.
And after the ascension of Jesus in Jerusalem, twelve apostles and many disciples embarked on journeys to take the Gospel of Christ to a world that knew not God. Their message would not be welcome; their mission not easy.
In the first year after the resurrection of Jesus, at least 2,000 believers were executed in Jerusalem; and for the next 300 years, Roman emperors persecuted thousands and thousands of believers: they were scourged, dipped in oil and set on fire, beheaded, hanged, thrown to wild animals, and cruicified.
Still, the church of Jesus grew as believers met in church-houses to worship the Lord; and because they refused to make sacrifices to pagan idols, they suffered.
In 312 A.D., Constantine the Great, the emperor of Rome, converted to Christianity, and he declared Christianity to be a legal religion as well as the state religion of the Empire.
This was strange: after persecuting believers for 300 years, why did Rome suddenly turn the other cheek? Why did Rome embrace a belief that was in direct conflict with its own religious system?
Because pagans had temples and shrines in which to worship their idols, Constantine believed that Christians should also have buildings where they could worship their God. Thus, Constantine initiated a massive and expensive building program to erect churches for Christians: in Constantinople, in Rome, all over Italy, in Jerusalem, and throughout the Roman Empire.
Out of a pagan mentality, Constantine named churches after the names of Christians of the New Testament. He elevated the names of deceased apostles and important disciples, bringing their images into the buildings to be adored and offered prayers just as the pagans did with dead people. Pews were brought in the churches so that Christians could sit and be comfortable instead of standing as pagans were required to stand in their temples.
Moreover, pagan priests became Christian priests, wearing elaborate costumes, introducing rituals in meetings with chantings and pageantry, followed by the addition of pagan choirs. Memberships grew, money offerings increased immensely, and Christianity became a lucrative enterprise. To help manage the money, government officials also became priests to become financial ministers, for the money was good for the Empire! In time, an order of worship was instituted and every church in the Empire followed the same religious script. Believers now had priests, not pastors and deacons, and they were supervised in how to worship.
"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field"---we are told in Genesis 3:1.
Just as the serpent seduced Adam and Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree, the devil also influenced people to embrace Christianity as a religion, erect buildings, and the buildings became traps: people had been deceived and their minds were transformed to become religious puppets of the state and therefore prisoners of religion. Christ would decrease and become virtually invisible as the Son of God in a sea of religious pomp and pageantry, but merely seen as a god among many gods, or as an idol. For now, religion had power over the people. They had been seduced by attractive buildings and distracted from their purpose of the Gospel of Christ.
This change produced a time of great sorrow as a cloud of spiritual darkness swept across nations; for even up to the Protestant Reformation and beyond, people were forbidden to worship Christ in their own way, reading the Word of God in their own languages was also forbidden, and persecutions continued.
The Greek word for "church" is ekklesia, which means a "body of people", not buildings. This is the word Jesus used when he spoke of his church. The disciples and apostles of that time understood what Jesus meant when he said ekklesia, which is why buildings or religious institutions cannot contain the church of Jesus.
The moral of this story is this:
Constantine's construction of churches was a work out of his own pride, a tribute to himself and his own glory, and the buildings became places where people could be comfortable in their worship of idols while never being told the truth about Christ the Lord, but rather as a place where Jesus would be seen as a baby in his mother's arms.
And after the ascension of Jesus in Jerusalem, twelve apostles and many disciples embarked on journeys to take the Gospel of Christ to a world that knew not God. Their message would not be welcome; their mission not easy.
In the first year after the resurrection of Jesus, at least 2,000 believers were executed in Jerusalem; and for the next 300 years, Roman emperors persecuted thousands and thousands of believers: they were scourged, dipped in oil and set on fire, beheaded, hanged, thrown to wild animals, and cruicified.
Still, the church of Jesus grew as believers met in church-houses to worship the Lord; and because they refused to make sacrifices to pagan idols, they suffered.
In 312 A.D., Constantine the Great, the emperor of Rome, converted to Christianity, and he declared Christianity to be a legal religion as well as the state religion of the Empire.
This was strange: after persecuting believers for 300 years, why did Rome suddenly turn the other cheek? Why did Rome embrace a belief that was in direct conflict with its own religious system?
Because pagans had temples and shrines in which to worship their idols, Constantine believed that Christians should also have buildings where they could worship their God. Thus, Constantine initiated a massive and expensive building program to erect churches for Christians: in Constantinople, in Rome, all over Italy, in Jerusalem, and throughout the Roman Empire.
Out of a pagan mentality, Constantine named churches after the names of Christians of the New Testament. He elevated the names of deceased apostles and important disciples, bringing their images into the buildings to be adored and offered prayers just as the pagans did with dead people. Pews were brought in the churches so that Christians could sit and be comfortable instead of standing as pagans were required to stand in their temples.
Moreover, pagan priests became Christian priests, wearing elaborate costumes, introducing rituals in meetings with chantings and pageantry, followed by the addition of pagan choirs. Memberships grew, money offerings increased immensely, and Christianity became a lucrative enterprise. To help manage the money, government officials also became priests to become financial ministers, for the money was good for the Empire! In time, an order of worship was instituted and every church in the Empire followed the same religious script. Believers now had priests, not pastors and deacons, and they were supervised in how to worship.
"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field"---we are told in Genesis 3:1.
Just as the serpent seduced Adam and Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree, the devil also influenced people to embrace Christianity as a religion, erect buildings, and the buildings became traps: people had been deceived and their minds were transformed to become religious puppets of the state and therefore prisoners of religion. Christ would decrease and become virtually invisible as the Son of God in a sea of religious pomp and pageantry, but merely seen as a god among many gods, or as an idol. For now, religion had power over the people. They had been seduced by attractive buildings and distracted from their purpose of the Gospel of Christ.
This change produced a time of great sorrow as a cloud of spiritual darkness swept across nations; for even up to the Protestant Reformation and beyond, people were forbidden to worship Christ in their own way, reading the Word of God in their own languages was also forbidden, and persecutions continued.
The Greek word for "church" is ekklesia, which means a "body of people", not buildings. This is the word Jesus used when he spoke of his church. The disciples and apostles of that time understood what Jesus meant when he said ekklesia, which is why buildings or religious institutions cannot contain the church of Jesus.
The moral of this story is this:
Constantine's construction of churches was a work out of his own pride, a tribute to himself and his own glory, and the buildings became places where people could be comfortable in their worship of idols while never being told the truth about Christ the Lord, but rather as a place where Jesus would be seen as a baby in his mother's arms.
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