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If the Apostles Came Back in Our Time...
- Thread starter Gershom
- Start date
I've thought about this a lot. I think they would be overwhelmed by the scale and scope of humanity. The huge population and the almost entire exploration and inhabitation of earth. Man having explored the moon.
They would have to be impressed by the widespread dissemination of the Gospel, but I wonder how they would react to the widespread disparate doctrines, traditions, and practices. I bet they would immediately want to read the Bible from cover to cover.
I'd like to think they would be shocked at the depravity of society in general, but would they? There were some disgusting practices and morals in their day. They might be surprised at the demise of the old Greek and Roman polytheistic religions and the rise of Islam.
They would have to be impressed by the widespread dissemination of the Gospel, but I wonder how they would react to the widespread disparate doctrines, traditions, and practices. I bet they would immediately want to read the Bible from cover to cover.
I'd like to think they would be shocked at the depravity of society in general, but would they? There were some disgusting practices and morals in their day. They might be surprised at the demise of the old Greek and Roman polytheistic religions and the rise of Islam.
They would probably be impressed with the technology, but not with human nature. Human nature and corruption is the same as always.
They would be very much at home with the sinful state of society, although they might have difficulty immediately understanding our culture and philosophical/societal milieu, but they would get up to speed fairly quickly.
There were things widely accepted in their society (sexual rites at pagan temples, pederasty, the denigration of women, slavery, etc.) that are not tolerated by Western society.
Human nature is essentially unchanged, although the varied expressions of that corruption changes with the centuries.
They would just bust out their 1611 KJV and shame all of the modern version lovers. :tongue3:
But would it be with Scofield's notes or Thompson Chain References?
Would there be Strong's numberings over each word?
Would it be with or without the Apocrypha?
Would it be printed in Gothic fonts?
And we cannot forget about the (1) Pictures of Jesus; (2) Maps; and. most important of all, (3) Would it include the Book of Concordance?
Far more Christians than they ever imagined possible. The immense influence of Christianity across the globe.
Oh and a round world.
Gershom said:
Shocked would be a better word.:thumbs:
I agree and that IFB church would be affiliated with the SBC!!! :thumbs:
Sometimes I wonder if they would be concerned with us majoring on the minors. I realize that we might have some differences - but how important are they compared to sharing the gospel with the lost.
For example - my good friend Old Regular Baptist does not believe in paid clergy. I believe that a church should strive to have a fully supported pastor. Now we might debate that - even on a Biblical basis - but the bottom line is that neither one of us would believe that "doctrine" (or practice) would keep us from getting into Heaven. We would both agree that we need to preach the Gospel of Christ to the unsaved - and exhort the truths of the Bible to the saved.
Salty
If it is an IFB church it wouldn't be affiliated with the SBC. That is a contradiction if I ever heard one.
I sincerely doubt that the apostles believed in a flat world.
The ancient peoples were very good observers of nature and knew that the earth was at least curved since they could see ships approach the shore where the masts were the first thing to be sighted until the entire ship appeared above the waves. In the same way, when the disciples left the shore in their boats, they lost sight of the shore but could only see the higher elevations (mountains, etc.) when they were in the middle of the Sea of Galilee.
In the third century B.C., the Greeks even computed a fairly close estimate of the diameter of the Earth, as well as a number of other calculations regarding the tilt of the axis of the earth, etc. With Israel in the crossroads of all of the major scientific, philosophical, and theological cultures of that age, there was very little human knowledge that couldn't be known in Israel.
Furthermore, in Matthew 24 where Jesus is talking about the coming destruction where there are people in the fields working (presumably in the daytime) as well as people asleep in bed (presumably nighttime) indicates that Jesus understood (as well as His audience) that the world was round. If Jesus was teaching it, His disciples certainly knew it too.
I think the idea that the apostles didn't know the world was round was assumed by people who also assumed that the early followers of Jesus was ignorant and superstitious men and women who were easily led astray, [sarcasm]so unlike the modern 19th century liberal theologians who knew better.[/sarcasm]
I'm not accusing you of anything preach, because I was regularly fed that same perspective in seminary and from the pulpit for many years, not realizing that it was just modern Western arrogance that assumes we are smarter and wiser than our ancestors.
Well, can we even build one of the Pyraminds with "modern technology?"
Robert Snow
New Member
And finally convince everyone of our wrong interpretation of Scripture, that is except for freeatlast. He would tell them they are wrong! (just kidding freeatlast.)
Oh, I don't know...but I was just being ironic.
You know it got me thinking (between meetings this afternoon) that if the apostles did come back and visited our church services one of their first questions might be: Where did the Torah/Bible go?
(i.e. we rarely hear consistent preaching from the OT and since the NT wasn't completed until most of them had their lives taken they might not recognize why were are preaching from that annoyingly smart former Jew named Paulus)