The Denominational Nature of the First Century Church of Christ

The "true church" of the first century *was* divided into different branches over opinion.

The two broadest divisions were the Circumcision Church (the thousands of Jewish believers who still kept the laws of Moses, including Paul - Acts 21:20ff) and the Uncircumcision Church (the Gentile believers, who Paul taught should not be influenced to keep the law of Moses). The Holy Spirit deemed this two-fold division as "good" (Acts 15:28), provided that both divisions remained eager to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, being one body, having been united when Jesus tore down the divisive wall of "rules-keeping" (Eph 4, 2).

Smaller divisions occurred in Corinth. These divisions were not acceptable to the Holy Spirit, not because they were the result of different opinions, but because they distracted loyalties from Jesus onto other rabbis. Still, even though this type of division was condemned, Paul referred to these various "denominations" collectively as the church of God, as saints, as sanctified, and as being part of all believers calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours (1 Cor 1, esp v 2).

As specifically to division over opinions, Paul says in several places (cf Rom 14 & Col 2:16ff) to let every one have their own beliefs about gray areas, such as which day we should keep holy, or which foods/drinks we can consume, etc. These are not kingdom matters. Kingdom matters are the internals, not the externals.

Jesus allows for much more variety in how we express the externals than many of us seem to allow. The very first church of Christ praised God daily in an environment where musical instruments were used and animal sacrifices were made and incense was offered up, making Nazirite vows requiring purification rituals and animal and burnt-hair sacrifices, where a healed man was free to jump and holler within the assembly as he praised God, with no one feeling the need to speak against or remove themselves from any of this. The later churches of Christ, being more Gentile and removed from the central hub of Jewishness, looked far less Jewish. We have modeled ourselves after these later churches, and then try to re-erect that wall of rules-keeping that Jesus died for to tear down, only we turn the rules around to match our understandings.

Dividing from other believers because they don't see things "our way" does not honor Jesus; it dishonors him.

Originally published at:
https://kentwest.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-true-church-of-first-century-was.html

Two Into One

Have you ever noticed that in the Great Commission, Jesus tells the eleven to go to the uttermost parts of the earth, which is a hint that this Messiah thing is bigger than Judaism?

In fact, Jesus specifically says, "Go to all the nations", which as most of us recognize, means "non-Jews".

This was revolutionary.

Further, when Gentiles converted to Judaism, they had to be circumcised and immersed, but Jesus says nothing about circumcising them, saying only to immerse them. This dovetails exactly with what the Holy Spirit revealed in Acts 15 when the Pharisee Christians were still insisting on both circumcision and immersion.

This, too, was revolutionary.

And Paul continues the meme, that Gentiles are grafted in, that the dividing wall has been torn down, that Peter's racist attempt to re-erect that wall was not in accordance with the Good News, that both the Circumcision Christians and the Uncircumcision Christians were now one body, united in spirit in the bond of peace, while still having different practices.

Originally published at:
https://kentwest.blogspot.com/2019/07/two-into-one.html

"'I've changed my mind. But I'm not telling you; you'll just have to figure it out yourself."

On the morning of the Acts 2 Pentecost, everyone mentioned in Acts 2 knew that God had established that he wanted to be praised in song accompanied by instruments.

Then, by lunchtime, according to our brotherhood's longstanding doctrine, God had changed his mind about that.

Yet there's not a single word mentioning that change.

And no one mentions any controversy that a new message of "Stop using instruments! They're now sinful!" would have generated. Certainly the Jews who weren't yet converted would not appreciate being told they were now sinning, and the freshly-converted Jews surely would have had some issue with being told they had to stop using instruments.

Yet we have concluded that God changed his mind between 8am and 10AM that Pentecost morning about how he wanted his praise music conducted.

Notice that we don't get that conclusion from any statement in the text; we get that conclusion from the silence of the text.

We have decided God no longer wants what he specifically said he wanted, because he hasn't repeated himself that he still wants it.

And then we divide, and condemn, because some people don't understand that God's silence about changing his mind means he has definitely changed his mind.

Originally published at:
https://kentwest.blogspot.com/2019/07/ive-changed-my-mind-but-im-not-telling.html

Repent or Else

I'm not entirely sure that the two "repent or else" statements by Jesus in Luke 13 weren't political rather than religious statements. Here's the first. Notice how the topic opens with political action.

Luke 13:[1 ]Now there were some present at the same time who told him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. [2 ]Jesus answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered such things? [3 ]I tell you, no, but unless you change your mindset, you will all perish in the same way.

Doesn't that sound like a warning against having a politically rebellious attitude, especially since they would perish "in the same way" (that is, by the hands of the Romans)?

And here's the second. Think of the towers around the temple compound that originally served as a Hebrew last-line-of-defense fortress/refuge, and later as garrisons for Roman soldiers policing the compound. As a Hebrew fortress, the Romans could have torn it down to get to Jewish rebels; as a Roman garrison, the troops housed in the tower could have "fallen" on their enemies. Notice that in either case the victims were "offenders", not "sinners" as in the first case.

[4 ]Or those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell, and killed them; do you think that they were worse offenders than all the men who dwell in Jerusalem? [5 ]I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way.”

Is Jesus telling his listeners to repent in the same way John told his listeners to repent, a moral, spiritual, religious repentance, or is Jesus saying, "If you don't want Rome to come destroy you, you better change your thinking"? Or maybe he's tying Roman destruction to the peoples' moral mindset, the way so much of their scripture repeatedly warned of God using foreign nations to "day of the Lord" rebellious Israel?

At any rate, it just seems maybe we're using this passage out of context to support our "Repent" step.