Not a Clean Slate

 

The fundamental "starting point assumption" for the modern-day "Church of Christ" is that in Acts 2, the religious slate was wiped clean, and that from that point, only the things "authorized" are, well, authorized. 

 

But the original church of Christ did not have that mentality; they did not have a "clean slate" approach. The very first church of Christ remained very much attached to the "old slate" of religion.

 

The separation from the old slate never occurred to these original disciples; even Paul, near the end of the book of Acts, was said to be "walking according to the law of Moses".

 

It was only as the make-up of the church transitioned from Jewish to Gentile that the old slate was wiped clean(ish). The relics of that old slate is what helped the Catholic Church to develop into what it became. Then in the Restoration Movement, the mentality developed more fully that Acts 2 was a wiping of the old slate. But the original church of Christ did not see it that way.

 

This fundamental difference in approach distinguishes the modern-day "Church of Christ" from the original church of Christ. The original church of Christ had no need to distance itself from the old slate things of incense and musical instruments and sacrifices and circumcising and holy days, whereas the modern-day "Church of Christ" insists on that distancing.