First Congregation Disapered?

[Excaliber]

I would like to know what you guys think happend to the first congregation.
We read in the book of acts the beginings of the first organized congregations. Because of the gift of toungs the godpel message was spreading all over to ethiopia and every where, it seems that the first congregations were doing great.

Even though the appostles died, and the christians were persecuted, they were still growing. And there faith was strong because they would rather be torn to pieces by animals in the roman colloseum then do emporor worship.

After that it seems like the true congregation disapears, as if there was some sort of rapture and ALL the anointed christians went to heaven or something.

Basicly you have us getting started in the 1900's, but if you trace backwards you will not find an organization with our same beleifs EVER IN EXISTANCE..now I dont mean trace all the way to the bible. I mean after the bible there is a record of how the congregations grew, there are records of sertain christian congregations becomeing state religions....and other congregations remained independent....however there doctrine was basicly the same....but the opposite of ours today. Then you have records of counsels being held where christianity was later deffined in a creed...I think the trinity was established in one of these meetings. WHERE WERE THE CHRISTIANS LIKE US???? Ofcourse they would not have been exactly like us, they would not have been teaching anything about 1914 or predicting the end of the system and they would not have had a watchtower, but other then that there beleifs would have been the same...but they dont seem to have ever existed.

There is a record of everything, even the great apostasy. For example there were many debates bettween people teaching different doctrines, like gnostics, arians, etc...etc..etc... Basicly these other groups eventualy died of. And you had only 2 christian organizations on the planet. Orthodox Catholic....and..Roman Catholic. So up to this point we are taught that the true congregation went extinct, but even though the dinosoars went extinct we still have there bones....it seems the first century version of Jehovah's witnesses vanished with absolutely no trace.

I understand that in the time of the end we would learn more.....but other then a few new understandings our teachings should have been the same as another congregation in history. But its not.

we know from the book of acts that the first christians began congregations all over the then known world, there was even a head quarters in jeruselem until jeruselem was destroyed...but of course the headquarters would have moved. The appostles did not die until the scriptures were writen and there were established congregations all over, so I find it hard to beleive that just because the apostels died the whole true congregation disapered.

I also find it hard to beleive that there were individual people who had the truth scatered all over....that dose not make sense because when C.T.Russel started the bible students, there is no record that they united with any long lost true christians or anything like that.
Also I noticed that our organization is the exact opposite of Both the 2 known organizations that existed for 200o years or so. We dont use visual representation in our worship...both Orthodox and Catholic due....we dont beleive in a trinity....both orthodox and catholic do....we stay at about 6 million orthodox are around 500 million and catholic like billions...for us the bible is "supposed" to be the sole athority.....to Catholic its The bible tradision and appostolic sucsesion, for Orthodox its the bible tradishion and the whole church.....we say stake they say cross.....WE ARE EXACT OPPOSITES IN EVERY WAY IMAGINABLE....HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?

I am not saying it is impossible for the early congregations to be incorect about some things...but I dont understand how the first 2 established christian organizations could have gotten EVERY SINGLE THING WRONG DOWN TO THE SMALLEST DETAIL.

I have been banging my head up against walls for a long time trying to figure this out. Can you guys tell me what happend please...is there anyone who is 2000 years old that can tell me what happend?

[Jeshurun]

Hello Excaliber

It seems that you're wondering how Christianity became so apostatized over the course of all those centuries. Other than researching endless volumes and tomes of books and documents, it is clear from history that there have always been Christians who knew enough not to bow down or give worship to the Roman Empire. It is logical to assume that the more time passed by after the death of the Apostles, the more Christianity became corrupted with apostate teaching. One thing is for sure though, that by the 4th century, Christians were still being persecuted and martyred by Rome, evidenced by the fact that Emperor Constantine was a persecutor of Christians. It's a long story that you can find in the Encyclopedia, but he was ultimately the man who would be responsible for the eventual merging of Christianity and Roman Mythology, creating the hybrid Roman Catholic Religion of today, and all of its thousands of sects and branches. After his death, the details were hammered out at the Council of Nicea, I believe in the 4th century. Persecution continued through the ages, so there must have been plenty of people clinging to their Bibles and practicing a form of Christianity that would get them killed.

After hundreds of years known as the "dark ages", a "reformation" period came about, mostly due to the efforts of people like Martin Luther who devoted their lives to going underground and getting the Bible back into circulation. From that point onward there was much activity with new religions popping up everywhere, and it is quite a bit of history.

Through all this Satan was hard at work promoting his false doctrines and corrupting the truth, in particular the orchestrated removal of God's name from just about everything. But in spite of that, we continue to hear the word Hallelujah throughout all the masses of Christendom.

Through all that time, no one had the absolute truth, in fact we're still working on the absolute truth today. But they had enough, evidently, to not only please Jehovah, but to die as martyrs for the sake of Christ, in their refusal to obey the commands of men that would supercede their obedience to God.

The Bible Students went a long way in overturning long lost truths about Jehovah and Jesus, and there is no doubt that the 1914 doctrine left much to be desired, but it was a major step forward, and it would continue to shed more light on the truth throughout the 20th century. For that reason Jehovah's Spirit came to rest on this organization, and their adoption of the name Jehovah's Witnesses further identified them as the people belonging to the true God.

I don't know how much help this is, but please try not to get yourself in a frenzy over it.

Love
Lou

[Jeshurun]

[Jinnvisible]

"I also find it hard to beleive that there were individual people who had the truth scatered all over....that dose not make sense because when C.T.Russel started the bible students, there is no record that they united with any long lost true christians or anything like that"

<span style="font-family:Times New Roman">Thinking in these terms if there had of existed 50 000 annointed (Instead of an adverage figure of aprx. 5000) in the first century and 50 000 in the last century (before the sealing). That would still leave 44 000 annointed to be spread out across 18 centuries, an adverage of 1769 at any one time.</span>

[size="3"]</span>
</span>This model is far from accurate and yet it is perhaps more accurate that the first. This shows more how large groups of annointed could exist either end of a 18 century long Great appostasy.

[Nambo]

What about Anabaptists?, look them up on Wilkpedia, heres a line

"Apostolic successionAnother theory is that the 16th century Anabaptists were part of an apostolic succession (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_succession) of churches (or church perpetuity) from the time of Christ. According to this idea there had been a continuity of small groups outside the Roman Catholic Church (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Church) from A.D. 30 to 1525 "

Rejected the Trinity, rejected war, even had disfellowshipping!

[Berean]

Yeah, Nambo makes a good point, although the Anabaptists are probably not a very good example, since they tried to seize Münster and create a sort of New Jerusalem there during the Reformation, so at least the ones in there were basically a bunch of loonies (you can read more about this if you look up Münster Rebellion in Wikipedia or another encyclopaedia). But of course there were other groups who at least tried to seek the right way. Some early church fathers, before the Church of Rome really got distracted from the true faith, did have many good ideas, and throughout history, there have been groups who&#39;ve tried to follow the early Christians. So it would be wrong to assume that Charles Russell started something that stopped not long after the last apostle died, but I also do not have the illusion that all those groups, including ours, have been able to do everything as the early Christians did. I believe this is what Jesus meant when he said, in Luke 18:8, &#39;Nevertheless, when the Son of man arrives, will he really find the faith on the earth?&#39; The best we can do is try our best, since we collectively have strayed so far from the first congregation, that it&#39;s nigh impossible to completely get back to what was then called &#39;The Way&#39;.

[Excaliber]

In my mind it would be short of impossible to destroy what christ put in place. The bible even say&#39;s that if people were to stop preaching the gospel, THE STONES WOULD CRY OUT...aparently the work would be continued by some supernatral means.
¹⁸ Also, I say to you, You are Peter, and on this rock-mass I will build my congregation, and the gates of Ha´des will not overpower it.

<span style="font-family:Verdana">Nambo I think the anabaptists all died of...so unless there is still a succesion of these churches today it seems that the gates of hades has over powerd it. Which means it could not have been the church Jesus was talking about.


Jinnvisible I think the issue is greater then only the trinity doctrine. Remember we are the opposite of Catholics in every way, So it is assumed that litteraly EVERY THING THE APPOSTLES handed down..some how got greatly missunderstood by everyone for about 2000 years or more. And yet as the scriptures say...THE ROCKS DID NOT CRY OUT.

Lets also remember that the Roman Church was not the only church. And constantine could not effect EVERY church, because many were out of his reach. Even if constantine did some how corupt the roman church.....There were catolics in the east that did not recognize the athority of the pope....or constantine. Today these are called Orthodox Catholic. So why do these two groups of churches that both existed from the time of christ agree on almost EVERY doctrinal teaching? There is virtualy know way all the churches in the east that had nothing to do with rome or constantine would merge there worship with ROMAN MYTHOLOGY. Remember the christians were willing to die horrible deaths rather then to worship any false god such as the emporor. If the christians wanted to worship according to roman mythology they could have avoided persecution and left christianity, but they did not. So why would basicly every known church at the time deside to worship according to roman mythology? Also constantine&#39;s mother was a christian, and when constantine saw what ever it was in the sky that reminded him of christians..he converted to christianity, why on earth would he try to change christians into pagans...he already was a pagan he could have stayed as he was. Also what exactly did constantine merge into christianity?
If we dont know how the first christians worshiped in the first place....how do we know someone changed it?

Even look at the protestant reformation......the people that broke away from rome and all catholosism did not set up a form of worship much different. Why is this....were they afraid of constantines dead spirit or something? who would influence them to include roman mythology? And yet Luther&#39;s church was not much different from catholics. Also luther and many other people that broke away from the church...did not have a problem with many catholic teachings..they only wanted to reform the church because of coruption. Luther could read the bible....Church of england could read the bible.....Catholic priests could read the bible catholic bishops could read the bible...they were not all corupt. And yet none seemed to refute many church teachings.

I dont know much about the trinity, but it dose not seem to me that this could cause all this damage.
<span style="font-family:Arial">⁶ For there has been a child born to us, there has been a son given to us; and the princely rule will come to be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

I could be wrong but it seems to me that the whole trinity doctrine is based of the fact that there is only ONE true God. And in the bible Jesus is God...Jehovah is God...and the Holy spirit is God. So while they understand that they are all seprate people they say that if all three are God then they must all three be almighty. That Is my understanding of how that happend.
I think people got Realy Realy confused when they started trying to figure out God&#39;s litteral spiritual body, now we all know God is eternal and we will never with our human imperfect minds understand the perfect infinite almighty god. But they tried to anyway and thats where they get this "Three headed person Idea"...why they went so far with that I dont know.

But the point is that people all over the then known world came to the same conclusion, some how.....it was not just romans influenced by roman mythology. Churches that were started around the same time ours did beleive the same thing. I dont see it as being able to iradicate christianity.

It all just dose not make sense !!!! :(
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[Excaliber]

Also keep in mind that Jehovah dose have forsight. He knew about apostasy because it was writen in the bible. And yet he did not say All christians would apostasize...he did not say christianity would be lost for 2000 years, and then people would get a little closer.

Also why would Jesus spend so much time training people...appostles....deciples....if he knew they would ALL apostasize anyway.

And yet Jesus did not write even one book of the bible. If Jesus had writen even one book of the bible about the congregation he was establishing and its form of worship.....Then our idea of a few apostates takeing over the whole congregation on earth could not have happend. Even if there were different ideas about SOME things...the christian and exeptable form of worship would have been writen by Jesus himself, and we would know how to worship all through those 2000 years.

But God desided NOT to do that, but he trusted his appostles and those whom they would train. Why would God trust these men? Why would God remove the gifts of the spirit from the congregation..Because God canot make mistakes...and satan&#39;s spirit of this world is not more powerfull then the spirit of God....this whole thing is confuseing.

I need to get into a time machine and see for myself what happend.

[Nambo]

In my mind it would be short of impossible to destroy what christ put in place. The bible even say&#39;s that if people were to stop preaching the gospel, THE STONES WOULD CRY OUT...aparently the work would be continued by some supernatral means.
¹⁸ Also, I say to you, You are Peter, and on this rock-mass I will build my congregation, and the gates of Ha´des will not overpower it.

<span style="font-family:Verdana">Nambo I think the anabaptists all died of...so unless there is still a succesion of these churches today it seems that the gates of hades has over powerd it. Which means it could not have been the church Jesus was talking about.


</span>[/b]

Maybe Jesus never intended or expected to have a single named group of people to continue up to the end in the way the Jews had?

The Jews where Gods typical model representatation of how his people will live and be his people in the New System, living his way, worshipping him, coming out of Egypt trhough the red sea and into the promised land, showing how it will be for Christians released from slavery to modern Egypt, through the Tribs and armageddon and into Paradise.

So maybe an individual religion or nation is not requered in this instance?

Maybe the Word of God, the Bible, is all that Jehovah required to be preserved through the ages and down to our day when it would need to be understood in order to guide the Holy Ones and the other sheep into the New World?

Hence, all that was required was a few faithfull ones to ensure the Bible didnt get destroyed and was freed from the prison the Catholic Church put it in.

Just because for example Ana-baptists where not called Jehovahs witnesses, if individuals in each where trying to follow the Bible, worship the God of Abraham, and where looking forward to Gods Kingdom. whats the differance?

Jehovah didnt call out to Russell from a burning bush to establish the Jehovahs Witnesses and to lead his people into the promised land, the message of God is so right that just the words of it written in a book are strong enough to lead ones such as Russell who read it, to reach out for it with the result that just as Jehovah used Abraham, he uses those who reach out to him to do his work so that he doesnt have to use the stones, whatever name they decide to call themselves.

Jehovahs Witnesses do seem to be the only religion at least trying to reject the Babylonian god and worship the God of Abraham so for this reason Jehovah can use them instead of the stones.

Jesus didnt start a new nation or religion that people had to join, Christianity was open to the whole world of man, Jehovah will use who he can to ensure the message of it reaches down to our day, and it has indeed so Christ has certainly not failed, rather Jehovahs power has been magnified in the fact thet not a nation of Christians, but a mere book is all thet is required for his purpose to work.

Now we are at the end, it is the time for the ones having insight to reveal what the Bible says, in order to lead the many to righteousness.

It does look like the Jehovahs Witnessees are the assembly point for the Holy Ones and the vehicle for the spreading of the Kingdom message, but not because they are in any way related to the original Christians, but because they are the ones in this time of the end to have read the Bible and acted on what it said.

[Excaliber]

Nambo you said Jesus never intended to have a specific group continue untill the end. lets reason on that. Jesus said he established his congregation..that is what he told peter and others. did he mean group of people? I think so because the bible says there is ONE faith ONE baptism. We are to be one in porpose...that sounds like a group.
Also just read the book of acts, and the letters to the congregations.

The appostles who were with Jesus and lived with him for years established GROUPS of worshipers, these groups were centralized by one headquarters.

So we see that God through the appostles did establish a grouop of people.

As far as names like Jehovahs wittnesses, Catholic, anabaptist etc..etc..etc.. The group that was started eventualy would have to seperate itself from apostates. So it would have been nessasary for them to call themselves a name so people would know them from the other groups that were poping up all over.

The first christians came from the jews way of worship...so they probably had a very similar way of worship as the jewish people in the synogogs.

Nambo you also said the bible was all that was needed.
That is almost impossible.
1) the ancient writeings were not miraculesly preserved by God, so they had to be copied and recopied and then copied again, that changes the wording. Which basicly means that the text that was copied repetitavly by people trying to figure out how to word things in different languages, is no longer inspierd.
That fact can be proven by the big differences in many bibles, and the fact that the translaters of some bibles were trying to lead you to take a verse a sertain way. The translaters could not have been inspierd of God..which means what we have today can have errors. Something inspired of God canot have errors.

2) interpretation. This is a huge reason why the bible alone is not all we need.A comma put in a sertain place can change the entire meaning of a scripture..that is very fragile. Basicly if all God wanted to do was have a version of the bible available to people...then we are saying that, it is ok with God for all these people to worship in the way THEY understand the bible. So that would make the diverse relligions of today ok with God, because if all he wanted was for you to get a book in your hands...with out a sertain GROUP of people to teach you its meaning..then you are free to worship how you understand the scriptures.
That cant be right.
I have read the new NIV bible, it is VERY different from the new world translation....and yet the scholars of this book are said to have "MORE ACCURATELY" translated the original languages. The NIV bible is worded in a way, that makes it much easier for someone to beleive the trinity..and yet study there bible regularly. The N.W.T. makes it almoet impossible for someone to beleive the trinity and study the bible regularly....The original inspired scriptures were deffinantly usefull in setting things straight...but what about all the differently translated scriptures today...many times the translations we have are from old scholars that were poorly educated and spell just as bad as I do : )
which to make a long story short, we dont know what the original christians did.....and we dont know exactly what the original "INSPIERD" scriptures said.
If it was so easy as studying the bible, the people who originaly set up bible colledges and semonaries would come out of them beleiving the way we do. BUT THEY DONT.

Interpretation is important. For example was the great croud in johns vision in heaven or on earth? the number 144,000 is it literal or simbolic? The lake of fire is it litteral or ymbolic? When Jesus said to keep selebrating the memorial..were we to do it once a year,once a month, every week, or every day?Jesus said we had to eat his flesh and drink his blood and that caused many of his diciples to leave him, was this because he was being litteral or symbolic?
I could go on and on, basicly the average person is not just going to pick up a bible and figure all this stuff out. We think the way we do because A GROUP HAS told us to interpret things a certain way.

The bible alone could not have been all that was needed.

when the scripture was writen " all scripture is inspierd of god and ......so the man of god could be completely equiped" when that was writen there must have been a different meaning, because they probably did not have all the scriptures yet..so how could they be fully equiped. Also there actions dont support the thought of the bible alone being what was needed...because they had a headquarters and an organization to deside upon important matters.
Acording to that scripture they were fully equiped to handel that issue of sercumsision that came up....but it was not all that was needed. I remember the appostles were still getting visions where God told them stop calling unclean the things God has cleansed. Aparently God felt they needed more then just the bible.

Also acording to that thought, we dont need the watchtower telling us when to sleep..how tall to stand up...how to eat....weather or not we can wear beards...etc...etc...if we are fully equiped with just the bible.

It still makes no sense : (

[Excaliber]

Nambo
I am doing research on anabaptists.
It looks like that name was given to them by people who were persecuting them. It looks like they prefer to cal them selve mennonites.

I dont know what happend to them but the mennonites DO teach the trinity. I know cus Im over here reading about it.

These are the guys with the beards, and If I am not mistaken some of the more strict ones live without electricity and stuf. Women wear head coverings and dresses.

I have not found much about appostolic sussesion yet though.

Dude talk about narrow is the way and cramped is the road !!!!! living without modern stuff and rideing horses and buggys..now that is CRAMPED.

[Nambo]

Hi Excaliber, I dont know much at all about Anabaptists, only what I read on wilk which seems to suggest there where a few differant branches and mentions one that was anti-trinity, so I used them for my suggested example.
I also remember the society mentioning them when they talk about the "thin red line" of anointed throughout the centuries who maintained even a presence of one of Jesus Congregation of anointed Christians which I belive is the congregation he is talking about who would have been the original Christians to get the work started initially untill the great apostacy, but to be that thin red line ensuring Jesus presence is maintained and the Bibles ensured survival and translation from Latin, ready for when the climax of the harvest of mankind and the remnant.

I think the Bible has been preserved enough to do Gods will, I think this is part of the work the "thin red line" acomplished, despite what you rightly say about differant translations, this just adds to the "sealing up untill the time of the end" that Daniel mentions, then, when the Bible and true Christianity is important, ie, now, then those who are truly concerned with the truth of the Bible, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, are gathered together, (Jehovahs Witnesses), where they then impart the "understanding to the many".

I still dont see the requirement for having a continuity of a genuine Christian religion throughout the ages?
All people who die in those times are resurrected anyway and able to learn truth in the New System, now is the time where an acurate knowledge of Bible truth is required in order to survive the harvest at the end.

If a true Christian religion had been maintained all these years and through the dark ages, there may well have been more opurtunity for the minions of Satan to completely destroy it before it had a chance to do the vital work at the end of spreading the good news of Gods Kingdom, the very same work that the same, but earlier congreagation of God did initaially.
I say same congreagation of God because these are just earlier members of Christs body, despite the name of thier religion.
Ie, Jehovahs Witnesses do not claim that all 144,000 come from the modern Jehovahs Witesses.

[Excaliber]

Mennonites <LI>Hutterites <LI>Brethren <LI>Amish

Those are all we know of the different titels anabaptists had....which one of these dont teach the trinity? I know mennonites do.

Why is appostolic succesion important?
Well lets compare it to the line of abraham, through which the messiah came. What if "lets just say" there were some dark ages and abrahams family was persecuted and went under ground.
During this time the spread out. Then lets say when the persecution was brought to an end by a particulare emporor....ha ha lets just say his name is constantine just for fun...any way lets say constantine stops the persecution and says he will protect the family...But then these other family&#39;s pop up and say that constantine secretly replaced his family with abrahams and was trying to start a mesianic line through his family. The family protected by constantine says that the other family&#39;s are lying.
Lets say this mess gose on for 2000 years during which time about 3000 people claimed to be Jesus christ and you gotta pick one to follow.
But abrahams family line had been broken for 2000 years and there was no way to trace anyone&#39;s claim if he said he was the christ.


Now wouldnt an unbroken family line leading back to abraham be nice?

I think its the same with christianity, an unbroken line of carrying out appostolic tradishon sure would be nice, when you knock on someones door and tell them that you are the only organization on the planet that God is useing. Because most people do some research and find out about your organizational history...with a few false predictions..some big house called beth sarim or something....and something about pyramidology...miracle beans and then today all the sexual abuse stuff etc...etc...etc..
that sorta waters down the old we are better then everyone else speach.

If we had appostolic succesion we could stop the whole perfect image stuff, and say we make mistakes but we have a proven line that dates back to the time of christ....then we could say we were "LITTERALY" the organization started by God.
But since we canot do that I that, it seems we needed something to set us apart as better then all the other organizations that say "there is no salvation outside our church".
isint that why the watch tower needs such a squeeky clean image?

Any way thats partly why this whole story about God not haveing an organization untill 2000 years after christ is so confuseing.

Also what exact mythology did Roman catholics merge with christianity?
do people just say that..or is there some hard evidence?

From what I saw in my research....the church after constantine did not change much from the church before constantine. they just had the state behind them.
Although this was not so special, the Orthodox, Lutherans, basicly every "known" religion of the time includeing the church of england had the state behind them. That dose not mean the rulers of those states got to change christianity any way they wanted.

still confused on this one.

[Nambo]

The line of Abraham to Christ had to be visible and unbroken for the reasons you said.
It was a fleshly promise of a fleshly line.

The Spiritual promise needs no such visible and unbroken lineage as each member of the annointed congregation is selected as an individual by God, (or is iy Jesus), doesnt matter who they are related too or in what time period.
Sure, it would make the field ministry easier if we could somehow show we where still the original Christians, but I think if such a thing where so obvious, all through the ages these genuine Christians would have suffered horribly as states and governments would not have been able to put in place thier own version of Christianity for thier own purposes.
Just look at the persecution the Witneses got during the World Wars for not acting like State Christians and fighting for God and country.

As for your question about the differance Constantine made to early Christianity, perhaps that shopuld be the subject of a differant thread. The Two Babylons is a good book>

Now, of further interest and example, the Quakers, once again seeming to start off with good intentions.

From Wilkepedia, :- "In the first few years of the movement, Quakers thought of themselves as part of the restoration of the true Christian church after centuries of apostasy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy). For this reason, during this period they often referred to themselves as simply the "saints" or the "children of light". Another common name was "Friends of the Truth".

Heres an entry from the Eveining Post of , :- " 10-12 September 1701
To prevent false reports, this is to give notice, that on the 25th of the last there was a conference held betwixt Frances Bugg and Henry Pickworth, in the Sessions-house in Sleeford in Lincolnshire, wherein the said Francis Bugg did plainly make it appear from divers quoteations [sic] fairly taken out of the Quakers own books, which were then and there produced, and openly read, to the general satisfaction of the audience, that the Quakers had prophanely abus’d the Holy Scriptures, blasphem’d the ever Blessed Trinity, deny’d our Lord and Saviour, and reviled his Sacred Ordinances; This being fully prov’d against the Quakers, they being not able to disprove any one of his quotations, the magistrates there present, did therefore order some of their vile pamphlets to be publickly burnt at their Market Cross, which was accordingly performed; and in abhorrence of the Quakers blasphemous and anti-christian principles, did shortly after the conference declare, that a great many other of their books ought also very deservedly to be committed to the flames. [English Post]"

See what I mean, I think Jehovah allowed a period of Apostasy during most of the last 2000 years when life wasnt dependant on true Christianity.

As for the Anti-trinitarian branch of Ana-baptists, wilk states:-"

It is beneficial to recognize different types among the Anabaptists, although these categorizations tend to vary with the scholar&#39;s viewpoint on origins. Estep claims that in order to understand Anabaptism, one must "distinguish between the Anabaptists, inspirationists, and rationalists." He classes the likes of Blaurock, Grebel, Hübmaier, Manz, Marpeck, and Simons as Anabaptists. He groups Müntzer, Storch, et al. as inspirationists, and anti-trinitarians such as Michael Servetus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Servetus), Juan de Valdés (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_Valdes), Sebastian Castellio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Castellio), and Faustus Socinus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faustus_Socinus) as rationalists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism). Mark S. Ritchie follows this line of thought, saying, "The Anabaptists were one of several branches of &#39;Radical&#39; reformers (i.e. reformers that went further than the mainstream Reformers) to arise out of the Renaissance and Reformation. Two other branches were Spirituals or Inspirationists, who believed that they had received direct revelation from the Spirit, and rationalists or anti-Trinitarians, who rebelled against traditional Christian doctrine, like Michael Servetus." Most of the Anti-Trinitarian Anabaptists were modalistic monarchians and baptized in the shorter formula of the name of Jesus Christ. They also spoke in ecstatic languages and prophecies known as "speaking in tongues." Holiness was a very important doctrine to them."


Interesting also :- "Another theory is that the 16th century Anabaptists were part of an apostolic succession (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_succession) of churches (or church perpetuity) from the time of Christ. According to this idea there had been a continuity of small groups outside the Roman Catholic Church (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Church) from A.D. 30 to 1525 (which continues also to the present)"

Looks like they considered Apostolic succession important as well, wonder who the anabaptist "which continue to present" are?, JWs?

Personally, knowing the nature of man, proven apostolic succession would lead to Idolitry and Creature worship, the FDS seems to be quite full of its own importance at the moment, imagine what they would be like if they had a proven link with the original 12?
Just look at mainstream Christianitys obsession with relects like the Shroud of Turin to get an idea of where Iam coming from.

Besides, Christianity is open up to all men, not just a select club, the Witnessesa are allready viewing with suspicion new ones taking the Emblems.

What is the scripture where Jesus repremands the Apostles for critisising others who where preaching Jesus?
See, it started to go wrong right from back then, imagine if there had been 2000 yeras of it.

[Berean]

What is the scripture where Jesus repremands the Apostles for critisising others who where preaching Jesus?[/b]
I think you mean this text, in Mark 9:38-42: John said to him: &#39;Teacher, we saw a certain man expelling demons by the use of your name and we tried to prevent him, because he was not accompanying us.&#39; But Jesus said: &#39;Do not try to prevent him, for there is no one that will do a powerful work on the basis of my name that will quickly be able to revile me; for he that is not against us is for us. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink on the ground that you belong to Christ, I truly tell you, he will by no means lose his reward. But whoever stumbles one of these little ones that believe, it would be finer for him if a millstone such as is turned by an ass were put around his neck and he were actually pitched into the sea.&#39;

This shows us perfectly what Jesus thought of judging other religious groups that do good things in his name. His message was very much one of loving each other, and definitely not of judging one another, and this includes judging other Christian groups that do not teach gross untruths.

[Jinnvisible]

<span style="font-family:Times New Roman">Monastic vows of silence may have even figured into it where preaching of truth became an impractical impossibility. They may have decided that if the truth about the bible could not be spoken openly then instead of martyrdom they would simply not talk in the hope that the stones would actually cry out. There are also beliefs that whilst not being accurate may not have actually disqualified a person from their heavenly calling.

[Excaliber]

Well I guess its impossible to know.

My meeting this sunday was cool. Can you beleive the talk was about babylon the great, and how everyone else but us is babylon the great.
And the talk was also about how all these other religious organizations had problems but we dont.

Dont it make you feel good to be apart of the perfect and infalible watchtower org. :lol:

[Shibboleth]

<span style="font-family:Times New Roman">
<span style="font-family:Times New Roman">In order to gain an adverage figure of how many of the annointed could have existed at any point between 33 BCE and 2033 BCE You divide 144 000 by 28. 5 The answer being just over 5000 annointed existing at anyone time.</span>

[size="3"]</span>
</span></span>[/b]

I think you mean AD or CE. BCE or BC would count the years backwards. So if someone was born in 200 BCE they would live till 130 BCE, that is if they lived 70 years. heh I just found it funny. :P

Regards,

Shibboleth

[Shibboleth]

Well I feel that Christ and his teachings were upheld throughout the ages whether it was by a named group or not. Jesus said that when 2 or more are gathered in my name I will be with them. So if it was just 2 or 3 people or a group of more then 100, if they were gathered there in his name and doing what he had told them then he would be there. So his spirit never died out. I believe that the apostasy had a great deal of hardship on people who just wanted to live by God&#39;s standards. You had Inquisitions and killings by people who prophesed to be doing what Christ wanted.

The bible also said that when we get closer to the end that truths would be revealed. Truths have been revealed during our time.

Even the 1st Century Christians had disputes about doctrinal things. But they were still trying their best to do what Jesus wanted.

The apostasy clouded or darkened the truth. there were many people down through the ages that questioned and tried their best to reason from the scriptures that they had. As people were trying to find and seek the truths, there were people who were trying to darken the truths. That is why it is called a great apostasy.


Regards,

Shibboleth

[Jinnvisible]

I think you mean AD or CE. BCE or BC would count the years backwards. So if someone was born in 200 BCE they would live till 130 BCE, that is if they lived 70 years. heh I just found it funny. :P

Regards,

Shibboleth[/b]

Yes, sorry, i have many problems with gramma, words, letters and numbers.

I`m glad you understood. Ty Shibboleth

[Excaliber]

We always talk about a great apostasy in very general terms. We say there were inquisitions....there was constantine...everyone not just groups here and there but everyone stoped serving God....exept 2 or 3 people here and there...etc...etc...etc..

never any solid proff!

What EXACTLY did constantinue do and how do you know?
What exact inquisition and what exactly took place?
How exactly did the first christians worship before constantine? If we dont know, then how do we know what constantinue changed?

If we were in a court that used the principle inocent untill shown guilty, we would have work to do.

We always assume all this stuff happend with no facts, and we feel comfortable because of the trinity doctrine. The trinity doctrine automaticly means all we teach is accurate.

There must be evidence of all this, even hitler tried to destroy all jews, but 2000 years from now we will all know what happend because there is solid evidence of what he did.
we say constantine or some apostate did something on a larger scale then hitler, we say he some how defiled christianity all over the then known world..not just in rome. And tricked 90 percent of christians all the way down untill today.
Some how even though isreal had an organized religion for many years...and knowone could bring pagan practics into it with out both all isreal knowing about it..and God makeing sure all isreal knew about it. All the way down to the Jews with there organized form of worship, and even though the priests of that time were corupt..there is no record I know of were they brought false gods into the synogogs...also the sacrifices and form of worship was still acceptable to God.
Yet Jesus comes ...and then one of the biggest things in all history happens...someone destroys an intire organized religion, and it remains dead for 2000 years. during that time 2 or 3 people "could have meet together but knowone knows". Somehow an emporor converts to christianity and eledgedly destroys an intire organized WORLD religion.

Now if that was not historic enuff....what is even more historic is that knowone realy knows exactly how he did it? He some how did the perfect crime and left no traces. He somehow like kidnaped all the christians and replaced them with people who worshiped roman mythology under the cover of christianity... And what is even more historic, he would have had " NO REASON TO DO ANY OF THAT" !!!!!
yes this crime has no motive.
The christians were no threat to him, no political benefit would come to him by sideing with this comparitivly small group.
He just one day said I want to corupt a religion for absolutely no reason.

This would make a very interesting mystery novel.

[Jinnvisible]

Hi Excalibur,

Why don`t you start by giving a definition what you believe Paul was talking about when he prophesied of a Great Apostasy. Or your own thoughts on the developments of Christendom. It might be more constructive.

Why would Constantine want to pollute a religion ?

Why would anyone want to kill Jesus ?