What would the 1st century apostles think of the 21st century Christian church?

Question

I think they would be sick.

In the days of Paul, the followers of Mashiyach met in synagogues, celebrated the Shabbat and learned the Way of the Torah Mashiyach. It 190 C.E. Marcion built the first "church" and he birthed the theologies of the "Old and New Testament", Dispensationalism and Replacement Theology became a Christian value as it remains to this day.

Today the Christian church at large has adopted the pagan festivals Christmas, Easter and Sunday which where introduced into Christianity many years after Paul, yet Paul is credited for bringing this paganism into "the church"? NO, the fact of the matter is that the Gentile "Church Fathers", like Tertullian and Marcion are responsible for the Hellenism, not Paul.


A saddened Christian...thankful for my blessed Hope!
David T

Answer 1

Sunday remains the foremost Christian Feast Day, just as it was already then.

And it is not the customs of the day, but the truths and the authentic sacred traditions which really matter.

On both of those points, the apostles and disciples would be pleased, because, in the Catholic Church at least, they remain unchanged and faithfully preserved.

One thing though ... if you truly feel the way you do about going back to those earliest days, you better get rid of that new testament in your bible, because that was most certainly a product of a slightly more mature church ... one that was already growing ... in order to become the true Catholic and universal church that God had ordained it to be.

You ought to be sad. You're totally wrong on this matter.

Answer 2

In the first place Christmas is not a pagan holiday. Christmas is Latin meaning Christ's mass or Christ's birthday.
The reason the church leaders elected on Sunday was because they wanted to make a clean break with the old Jewish practice of the Sabbath being on Friday in the Jewish calender and the Christian church was using the Roman calender instead of the Hebrew calender because it was more widely used. The only place the Hebrew calender was used use in Israel.
As for Easter it or the day of the arising after three days it has stayed pretty muchly the same following closely the Jewish Holidays of Pass over which was when Christ was crucified.
And for the Easter bunny that one I like you have never figured out how it got in there.because it is pagan. If I remember right it was a practice carried over when the Roman Empire converted to Christianity.

Answer 3

David while I agree that what is called church today or Christians is sad but I think you are wrong about namimg "pagan festivals" as the cause , or even naminmg them pagan festival to begin with. I can celebrate Christ's birthday or resurrection any day, everyday or even no day, there is such freedom in Messiah.It doesn't matter what took place on that day before because God created all the sun and moon and stars and hence our lives and our calendars, every day is the Lords day. So I think it is uncharitable and highly censorious to say that, it doesn't help to accuse good Christians. Not all that talk about celebrating honor God, that is separate.
I would go as far as to say that it was wise to cover over those days with new meanings.
St. Augustine said, 'In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in everything charity'.

Answer 4

It certainly is true that the modern day church scene is a far cry from the NT model. But I think the growing house church movement (in so far as it seeks to be as biblical as possible) is a step towards recapturing the original model of the church.

Answer 5

Hang on a tic, I'll ask....

...okay, what they said was this: "We chose to appear in the time of Christ because we could handle it, and it was agreed upon. None of us would have spiritually survived the 20th and 21st centuries. For those who have come into the world at this modern time, we have the greatest of respect for their courage, for in this age, innocence is a crime, and children are under attack, while the family reflects the nuclear holocaust that you see happening. For us, who worked in the field, preparing the soil, it gives us great joy to see the greatness of the tree that grew there."

That is what they said.

Answer 6

I believe they would be very impressed. People are much more civilized now than they were then.

Answer 7

don't worry, they'd be too awestruck that it grew that big to really notice the corruption.