Understanding Church History

I am not here to shoot down everybody in mainstream Christianity although I end of doing just that for most mainstream churchgoers. My theory is mainstream Christianity was hijacked in 325 AD by Constantine which eventually led to the RCC.

Protestants spun off of that in the Middle Ages but still took most of their errant doctrines. Methinks they didn't protest enough. Call me a heretic if you like but I think since the Adventist Movement of 1844, we are finally throwing off those false teachings.

I an not SDA but my fellows are a product of that movement, that broke off from the SDA. We feel God's laws are too easily dismissed even though we are under the grace covenant. So yes, I think this particular "new/modern" is better. I think we are finally really discerning God's truths as per scripture: Daniel 12:4 "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."

So, Adventism has no issues? I can tell you for sure that they do...for example, they believe that Jesus did not enter the Holy of Holies until 1844, and SDA organizations perform elective abortions in their health care facilities.

It is easy to vilify everyone except your sect and proclaim yourself to be the true faith.

OK, perhaps I am wrong about you..however, let me clarify..many groups declare themselves to be the true believers, based on a false view of history, and attempt to divorce themselves from Church history. It's been going on a long time

I read such a book when I was a younger person and was convinced that my sect was the true faith...so I've played that game before..been there, done that, bought the T shirt.

Given enough time, every human organization will show its fallen nature, and will develop "denominations" of their own, even though they themselves have vilified denominations of Protestantism. It is quite amusing to see the double standards of such groups. They apply these standards for others, but if you reverse the standards and apply them to their group, you see they don't meet their own standards

I ~love~ Schaff's History of the Christian Church. It's 8 volumes, but it's also a page-turner (at least volumes 6-8 were anyway, which are the only ones that I've read/studied cover to cover).

I just wish it had a more extensive bibliography.

~Deut

Well, it is almost free if you have a Kindle. That's a big plus.

But I really like Nick Needham's series "2000 Years of Christ's Power" better.

I also like Kenneth Scott LaTourette's church history, and another one by Justo Gonzales.

Lord willing, perhaps I'll get through all of them before the end of my days.

It's a fascinating topic if you keep things in perspective, and don't allow conspiracy theories of cultists to sway you. Church history shows us that other Christians were fallible, sinful people and gives us the understanding that God is sovereign even though some evil people made decisions that we don't think were right. God can take the evil actions of people and twist them to his purposes...we see the best examples of this with Joseph and his brothers, and the Cross of Jesus, where death was defeated through death, despite the evil involved in the proceedings and the crucifixion.

It's not as nice as having it on Kindle, but it is free to read here online: https://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/About.htm

Also, I just noticed that it's on sale right now at Logos Bible Software for $30.00

ALL far better prices than the original (discounted) price for the 8 Volume Set of $599.99 (when I looked into buying it 30 years ago)

~Deut

I'll have to pick those volumes up. It's nice that they are available for purchase as individual books, not just as a set (and on Kindle in the same way).

Needham is not available (yet) on Logos unfortunately.

Thanks for the heads up about this

~Deut

Understanding Church History begining with the foundation.

The Spirit of Christ the Holy unseen teaching anointing work of God worked in Abel to both will and perform his good pleasure it had favor or grace on Abel according to his great mercy but did not have mercy with Cain. Abel the first martyr of the church . His blood still cries out longing to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ the incorruptible body as his chaste virgin bride, the church

Why do you believe that this is true today

Thanks!

~Deut

Unfortunately I use OliveTree and not Logos. I was in health care facilities following an auto accident for 3 months and bought several study bibles for OliveTree. I broke my back and neck, and was able to hold my Iphone up easily and read that way..that's part of the reason why I use Kindle as much as I can, too. If I'm ever hospitalized again, I can take a good share of my books along with me and use them with ease.

I think Logos requires an investment of $300 and then you build your collection from there?

Yikes!! Have you fully recovered from your injuries?

~Deut
p.s. - I believe you can buy individual titles in Logos, as their basic search engine is free, but I'm not positive anymore. I went with their top package in the 90's when I first got Logos (but that only amounted to a few hundred dollars back then, because the LLS was FAR less extensive all those years ago).

It seems to me as if Abel's blood still cries out in the sense of ultimate
No...I have chronic issues. But, I could have been paralyzed and I am not

Unfortunately, I'm not quite following your meaning Would you mind elaborating just a bit? Thanks

Praying for you (on the one hand), and thanking God for protecting you (on the other)!

~Deut

I must have sent that message without finishing the thought....I was going to say, it seems like Adam's blood is still crying out for ultimate vengeance.

Olive Tree app has Shaff @ $19.99

I downloaded it for a deal on Anchor Bible Dictionary

I so agree that learning history is necessary to understanding scripture. The people who God used to explain God to us lived as much as 6,000 years ago. If we don't understand the way they thought or their customs we simply don't understand scripture.

We live in a world that even the bible tells us has lots of information in it. We can use this wealth of information to be prideful and arrogant, or we can use it to gain understanding.

The dead sea scrolls has turned up information about ancient times that had been lost. There are people who has searched this and teach it, with the net we can find these people.

A necessary study must be done of the first few hundred years after Christ. Just after Christ, the first 70 years of the church, it was led by church fathers were all men who knew the history of Gods teaching, It is necessary to know this history in order to understand the world Christ lived and taught in if we are to understand the gospels. In the wars following Christ, these men were killed off and the men who established our church policies were men who looked down on the Jews, did not want to learn about God as he taught before Christ, only Christ. There were even laws made against Jews. If you study Christian church councils it shows how this mindset created policies that have influenced church to this day to distort the truth.

Here are some names of men whose study of history and scripture has been a search for truth without bias so they can be trusted. Tom Bradford, John Klein, and Adam Spears. I found that it is necessary to closely check the background of authors of ancient history. These men need to have worked with the dead sea scrolls so they are familiar with the latest findings.

i was shocked when i read about prophets being naked or cooking with excrement in the OT lol

i still got no idea why isaiah was told to cook with excrement, im too ashamed to make a thread of it but why it happened?

i think its cause of thingslike that so many churches stick to simple topics and avoid preaching from OT

With Satan working as fast as he can to [effectively] "change" all of history in order to cover up the real-and-true [knowledge of] history, it is difficult to know what "history" to believe. After looking at all of the different versions available concerning any particular era/event/topic of historical significance, it sometimes takes very careful discernment to determine what is true and what is not...

Anyone who is willing to believe that wikipedia is an accurate historical source is already severely deceived. And, there are many today who will actually be appalled that I dared to say this.

We must be especially careful when reading "modern" accounts of history. The more modern they are, the more likely they will contain error.

History is difficult, but the most dangerous is the history we are ignorant of.

Most who writes history has some sort of bias. It is up to us to learn what that is. It is also necessary to check the background and training of any writer of history. Often the more modern accounts of history are the most accurate because of new information that is discovered.