Featured Does your church have an altar?

How in the world would you know they 'had no type of altar' in home churches? Were you there?

BTW, there is no need for all that costly pulpit, hymnals, organs, pianos, etc. etc., right? I have never been in any evangelical church where there were not costly decorations and symbolism.

 

Greetings,

If it were so, the Apostles would have stated so. Everything that the "Temple" represented was destroyed so why would any of the Apostles suggest to supply all that "stuff", and if it was necessary they would have taught as much. However they did not.
And no there is no need for all that "costly" stuff.
The Lord bless you.....
In His Love

 

You are incorrect. The oldest Christian Church in Rome is a domus ecclesiae (what you term "home fellowship" meeting) named Santa Pudenziana. It belonged to St. Pudens (cf. 2 Tim 4:21), who was the son of the Roman senator Quintus Cornelius Pudens and St. Priscilla, two of Rome's earliest converts. The church served as the church for all the bishops of Rome from the time Christianity arrived in the first century until the Lateran Basilica was completed and dedicated in the fourth century. (It predates Constantine by a couple hundred years.) It contains some of Rome's earliest Christian mosaics and even has a section of the original altar used by the early Christians of Rome for Mass. The current church has been built on top of the original, but you can still descend to the lower levels to see the first century church.

Santa Pudenziana - Wikipedia

Slideshow of the church

Picture of side chapel containing part of the original altar used by Rome's first Christians

Information on the church

 

The word “altar” connotes a raised or high place (we see in Scripture the equivalent expressions “table,” “Lord’s table,” and “place of sacrifice”), a place of consecration and sacrifice, where God meets man. It is a symbol of God’s presence.

Gregory of Nyssa makes it clear: “This altar whereat we stand is by nature only common stone, nothing different from other stones, whereof our walls are made and our pavements adorned; but after it is consecrated and dedicated to the service of God, it becomes a holy table, an immaculate altar.”

 

Greetings,

Whatever you desire to believe.......
I do not, based upon the Lord's Word and His Apostles.

The Lord bless you.

 

Here's also the late Reformed theologian and historian Philip Schaff describing early church interiors:

"In the middle of the sanctuary stood the altar, generally a table, or sometimes a chest with a lid; at first of wood, then, after the beginning of the sixth century, of stone or marble, or even of silver and gold, with a wall behind it, and an overshadowing, dome-shaped canopy, above which a cross was usually fixed. The altar was hollow, and served as the receptacle for the relics of the martyrs; it was placed, where this was possible, exactly over the grave of a martyr, probably with reference to the passage in the Revelation: 'I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.' Often a subterranean chapel or crypt was built under the church, in order to have the church exactly upon the burial place of the saint, and at the same time to keep alive the memory of the primitive worship in underground vaults in the times of persecution.

The altar held therefore the twofold office of a tomb (though at the same time the monument of a new, higher life), and a place of sacrifice. It was manifestly the most holy place in the entire church, to which everything else had regard; whereas in Protestantism the pulpit and the word of God come into the foreground, and altar and sacrament stand back. Hence the altar was adorned also in the richest manner with costly cloths, with the cross, or at a later period the crucifix, with burning tapers, symbolical of Christ the light of the world, and previously consecrated for ecclesiastical use, with a splendid copy of the Holy Scriptures, or the mass-book, but above all with the tabernacle, or little house for preserving the consecrated host, on which in the middle ages the German stone-cutters and sculptors displayed wonderful art." - Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume III: Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity. A.D. 311-600; Section 105: Interior Arrangement of Churches

 

Greetings,

I personally do not believe any man that does not follow after the Foundation that is built of by and for the Lord. No matter what "historical" background they dig up. "Relic's of the martyrs"????!!!! That sound's like "superstitious idolatry" to me. So no I do not accept it.

Actually his findings seem much to be about the "old systematic Church system".........Built with the hands of man.
The Gospel and it's simplicity, is all that was needed, only man thinks they need these "artifacts" to serve some type of "spiritual inspiration", when all we need is found in Jesus Christ, who truly represents the Living Tabernacle.....
That is all the Apostles needed along with the faithful disciple's of Christ.

The Lord bless you
In His Love....

 

What you call "superstitious idolatry" was what the early Christians built their churches on and around. In Christianity there is an old axiom, which states lex orandi, lex credendi.

The Church's earliest altars were built over the tombs of her saints. The Church's earliest liturgies include the martyrs and saints and the earliest liturgical calendars included commemoration of them.

Here's an example:





"...I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held." (Rev. 6:9)


If you don't have altars and saints, you don't have traditional Christianity. Rather, you have something novel. Ever been to the Holy Land? Ever been to Rome? If you have and actually entered a church there, you must have felt like a complete foreigner because the Christianity of antiquity is not the same as the Christianity you profess.

 

You are attempting to force apocalyptic language so that it is literal language. If you do that, then you must be literal with it all. In so doing, you will have a bizarre interpretation.
Revelation 6:9
When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony.

Notice the Lamb who was slain, is Jesus who sacrificially died to atone for the sins of the saints. This atoning sacrifice is referring back to the tabernacle/temple where the lamb was sacrificed as a burnt offering to God on an altar.
Therefore, it is no wonder that the saints are described as being under the altar of the Lamb that was slain, who now has the capacity to open the scrolls.
As for your mysticism in pointing to the paganism that sadly came into the early church, that paganism is not to be glorified, as you do, but is to be renounced as an abomination that came into churches during that time. Such ancestral worship and deification is pure Animism and idolatry being added to the Christian faith. It is cultic in nature and should be rejected by the saints of God as anathema.

 

Prove it

 

Greetings,

Would you prove me wrong please. Reveal anywhere by the words of the Lord and His Apostles, that anything from the Temple was to be utilized, which includes the "altar",built with hands, in order to keep the Disciple's thoughts towards the Lord and His Kingdom.

And please do not command me to do anything from a spirit of contention and divisiveness. For I shall not respond to you if you do so.

Thank you.
The Lord bless you.....
In His Love.....

 

Greetings,

Unfortunately, this had nothing to do with true Followers of Christ. For the Lord is the one and ONLY True Living Temple, which was not, nor still is "built with and by the hands of man".
This is just a representation of the fleshly works of religious men, who held the truth in Unrighteousness.

The Lord bless you....
In His Love.....

 

You made the statement, the responsibility is on you to prove it not on me to prove you wrong. Can you not make a clear case to prove your assertion?

 

Greetings,

I have you just chose not to pay attention to it.
So that answer's your question.....
Nothing in the New Testament supports your standing. Plain and simple.

The Lord bless you....
In His Love...

 

Hardly, as the Church existed before St. John put those words to papyrus. Hence Christians were being martyred before those words were written. Building churches, with the altar directly above a martyr, was the ultimate sign of profession of belief in the resurrection and the communion of saints. I'll ask you: Ever been to the Holy Land or Rome? If so, you must have felt like a complete foreigner stepping into those churches of antiquity.

As for the animism / idolatry charge, it is rather tired in light of history...




"Behold, I make all things new."

 

Again, have you ever been to the Holy Land or Rome? If so, you must have felt like a complete stranger and foreigner stepping into the churches of antiquity because the Christianity of the people who built those churches in antiquity is not the same as the Christianity you profess.

 

Wait....you have? Please point me to it. Further, how did you come to the conclusion that I"chose" not to pay attention to it? That statement is a logical fallacy known as the black and white fallacy. Either or scenarios are rarely true. So why did you choose to be so divisive?

 

Greetings,

No, I have never been to Israel or Rome. If I do ever go to Rome or Israel, I will not visit the buildings of the RCC. What have I to do with falsehood? What does light have to do with darkness?
I thank you for the info.......

Lord bless you......
In His Love...

 

Greetings,

Search it out for yourself.
I am not being divisive, those who believe a falsehood, like the "altar" are the ones being divisive......not I.
This is the end of this conversation.

Lord bless you....
In His Love....

 

How sad, as you will have missed what Christians from antiquity built and how they worshipped.

In the Holy Land, the first Protestant church was not built until the 19th century, when the Anglicans opened Christ Church in Jerusalem in 1849. In fact, Protestants had to even create their own mock holy Sepulchre, which they named the Garden Tomb and created 150 years ago.

In Rome, the first Protestant church was not built there until the 19th century as well, when Americans built St. Paul's Within the Walls. (St. Paul's Outside the Walls is a Catholic Church built on the site of St. Paul's tomb. The altar is directly above his tomb.)

Again, if you entered these churches from antiquity, you would feel like a complete foreigner, as the faith of the early Christians is clearly a different faith than what you profess.