HISTORY
OF THE CHURCH PART I
INTRODUCTION:
A church is neither a physical building nor a religion but a composition of all genuine believers who have been redeemed by the Lord’s blood (Acts 20:28). The church in Greek is "EKKLESIA", which means the called-out congregation of the believers of Christ Jesus.
The church of Jesus Christ is neither Jewish, nor Roman Catholic nor Protestant. It is non-denominational in its origin, worship and organization by its very nature the Body of Christ, which is the church, is one (I Cor. 12:12-13). There could not be conceivably more than on Body as there is but one Head (Eph. 1:22-23).
The local churches are the expressions of the one universal church, the unique Body of Christ. The church like the moon has no particular name. The moon is just the moon wherever it may be seen, If the moon is seen in Philadelphia it is called the moon in Philadelphia and if it is seen in Zamboanga City it is called the moon in Zamboanga City. Likewise, if the expression of the church is in Philadelphia it is called the church in Philadelphia (Rev. 3:7) and in Zamboanga City it must simply be called the church in Zamboanga City. The church is only identified according to the name of the city or locality where the believers stay and meet together and not according to any man-made name. This is a biblical principle to follow to preserve the testimony of oneness and to avoid division, which results to confusion. This makes the local churches a strong testimony of Jesus our Lord.
The Lord Jesus Christ died at the age of thirty-three and a half. We can see in the book of Acts that fifty days after the Lord’s resurrection, which was the day of Pentecost, Peter delivered a message and three thousand souls, believed and got baptized. The following day right away they started to meet together. Eventually, they became the first local church established in A.D. 33 called the CHURCH IN JERUSAELM (Acts 2:41-42; 8:1). Because of Jewish persecutions the disciples were scattered to different places. They continued to preach the gospel and another church was raised up in Antioch; the believers, by then were first Christians (Acts 11:26). Because the disciples were faithful even unto death more local churches were raised up: the CHURCH IN CORINTH (I Cor. 1:2), the CHURCH IN EPHESUS (Rev. 2:1), the CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIA (Rev. 3:7), and the rest of the local churches in Asia were raised up too (Rev. 1:11).
During the apostles’ time, the churches were divided according to the localities. The CHURCHES IN JERUSALEM, the CHURCH IN ANTIOCH, the CHURCH IN CORINTH, the CHURCH IN EPHESUS, the CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIA, and the CHURCH IN LAODECIA were all divided according to locality. The church in every locality had its own independent administration. Therefore, in the Bible, Acts 14:23 tells us, "they appointed elders in every church" and Titus 1:5, "appoint elders in every city." To appoint elders in every church is equivalent to appoint elders in every city. The elders are for the church, and the church in a city. The church takes the city or locality as the unit. The boundary of the city or locality equals the boundary of the church and the boundary of the church equals the boundary of the elders’ administration.
All the local churches started to degrade because of loss of the first love toward the Lord, persecution, mixture and deviation from the truth. The ROMAN EMPIRE began its persecution from the last part of the first century. In the fourth century, a man of pagan origin, Constantine became the head of the ROMAN EMPIRE. He was a corrupt person. He committed a lot of murders and adultery. During his reign, persecutions against the Christians continued. However, persecutions had not destroyed the Christian faith. Instead of allowing the empire being divided with pagans in conflict with Christians, he took the steps of mixing both paganism and Christianity. He did not only cease to oppose the church, but embraced Christianity to become the greatest empire on this earth. Rome accepted Christianity as her state religion in A.D. 313. This was the birth of the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. The church and state became one. There was a mixture of religion and politics. Membership in the church went along with the citizenship in the empire. Those who were in Rome automatically became members of the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. This eventually made the practice of infant baptism prevailing.
The ROMAN EMPIRE eventually became the greatest conqueror with the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH as its religious arm. Thus, by the cross and the sword the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH prevailed. Whatever places the ROMAN EMPIRE conquered, the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH also conquered. People were being baptized even without faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the practice of infant baptism was enforced, which was contrary to the Scripture. For the Bible tells us that we need first to repent and believe that Jesus is Lord and Savior before being baptized (Matt 4:17; Acts 2:38; John 1:12; Rom. 10:9; Mark 16:16). As the trend of the ROAMN CATHOLIC CHURCH continued to fully develop until the fourth century, the local churches mentioned in the Bible existed no more.