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The Historical Story of External Factors Perverting the Meaning of Church (part three)
Evidence in the New Testament
As you read through the New Testament, you see early attacks inside and outside of the church that correspond to what happened at that juncture of history in the world. Revelation 2 and 3 provide a good example of how churches in the first century degrade through changes in doctrine and practice in areas appropriate to the occurrences of the time, diverting from Jesus Christ and His commands. The Lord Jesus Christ gave many various means to keep His churches: faithful pastors edifying, preaching, admonishing, warning, and protecting, church discipline, the Lord’s Table, and personal and ecclesiastical separation.
All of the tools for preserving churches intact revolve around the sufficient, canonical words of scripture. The Word of God is like a purifying fire, like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces, and like water that washes away filth. The fire burns away dross, the hammer shapes something ugly into the beautiful, and the water cleanses away sin and false doctrine. All of this keeps a church or churches on track to extend to another generation.
False Tradition and Human Philosophy
Scripture itself never loses its power, but it becomes something different when someone mixes it with false traditions and human philosophy. In the Old Testament, pagan religion from surrounding foreign nations perverted Israel’s doctrine, practice, and worship. In the New Testament, Gnosticism, a collection of religious ideas and systems that emerged in the late first century AD, had a significant impact on the church by infiltrating it.
One can see in the New Testament reactions to proto-Gnostic false teaching that arose during the history of the first century. It reshaped doctrine, especially regarding the nature of God, creation, and salvation. Gnostic beliefs posited a dualistic worldview where a supreme, hidden God existed apart from a malevolent creator deity (the Demiurge), which some Gnostics identified with the God of the Hebrew Bible. They believed that material existence was flawed or evil, leading them to focus on personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) as the path to salvation rather than faith in Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection.
First century Gnosticism emerged from various sources, such as Jewish mysticism and Hellenistic philosophy. Scripture teaches its own sufficiency in part to combat adding and taking away from its teaching. The additions and subtractions emerge from the woof and the warp of that historical period.
Platonism
Debates over doctrine early in church history hinged on philosophical issues. These debates did not and would not occur from solely influences of scripture. Teachers familiar with the dialogues of Plato relied on the writings of the Greek philosopher in their interpretations of the biblical text. To recognize how they arrived at their teachings, one must understand how neo-Platonic Greek philosophy mixed into their doctrinal views. Plato represented a distinct view of the world seen in the type of teaching espoused by those hearkening to his ideas.
Church leaders believed Christians could appropriate the world’s philosophy and culture, where this seemed right to them. Augustine of Hippo provides an example, when he writes:
If those who are called philosophers, particularly the Platonists, have said anything which is true and consistent with our faith, we must not reject it, but claim it for our own use.
Plato’s writing contributed to the shaping of early doctrine of professing Christianity, including in systems of interpretation of scripture. The Alexandrian Jewish scholar Philo was a key figure in developing allegorical interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, aiming to reconcile biblical texts with Platonic philosophy.
Schools of Theology
Schools of theology arose, many times organizations separate from church authority. Origen was a student at the catechetical school in Alexandria, which had a strong tradition of allegorical interpretation, and likely studied under Clement of Alexandria who was known for relating Christian teachings to Greek philosophy. Origen didn’t invent allegory but he significantly advanced and popularized it, drawing on the influence of Greek philosophy. He often distinguished between a literal and a spiritual or allegorical meaning of scripture.
Doctrines did begin to change and false ones spread to various churches even in the first century, as seen what occurred in the seven churches of Asia (Rev 2 & 3). John expresses concerns over the doctrine of Christ that reflect the introduction of proto-Gnostic heresies (1 & 2 John). The Apostle Paul confronts Greek philosophy in 1 Corinthians 6, that presented a lax view of sexual immorality. In 1 Corinthians 15 he addresses something undoing the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Roman Empire
Most professing Christians and churches could not resist the power of the Roman Empire’s embrace of Christian religion and modification to the religious power of the state. The emperor Constantine possessed his own experience of Christianity and then used his position to affect faith and practice. He promoted his imagination of Christianity with construction of cathedrals, Bible translation, and the calling of official councils for discussion of theological issues.
Like a Rome emperor wanted unity in his empire for its resultant strength, Constantine and then others after him pushed for cohesive doctrine and practice across the empire. He organized and structured Christianity around his own aspirations for Christianity. This conformed Christianity beyond the New Testament to a state religion. Doctrine and practice became malleable to the state. The emperor and the state hierarchy used its authority to use its power to mold Christianity according to the same means by which it ordered the political and secular.
Influence of the State
State endorsement brought safety and great influence. It was difficult for small churches to resist the current of state power, getting swept into the flow of its governance and acceptance. Churches could sell their freedom and autonomy for security and prominence. Anyone could conceive of the opportunities that could come with the immensity of the state and the size of its resources.
The state would endorse those with its position and finally punish those resisting it. It published and propagated what it approved. At many different points it would destroy anything in opposition. What remained available was what the state affirmed. During many various periods, the state kept what it ratified and eliminated what it didn’t. This was a means to maintain cohesion.
More to Come
The Historical Story of External Factors Perverting the Meaning of Church (part two)
The Part Played By Religious Persecution
Under Roman auspices, Judaism persecuted the church at Jerusalem right after its beginning in the first century. Both were Jewish, the religion of Israel and the church, and the Roman Empire didn’t distinguish between the two. To Rome, the church was a mere sect of the Jewish religion. With more conversion to Christ and the spread of churches across the then-known world, Rome began persecuting churches across its Empire.
Subservience to Jesus Christ threatened allegiance to Rome. This replayed in future centuries under nations and other governments where states required devotion and sought to eliminate their competition. The Roman Empire became steeped in polytheism, including worship of the Roman emperor. This clashed with New Testament churches of the first century, threatening the Roman view of the world and presaging an uprising.
As Christianity began to spread, it faced increasing hostility from both local populations and the Roman state, which viewed it as a challenge to traditional religious practices and societal norms. The need for cohesion became paramount as churches sought to protect themselves from external threats. The decentralized nature of early and biblical Christianity, characterized by local congregations each led by a single bishop, seemed inadequate to address the challenges posed by the power of the secular government.
Consolidation of Power and Pragmatism
Leaders of churches consolidated power into prominent pastors and churches, leading to a hierarchy among churches and their elders. This resulted in the emergence of bishops who could oversee multiple congregations and coordinate responses to persecution, thereby fostering a sense of unity across different regions. They reinvented church government by adding layers of extra scriptural authority, in part so they could disseminate information more efficiently regarding threats across regions to cope with persecution.
Newly conceived extra-scriptural and hierarchical networks organized mutual support among churches to share resources, send aid to persecuted members, or coordinate collective actions against oppressive measures imposed by local authorities of the Roman Empire. The idea here was that New Testament government wasn’t suitable to face its opposition. This new type of government was superior and more efficient. Rather than biblical, it was pragmatic. To defend this pragmatism with scripture necessitated reassigning new definitions to the already plain meaning of the text of the New Testament.
Altering Scriptural Roles
The term “bishop” (from the Greek word episkopos, meaning overseer) began to be used to describe leaders who had authority over multiple congregations. This altered the scriptural role of the bishop over only his congregation, not other pastors and churches. Nothing substantial in the first two centuries in historical writings advocates for something more than local leadership of pastors in separate churches. Since Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire, the church at Rome took on prominence in this new iteration of ecclesiological organization.
Skilled and successful pastors, actual ones, shepherding their congregations according to the New Testament could become marked for higher authority in these newly devised positions. Bigger is very often thought to be better. Seeking for greater things meant something beyond local only, even if that’s what the Lord Jesus Christ started and the New Testament taught. Men rationalized these new offices with a need to help the churches. They could both complement and supplement the churches in a protective and helpful manner. This meant though also deferring to these more powerful offices.
Human government doesn’t tend toward shrinking. The tendency is toward something bigger and even intrusive, exerting power over people. Many suggest that Nicolaitism represented an early form of clerical hierarchy where church leaders exercised dominion over laypeople. Etymological analysis supports this notion. When breaking down “Nicolaitan” into Greek components, it means “conquering” (nike) and “people” (laos), implying a conquering authority over the laity. Revelation 2:6 and 15 chronicle the rise of Nicolaitism in the first century.
Defenses of New Positions and Perverting Doctrine
New theories emerged about the nature of the church to justify innovations in governance of churches. All of this, men deemed, would work better, but it meant finding this in scripture too. The Petrine theory emerged from passages in the New Testament, particularly Matthew 16:18-19, saying that Jesus referred to Peter as the rock upon which He will build His church. This presented Peter with a unique role among the apostles.
The concept of apostolic succession began to develop, suggesting that Peter, as one of Jesus’ closest disciples, passed on his authority to his successors in Rome. Early ecclesiastical leaders such as Irenaeus and Clement of Rome acknowledged a connection between Peter and the bishopric of Rome. They deemed regional power over churches like the apostles. In his writings, Against the Heretics (3:3:2), Irenaeus writes:
We point out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient Church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, that Church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. With that Church, because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world, and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition.
Irenaeus held up Polycarp as an example of apostolic succession. By the late second century, figures like Ignatius of Antioch acknowledged the special status of the church in Rome due to its association with Peter and Paul. This recognition laid groundwork for later claims about papal authority.
More to Come
Pushing for and Not Apologizing for Bringing Back the Bible into the Public Square
At some point, the United States ejected from the Bible as several things: evidence, truth, history, science, facts, objective moral reality, and authority. Some might consider the Bible an authority for a church, but not anywhere else. Even churches now find the Bible as passé or at least lacking in relevance as an authority. At least true believers need to use scripture with confidence, trusting it as absolute truth. It is absolute truth and believers need to talk that way.
Very often interlocutors will attempt to rely on peer reviewed research papers, statistics, apparent observations of the animal world, government studies, cultural and historical writings, and anecdotes. If they even believe the Bible, they at least stay away from it, because it counts as equal to or perhaps something less than opinion. However, as the song goes, the Bible stands:
The Bible stands like a rock undaunted ‘Mid the raging storms of time; Its pages burn with the truth eternal, And they glow with a light sublime. . . . The Bible stands like a mountain tow’ring Far above the works of man; Its truth by none ever was refuted, And destroy it they never can. . . . The Bible stands every test we give it, For its Author is divine.
Bible Final Authority
Not only is the Bible truth, like Jesus said (John 17:17), but it is the final and supreme authority for truth. It doesn’t matter what other people say about the Bible and its authority, because it also stands over them as an authority.
The Bible is not the only authority. There are others, but it is the final authority. People can refer to other sources of truth, but the Bible is still superior to all those as an authority. I’m saying that professing believers need to either start or continue relying on and then using the Bible in public forums like school classrooms, interviews, debates, podcasts, papers, books, speeches, and government assemblies, conferences, or congresses. They shouldn’t budge when someone questions their reliance on and usage of scripture as a source for their presentation.
Foundational to Western Civilization
Law and Human Rights
The Bible has played a foundational role in shaping Western civilization, influencing its legal systems, moral values, cultural practices, and social structures. The roots of Western Civilization trace back to ancient Greece and Rome, but Christianity, which proceeds from its sacred text, significantly transformed these foundations. Concepts such as “the rule of law,” asserting that no one is above the law arises from biblical teachings.
Deuteronomy 17:18-20 emphasize that kings must adhere to the law, promoting equality before it. Leviticus 19:15 advocates for equal treatment under the law for both rich and poor individuals. These principles echo in foundational documents like the Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution. Belief in human dignity as created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27) established a foundation for human rights concepts that are integral to modern democratic societies.
Culture and Science
The Bible shaped Western culture through literature, art, music, and philosophy. Artists and composers drew inspiration from biblical narratives. The literary canon resulted from biblical themes as seen in works by authors such as John Milton and William Shakespeare, who reflected deep engagement with biblical texts.
Christian theology was the impetus for scientific inquiry. Belief in a rational Creator who designed an orderly universe encouraged early scientists to explore natural laws through observation and experimentation. A predominant scientist such as Isaac Newton exemplified this connection between faith and science; he viewed his scientific work as a means to understand God’s creation better.
Crucial to Meaning
The meaning of words in the English language spring from the King James Version of the Bible, where they first appear. When someone says “love,” “mercy,” and “hope” among many other vital words, the Bible was the lingua franca for the culture. The United States should revert back to the idea of a melting pot, where new citizens assimilate into a national identity. The Bible was the centerpiece of that national identity. Professing believers today should talk like that is true and not apologize.
Scripture provides the right view of history with its Old and New Testaments. American society at least should keep that structure, if not everybody and every nation. God created time and history revolves around redemption. Mankind moves toward an irrepressible ending in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. He is the most important figure in history and professing believers should keep Him there.
More to Come
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