History of the Christian Church.................

(Some early church History,for those that Ask..........



FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH

OME 2,000 years ago, our Lord Jesus Christ directly intervened in human history. Although He is God (together with the Father and the Holy Spirit), He became a man--or, as we often put it, He became incarnate--enfleshed. Mankind, at its very beginning in Adam and Eve, had fallen away from Divine life by embracing sin, and had fallen under the power of death. But the Lord Jesus, by His incarnation, death upon the Cross, and subsequent resurrection from death on the third day, destroyed the power death had over men. By His teaching and His whole saving work, Christ reconciled to God a humanity that had grown distant from God1 and had become ensnared in sins.2 He abolished the authority the Devil had acquired over men3 and He renewed and re-created both mankind and His whole universe.4 Bridging the abyss separating man and God, by means of the union of man and God in His own Person, Christ our Saviour opened the way to eternal, joyful life after death for all who would accept it.5

Not all the people of Judea, the Hebrews, God's chosen people (Deut 7:6; Is 44:1), were ready to hear this news, and so our Lord spoke to them mostly in parables and figures. For the complete revelation of His teachings, He chose out twelve simple men whom He taught more perfectly.6 These twelve are called His Apostles.7 As part of His salvation of the human race, Christ established a Church (Mt 16:18; Mt 18:17).

1 Rom 5:1, 2, 10; 2 Cor 5:18-19; Eph. 2:14-17; Col 1:19-22

2 Gen 8:21; Eph 2:1-3

3 Ps 123:7; Act 26:18; Rom 6:17-18, 22; Col 1:13; Heb 2:14-15; 1 Jn 3:8

4 1 Cor 5:7, 17; Heb 9:15; Apoc 21:5

5 Jn 3:14-16; Rom 5:21; 1 Cor 15:22; Tit 3:7; Heb 5:9; 1 Pet 3:22

6 Mt 10:2; Lk 6:13; Mt 26:20; Jn 6:70; 1 Cor 15:5; Apoc 21:14

7 Mk 6:30; Lk 9:10; Lk 22:14; Lk 24:10; Lk 8:1; Rom 16:7
continued...................

www.odox.net...