Within any debate in Christianity, there is a lot of history. I often feel like I have little background knowledge of an issue that concerns my faith.
I think this is why I love the idea of
what Pre-Bible Christianity must have been like. By this, I don't mean I dislike the Bible! I'm
referring to the small period in history where the apostles such as
Saint Peter and Saint Paul had begun to spread the Gospel by word of
mouth, but the letters that would form the New Testament had not yet
been written down or collected together. All that believers in the
middle-east towns knew about Jesus was what they could remember from
conversation.
In that time, you would have been a
Christian because an apostle had visited your town and told you that
a man called Jesus was God, that He had been killed and then raised
from the dead, and that by trusting your life to Him your sins were
forgiven. Or something along those lines. 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 is
thought to be an early creed or summary of what the Christians passed
on as their message. It only mentions that Christ died for our sins,
was buried and then raised according to ancient prophecies, and was
then seen by over five hundred witnesses.
The point is, I like the idea of a time where information about Christianity only existed for most people in word-of-mouth form, and therefore had to be stripped to it's core message.
The point is, I like the idea of a time where information about Christianity only existed for most people in word-of-mouth form, and therefore had to be stripped to it's core message.
A group of people in one of the first congregations might have
only known between them that a man called Jesus was God's son, and
had given up His life to clear their sins, and had then risen from
the dead. Imagine if that was all this group knew! "What good Samaritan?" "How could you feed 5000 people?" "What have fishermen got to do with Jesus?"
When the leaders of the congregation needed to decide where they stood on any issue, the only certain foundation they could build a decision on was that they should follow God's example- to love. To love so much as to be willing to sacrifice yourself.
When the leaders of the congregation needed to decide where they stood on any issue, the only certain foundation they could build a decision on was that they should follow God's example- to love. To love so much as to be willing to sacrifice yourself.
Imagine being in a meeting where
several of you are new members of this thing called Christianity, and
you are starting to meet as a small community. How will you do it?
When people ask what your community believes about politics, how will
you answer? If you receive life-threats, what should you do? What
would you think of as right or wrong? How would you interact with
each other? Would you know how to live? All that you have to fall
back on is that "God, as a man, died for me." If that was
the only example God had set for you, what would your church look
like?
Image source: http://christianchurchsearch.org/index.php/2010/07/school-bans-bibles-on-religious-freedom-day-no-educational-benefit/
Certainly there'd be lots of questions, I imagine from Paul's responses to churches that he received many letters regarding many different situations arising amongst church members. Messy is what it probably was! And power struggles to boot as to who gives the definitive answer to some of these questions.
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