastor is paid a salary by the church.
|
Some
elders might be financially supported, but they were usually bi-vocational
(1Tim.5:17-18; Acts 20:33-35) |
11.
The church is comprised of both clergy and laity.
|
There
was no clergy/laity distinction in the church – all the members comprised a
fully functioning priesthood.
(Heb.13:15-16; 1Pet.2:5,9; Rev.1:6) |
12.
The Lord’s Supper is observed monthly, quarterly, or annually.
|
The
Lord’s Supper was observed as often as the church regularly gathered and was
the stated purpose for their meetings.
(Acts 20:7; 1Cor.11:18-20,33) |
13.
The Lord’s Supper is observed with a piece of cracker and a sip of juice.
|
The
Lord’s Supper was observed as a full meal called a “Love Feast.”
(Acts 2:42,46; 1Cor.11:20-21; Jude 12) |
14.
The Lord’s Supper is observed in a solemn funeral-like atmosphere as the
worshippers reflect on Christ’s sufferings and death. The believer’s vertical
relationship with Christ is emphasized.
|
The
Lord’s Supper was observed with glad and sincere hearts as the church not
only reflected on Christ’s death, but also on the future marriage supper of
the Lamb which it depicted. The believer’s horizontal relationship with other
believers was emphasized.
(Acts 2:46; Luke 22:15-18,30; 1Cor.11:26; Acts 2:42; 1Cor.10:16) |
15.
A new believer must go through membership or instructional classes before he
can be baptized.
|
New
believers were baptized as soon as it was humanly possible.
(Acts 2:37-41; 8:12; 8:36-38; 9:17-18; 10:45-48; 16:31-34; 19:5) |
16.
Baptism is performed by the clergy.
|
Baptism
was performed by any Christian.
(Jn.4:2; Acts 8:12; 8:36-39; 9:18; 22:16; 1Cor.1:17) |
17.
The church must be present when someone is baptized..
|
The
church was not always present when someone was baptized.
(Acts 8:12; 8:36-39; 16:31-34) |
18.
Pastors deliver monologue sermons with no opportunity for questions or input
from the congregation.
|
Various
brothers taught the church, and allowed the congregation the opportunity to
question them and/or add their own insights.
(Acts 20:7; 1Cor.14:29-35) |
19.
The church allocates the great majority of its finances for administrative
overhead (salaries and building expenses).
|
The
church gave primarily to relieve the poor and assist Christian workers, often
beyond their means; they had very little if any administrative expenses
(Acts 2:44-45; Gal.6:9-10; 1Jn.3:17; 1Tim.5:17-18; 1Cor.9:6-14; 2Cor.8:3; Phil.4:15-18; Lk.12:33-34; Eph.4:28; James 1:27) |
20.
Believers are often urged to tithe; that is, they are taught to give a
minimum of 10% to the church.
|
Believers
gave voluntarily as God had blessed them and they had purposed in their
heart; tithing was not carried over into the NT church.
(2Cor.8:3-4; 9:7) |
Question:
So
now, which do you think is more effective? Believers Meeting in the
traditional, church setting with the same format week after week and have the
same man preach to you? Or meeting in a small group of believers (10-15 people)
interacting personally as well as having the opportunity to become a family
that develops close, intimate relationships with each other as well as being
able to build each other up and discovering and sharing our spiritual gifts
together?
As I look at how the body of believers met
during the time of Jesus, I ask myself this question, “It can’t get any simpler than this can it? “How and why have we made it so complicated?”
Scripture Examples of Simple Believers
Meetings:
Acts2”42-47
They
devoted themselves to the apostles’
teaching and to fellowship,
to the breaking of bread and
to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at
the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had
everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions
to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet
together in the temple courts. They
broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47
praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord
added to their number daily those who were being saved.
1st
Corinthians 13:26-33
What
shall we say brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a
word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue, or an
interpretation.(Where does this happen in the Traditional Christian
Church?) Everything must
be done for the strengthening
of the church. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two or at the most three should
speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter,
the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.
Two or three prophets should speak, (Where does this happen?) and
the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to
someone who is sitting down the first speaker should stop. For you can all
prophesy in turn so that everyone may be “instructed”
and “encouraged.” The
spirit of the prophets are subject to the control of the prophets. For God is
not a God of disorder but of peace.
· Please
think about this scripture. How could this possibly work in a large group of
believers? It can’t!
· Where
do you find this simple form of New Testament Christianity in the traditional
body of believers? You don’t!
· You
might have cell groups, but they are not autonomous. They are still under the
authority of the synod, pastor, or whatever else you might call it.
Does this happen in
your traditional body of believers?
This
is what we are supposed to be doing when we gather together as a body. We are
to Instruct, Encourage, Strengthen, Comfort,
Edify, Build each other up according to their needs. Ask yourself,
Can this happen in the present way
believers meet on Sundays? I don’t think so! If it does then that would be the exception rather than the rule. Everyone
is to be responsible and everyone should come prepared to contribute to the
body of believers when we meet as the New Testament body of believers.
Quotes
to Ponder and Reflect On: Read Again
·
Santayana
– “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
·
Tertullian
– “Custom without truth is error grown old.”
· Morpheus - “You take the blue pill, the story
ends and you wake up and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the
red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole
goes.”
“KEEP DIGGING FOR THE TRUTH!”
Acts 17:10-11
As soon as it was night, the brothers
sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving at Berea, they went to the
Jewish synagogue. Now, the Bereans were of more noble character than the
Thessalonians, for they received the word with great eagerness and examined the
scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
BE
PREPARED!
Acts 20: 28-31
Keep
watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of
God,[a] which he bought with his own blood.[b] 29 I know that after I leave, “savage wolves” will come
in among you and will not spare the
flock. 30 Even “from your own
number” men will arise and “distort
the truth” in order to “draw
away disciples” after them. 31 “So
be on your guard!” Remember that for three years “I never stopped warning each of you night
and day with tears.”
Greek
Language Definition of:
Church
– Ekklesia- meaning a called out body of believers. Everyone had an equal
right and equal duty to take part in the assembly. There was not one
man leading and the believers were not spectators as they are in the
body of believers today.
In
the New Testament times, the church had no buildings. Christians met in any
house that had a room large enough to accommodate them. These gatherings were
called house-churches. (Romans 16:5: 1 Cor. 16:19; Col 4:15; Philemon 1:2) William Barclay
Traditional
Church Buildings: History
“The
church of Jesus Christ met in homes of its members for the first three hundred
years after its birth. There is no evidence of buildings until the third
century.” Robert Banks
· For
the first 300 years of Christianity, there
were no church buildings (Make special note of this), the believers met
in their homes.
· Roman
Emperor Constantine – legitimizes Christianity by the creation of the Edict of
Milan. Christianity then morphed into
a state religion with all its trappings, i.e., authority, priestly dress,
salaries, choirs patterned after pagan ceremonies and Roman government.
· Constantine
orders construction of church buildings patterned after Greco-Roman pagan
temples and Jewish synagogues. The word church in the Greek used in the New
Testament always refers to an assembly of people (ones called-out or called-out
ones), not a building.
Reasons against
Institutional Church Building
“It
is amazing how religious and tight-lipped people get when they enter a church
building.” Darryl Erkel
· There
were “no church buildings for the
first three hundred years” of the churches existence.
· People
go unnoticed when the body of believers becomes too big.
· People
can hide in their sins.
· Not
designed for interpersonal communication.
· Designed
for rigid one-way communication.
· Fosters
spectator-mentality, and passivity.
· Superficial
and shallow.
· Fosters
rigid formalism.
· Very Important To Think
On These Reasons!
In
Stephen’s speech to the Sanhedrin in Acts 7:48-50, he pointed out, “The most high does not live in houses
made by men.” Interesting! Hmmmmm…Why would he have said this if he
didn’t mean it.
In
Isaiah, God stated in chapter 66: 1-2, “that Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool, what kind of
house will you build for me or, “Where will my resting place be? Has
not my hand made all these things?” Interesting! Hmmmmm… These are God’s own
words to Isaiah. Would God say this if
he didn’t mean it?
In
John 4:28, Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “yet a time is coming and has now
come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in “spirit and truth” for they are the kind of worshipers the
Father seeks. God is spirit and his worshipers must worship in spirit and
truth.”
These
are Jesus own words. He never alluded to meeting in a building, whereas the
Jews felt that they must worship in the temple in Jerusalem or on the mountain.
Summary
and Conclusion:
We, as believers, have been and continue to be
concerned and stand firm against false teachings like Creation versus
Evolution, The Emergent Church, The New Age Movement and numerous other false
teachings. It is all right and good that we stand strong and expose these
deceptive, false teachings and teachers. However, we have failed to see that
there is a 2000 year old deception created by other believers and the Early
Church Fathers that some of us have been blind to and it is right before our
eyes. It has infected the lives of believers through the ages, and it continues
to this very day. It is an
organizational system that fosters “tradition” above truth.
The devastatingly deceptive error that believers
have been following over the past 2000 years was the development of a separate
class of priests that laid the foundation for a division among believers.
Mainly, the Early Church Fathers created and promoted this system, and it
became the Catholic Church of yesterday and today. Also, if closely examined,
one can see that the Protestant believers have developed a similar system based
on the same man-made traditions. Both of these groups have fallen prey to the
same error.
It is absolutely crucial for believers to see and
understand that there has been a cruel deception, or we will continue down the
same path of the “Traditions of Men” for many more years to come. I encourage
you to examine your Christian experience in the traditional body of believers
and measure it against the way the Apostles and Jesus’s disciples met in the
first century. How does it measure up? Also, it is a must that one examines the
Early Church Father’s writings, church history, and the context of the New
Testament books throughout the ages up to the present day to discover this
truth.
You may ask yourselves, “why is he
doing this?,” or “maybe he’s just doing this to cause division and make a name
for himself?” Let me assure you that in my heart of hearts, I am only seeking
to be sincere and truthful when it comes to discerning the truth about meeting
as the New Testament, First-Century believers. I am convinced by what I
discovered, and, I believe that meeting as the New Testament believers did in
the first-century was the intent of the Apostles. It is the best, most
effective way for Christians to gather, learn, develop relationships, build
each other up, and worship the Father in spirit and truth together as the family
the Father has made us to be.
If
you have any doubts about what I have brought to you, again, I encourage you to
be like a Berean, and search for the truth through the scriptures, church
history, and Greek New Testament word meanings,
IF YOU HAVE THE
COURAGE, TAKE THE CHALLENGE AND PROVE ME WRONG!
Resources:
1. Bible-
Old/New Testament Scriptures
2. The
Discipline of Spiritual Discernment- Tim Challies
3. Vines
Expository Dictionary of Hebrew/Greek Words
4. Strongs
Concordance
5. Pagan
Christianity-Frank Viola
6. Rethinking
the Wineskin-Frank Viola
7. The
Way Church Ought to Be-Robert A. Lund
8. Article-The
Traditions of the Early Church Fathers-Beresford Job
9. Strong’s
Exhaustive Concordance
10.
preceptaustin.com
11.
Biblical Church: Beresford Job
12.The
Pilgrim Church: E.H. Broadbent (church history)
13.The
Torch of The Testimony: John W. Kennedy (church history)
Other Quotes:
“The
issue before us is not going to be merely how far particular churches take such
traditions and practices, but the mere fact that they are embraced and practiced
at all. It is not how far down the road we might find ourselves to be, but that
we are on the wrong road in the first place.”
Beresford Job
“Homes
are conducive to the family concept and mutual edification which should mark
the gatherings of all Christians.” Darryl Erkel
“When
every member of the body functions in the meeting, Christ is seen and is
assembled in our midst.” Frank Viola
“As the members of the community eat and drink
together their unity comes to visible expression, and they deepened their
relationship to Jesus and each other.” Robert Banks
Acts
2:46, 8:3, 20:20, Romans 16:3-5, 1st Corinthians 16:19, Colossians
4:15, Philemon 2, 2 John 10
“The
artificial environment of the church building promotes an impersonal climate
that inhibits intimacy and participation.”
Frank Viola
“The
spirit of community, personal relationships, and bonding was chief among all
the early believers.” Frank Viola
“The
present day pastoral system is quite unscriptural; It is an invention of man.”
Watchman
Nee
“The
Institutional Church is essentially a nursery for overgrown, spiritual babes by
turning people into being passive receivers.” Howard
Snyder
Galatians 4:8-10
Formerly,
when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods,
but now that you know God – or rather are known by God, how is it that you are
turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved
all over again? You are observing special days, months, seasons, and years. I
fear that you that I somehow have wasted my efforts on you.”
Hebrews 5:11-14
We
have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to
learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone
to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk,
not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk being still an infant in not
acquainted with the teaching about righteousness, but solid food is for the
mature who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from
evil.
2nd Peter
2:1-3
But
there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false
teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even
denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on
themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will
bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these
teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories.
1st John 4:1
Dear
friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they
are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Christian
Authors Who Have Examined The Issue of Traditional, Institutional Church vs
Home Congregations. ( a better translation of the word
church, ones-called out.)
T.
Austin Sparks Steve Atkerson
Frank
Viola Jon Zens
Arthur
Wallace Harry Foster
Watchman
Nee Christian Smith
Beresford
Job Howard Snyder
Witness
Lee Dan Trotter
Robert
Banks Stephen Kaung
Carl
W. Ketcherside Robert C. Girard
E.
H. Broadbent
