Did you know that “church “ is not in the Bible. In 1611 the King James English translators , in order to assert control over Christians fashion a non existent translation for Ekklesia , the Greek word meaning the “”called out” ( believers). There was never the word or concept of “church” for the first 1,600 years after Christ. Why now? Don’t tell me Ekklesia meant “gathering or assembly” either. The Greek word for that was “Sanhedrin” . The English translated the word originally to “Circe” or the Scotch “kirke’ meaning “circle “which was the pagan worship formation. Church was never intended as a Biblical concept.
Then when Pliny and the other s said that the “Christians were meeting in the morning to testify to each other, what would YOU call that?
When the Bible talks about Peter and the Apostles preaching to the disciples in Solomons Stables, what would you call that?
When Paul was telling the faithful to not forsake the fellowship of the believers, and was meeting and preaching to them, what would you call that?
And if you start the argument “that word is not in the Bible”, there are a lot of words used in Theology that are not in the Bible, but are explanatory for what is in the Bible, and reasonable people understand that.
Or is this just a mental exercise you use to justify not being with the faithful when they meet?
Except that meeting together is, no matter what you call it.
I think I will attend Church, anyway. 👍😇😁
By the way bro, I see Jack Del Rio got the axe. Oh well.
Acts 2:47 and Acts 20:7 are clear about Christians meeting and “breaking bread”, maybe not as formally as we do today, but they met “first day of the week”.
Here is how Catholics interpreted this, and still do:
Acts was written through John’s death around 100 AD. Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch, and actually heard the Gospel from John, who wrote John 6. Like John 6, “Breaking bread” was not symbolic to them, nor was it merely eating a normal meal. About 10 years after John died, in 110 AD, Ignatius wrote: “...They (the heretics) even absent themselves from the Eucharist and the public prayers because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ.”
Ignatius also wrote: “Take care, then, to partake of one Eucharist; for, one is the Flesh of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and one the cup to unite us with His Blood, and one altar, just as there is one bishop assisted by the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow servants. Thus you will conform in all your actions to the will of God” (Letter to the Philadelphians, par. 4).
Ignatius also wrote using the same language as the Acts’ “breaking of bread”: “obey bishop and clergy with undivided minds and to share in the one common breaking of bread - the medicine of immortality and the sovereign remedy by which we escape death and live in Jesus Christ for ever more”
Documentation is required to substantiate your claim.