The Church as Noah's Ark

Pope Callistus and Saint Hippolytus were two important figures in the early church with two different theologies....

Hippolytus- the ideal of the church as a pure community and not tolerating sins, a church of the pure.
Callistus - the ideal of the church as a saving community representing the church as Noah’s Ark, taking in ‘all kinds,’ both clean and unclean. Being quick to lovingly encourage repentance and restoration. And also dealing with explosive church growth in his time.

rockytopva said:

Pope Callistus and Saint Hippolytus were two important figures in the early church with two different theologies....

Hippolytus- the ideal of the church as a pure community and not tolerating sins, a church of the pure.
Callistus - the ideal of the church as a saving community representing the church as Noah’s Ark, taking in ‘all kinds,’ both clean and unclean. Being quick to lovingly encourage repentance and restoration. And also dealing with explosive church growth in his time.

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Hippolytus of Rome was one of the most important Christian thinkers of the second and third centuries, though his provenance, identity, and corpus remain elusive to scholars and historians.

One older theory claims he came into conflict with the popes of his time and seems to have headed a schismatic group as a rival to the bishop of Rome, thus becoming an antipope. In this view, he opposed the Roman popes because they softened the penitential system to accommodate the large number of new pagan converts.

My dad was brought up Catholic, I was saved in the Baptist Church and became Pentecostal Holiness in my late teens. It seemed like to me I have seen the change from pure community to something like Noah's Ark, taking in all the clean and unclean, good and the evil. There are evils and unclean ways out there to avoid! And good and clean ways to cleaved to!

rockytopva said:

My dad was brought up Catholic, I was saved in the Baptist Church and became Pentecostal Holiness in my late teens. It seemed like to me I have seen the change from pure community to something like Noah's Ark, taking in all the clean and unclean, good and the evil. There are evils and unclean ways out there to avoid! And good and clean ways to cleaved to!

Click to expand...

It is horrible when secretive predators and evil influencers hide and lurk in a church, escaping detection. They can be extremely good at fitting in and playing the game of church. Members of a congregation cannot be perfectly pure, but pastors and elders must exercise sharp discernment to spot dangerous and inauthentic individuals. Then they must be bold in dealing with them.