This 13-part series of classes has been many years in the making. About 25 years ago I began in earnest to examine the features, character and characteristics of the church as it existed in its earliest years. As I sometimes do, I kept my notes all along the way, and this series of classes is to a large extent the product of those years of on-and-off studying the subject. Several things in my experience contributed to my interest in making this 25-year study which I will mention along the way, and those go much further back.
There may be some difficulty in using the individual parts of this series separately, although viewer are free to do so if it serves their purposes. But to those whose interest is in knowing what the church was like in its earliest years, I recommend starting with Part 1 - Introduction to the Church of the New Testament and proceeding through the parts consecutively.
I have prepared some slides that I used in presenting the series in a classroom setting before adapting it to use as sermons. I have left my cues to advance slides or activate animations in the notes as posted on Sermon Central. If anyone is interested in having the PowerPoint files with the slides, I will be happy to send them. Send me an Email at sam@srmccormick.net and specify what part(s) you are requesting. Be sure that the word “slide” appears in the subject line. It may take me several days to respond, but I will respond to all requests.
THE CHURCH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
OUTLINE OF THE STUDY
I. Introduction
II. The Origin of the Church
III. What is the church?
IV. The First Christians
V. Authority in the First Century Church
VI. Problems in the New Testament Church
VII. How the Church Functioned
A. Introduction to Functions
B. Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers
C. False Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers & Various Gifts and Functions
D. More Gifts and Functions
E. Evangelists, Preachers, and Ministers, Servants and Deacons
F. Pastors, Elders, Bishops, etc.
VIII. How the Church Worshiped
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II. The Origin of the Church
Last Sunday we looked at the historical pattern church has experienced over the 2,000 years of its existence.
(1) Early drifting away from the practices and teachings during the apostles’ lives, and later
(2) an accelerated deterioration of the church’s resemblance to the church we see in the New Testament, to the point that it had no similarity at all to anything Jesus or the apostles set up.
(3) This was followed during the last 800 years by a succession of reforms, all of which were intended, each in its own way, to do one thing—bring the church back to its New Testament roots. The idea has been there for hundreds of years that the church, to be what it ought to be, should be like “the church of the New Testament.” The idea of identifying with the earliest Christians by following their lead is not new.
We found, however, that there are great difficulties in accomplishing this. For one thing, the reformers were persecuted viciously by those who preferred that the church remain what it had become. For another, there were serious differences among the reformers about what factors mattered and which didn’t in reforming the church more nearly to its original state.
These reforms have gotten us back to where the church has some closer resemblance to the church of the first century, but at the price of a splintered presentation of the Christian faith to the unbelieving world, for the reformers did not attack the same defects in the church of their day, and some who followed the reformers had different ideas of what the reform was--or should be--about. Some did not follow the reformers at all, leaving “isms” and “doxies” all over the religious landscape.
That is where the church is today.
Today we rewind the tape to the beginning, and talk about the church’s origin.
Everyone here knows how that the events on the day of Pentecost fulfilled Joel’s prophecy and that the church was established on that day. But I would like to examine some aspects of that event that may not be as well known, but I believe are worth considering in understanding the church of the New Testament.
We start at Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus said to Peter:
…Who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Mat 16:15-19)
Still at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus said to the crowd that had joined him and his disciples And he said to them,
Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power." (Mar 9:1)
A few days--seven I believe--after Jesus ascended to heaven, it seems that all that remained of the multitudes that followed Jesus were 120 disciples—at least of those who were waiting for what came next. They knew there was more. Jesus had died, risen from the tomb, and appeared over 40 days to many of his disciples and brethren, then ascended to heaven in the presence of witnesses.
For others, the show was over, and it was time to go home and get on with their lives.
But those 120 were waiting for what came next, because that’s what Jesus told them to do.
These 120 disciples knew they would never forget Jesus and go back to life as it was before they knew him, for now, they knew him.
They knew it wasn’t over.
They were waiting.
There were three great pilgrimage festivals of the Jews, so called because on each of these occasions every male Israelite was commanded “to appear before the Lord” (Deu_27:7; Neh_8:9-12):
(a) The Passover, or Paschal feast (Paschal (Latin) referring to the Passover lamb that was eaten). It was followed immediately by the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Passover recalled the last plague brought upon Egypt and the Hebrews’ exodus from bondage (Exo_12:6; Lev_23:5, Lev_23:8; Num_28:16-25; Deu_16:1-8).
(b) The feast of Pentecost, or of weeks, or the “day of the first fruits.”
It was the celebration of the wheat harvest, observed by the offering of the first fruits from the produce of the land. They did so by presenting loaves of bread made from the first and best grain from the newly harvested crop. These loaves were called the “first fruits.”
Passages relating to it are Exo 23:15-16; Lev 23; 15-22; Num 28:26-31; Deut 16:9-12.
By the time of Christ, Pentecost was associated by its date on the calendar with the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai, but the scriptures do not make that connection, at least directly.
(c) The Feast of Tabernacles, Booths, or Ingathering. It celebrated the completion of the harvest of barley and perhaps other late crops, and is sometimes called the “harvest home.” It was on the anniversary of the sojourn in the wilderness.
The attendance of women was at these festivals was voluntary. (Compare Luke_2:41; 1Sam_1:7; 1 Sam_2:19.)
God promised that would protect their homes (Exo_34:23, Exo_34:24) while all the males were absent in Jerusalem at these feasts was always fulfilled. “During the whole period between Moses and Christ we never read of an enemy invading the land at the time of the three festivals.
Each feast meant something (explain each a little).
And now we find the 120 disciples waiting in Jerusalem as Jesus directed them, “for the promise of the Father,” and to be “clothed with power from on high.
Waiting - for what, they had little idea but they knew that they were waiting to be clothed with power from on high, as Jesus told the disciples in one of his appearances in Jerusalem:
• And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." Luke 24:49
• In Acts 1:4 Luke says Jesus told them specifically to remain in Jerusalem and “wait for the promise of the Father.”
What promise? What power from on high?
Remember what Jesus told them that last night before he prayed in Gethsemane:
• "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; Joh 14:16
• "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
• Joh 14:26 "And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; Joh 16:8
Waiting. What was in their minds as they waited for something to happen?
The wait was not long. By my calculation, one week (3 days in the tomb, 40 days of appearances to the disciples, there were 7 days to Pentecost).
While they waited, the sun came up on the day of Pentecost.
Read Acts 2:1-4
Why were the disciples together in one place on the first day of the week?
Fifty days after the Passover fell on Sunday. But they were still under the law, and the law gave them no reason to assemble on Sunday. Pentecost was an occasion of offering at the temple, but that was done as individuals, done by men only because the women could not go beyond the “court of the women,” so Pentecost was not a gathering of people. Certainly all Israelite men were to go to Jerusalem which would be very crowded on such an occasion, but they were not called on to all assemble for any purpose while there.
I think it was because they were together most of the time while they waited for something to happen that they realized would exceed any geologic cataclysm. A new age was about to erupt on the world stage that would change God’s and man’s relationship forever.
They knew they were all about to be part of something HUGE.
(3 festivals slide)
It was fitting that the first fruits of the gospel harvest would occur on Pentecost, the “day of first fruits,” when the first fruits of the completed gospel were brought in.
Someone - we know not who - was the first person baptized.
By nightfall, the new church had 3000 members, that day’s harvest of souls.
The first fruits.
The Lord added daily (Acts 2:47). “And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
Jesus was “building his church,” just as he said in Caesarea Philippi.
Acts 2:47 in the KJV, NKJV, and some earlier translations says the Lord added to the church daily. The word ekklesia, meaning “assembly” but often translated “church” does not appear in the original, but it is clear from the context that the number was growing and it was all about the church.
In a later part of this series we will examine the actions of those first Christians who were part of the phenomenal spread of the gospel, and with it, the church of the New Testament.
