Template:Ruling Bishops
Ruling Bishops
It was the Church established by Constantine who brought in bishops and priests who could exercise authority one over the other. We certainly see that pattern with Ambrose and Augustine of Hippo.
The book "Pagan Christianity" by Frank Viola and George Barna shows the introduction of many pagan holidays and ideas. It also suggests that there were no official offices or official leaders in the early Church. [1]
The suggestion that Ignatius of Antioch was instrumental in establishing an authoritarian office is an unwarranted supposition if not "Entirely Spurious". [2]
There were offices in the original Church appointed by Jesus who was the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed, the highest son of David. He said he was going to take the kingdom from[3] the Pharisees who sat in the seat of Moses and appoint it to his little flock who would bear fruit. To say "Up until the second century, the church had no official leadership." is simply not true. Yes they had leaders and those leaders bishops, ministers and deacons were officially appointed but the word they should use to describe that office is "titular".
Even the Seven Men elected by the people but appointed by Peter over a certain business just like the Seven men appointed in the Old Testament was an office. They had authority over what was given them but not over the people who gave it.
These ministers of the early Church had a job to do. Christians would not pray to the Fathers of the earth nor to those men who called themselves Benefactors who exercised authority. They would not eat the Free bread of Rome nor sign up for the Imperial Cult of Rome because that would have been covetous.
Because they would not take the benefits of those pagan government temples they often came into conflict with Rome. Christians lived by faith, hope and charity which is love and they practiced that love as a peculiar people according to the perfect law of liberty.
- ↑ "Up until the second century, the church had no official leadership. That it had leaders is without dispute. But the leadership was unofficial in the sense that there were no religious 'offices'. "The Birth of One-Bishop Rule."
- ↑ Dr. William P. Killen regarded most all the Ignatian epistles as being "Entirely Spurious" having been pseudepigraphically composed in the 3rd century which would be after the surge of Constantine's Church which was looking for justification for its episcopal hierarchical polity as a form of church governance. Killen, William P., The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1886
- ↑ Matthew 21:43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.