TROUBLE IN THE NT CHURCH

TROUBLE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH

When you look at a woven tapestry, you see a beautiful picture. But if you turn it over and look at the other side, you see a jumbled mass of threads. This is a parable. From our side things seem so confused and out of place. But God sees His church, made up of living stones, formed into a beautiful temple which He indwells through His Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:19-22).

Pentecost in Acts ch 2 was a celebration of victory. God The Spirit did great things. Yet Satan immediately began his destructive efforts. We find already in New Testament times while the apostles were still living, that the church faced extreme challenges from within. Let’s look at some of these.


Challenge 1. Jesus wore a disguise and was not really flesh & blood.

John says: "For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist." 2 John 7

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 1 John 4:1-4


Challenge 2. Jesus did not really die.

Paul said: "But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block (offensive) and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." 1 Cor. 1:23-24

John said: "This is He who came by water and blood - Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth." 1 John 5:6

Note it was Jesus Himself in the flesh who came by the water of His baptism and the blood of His death. Lacey wrote: Jesus the Liberator - two lasting images: soaking wet at His baptism, soaked in blood at His execution. But HE didn't stop short at the water. NO, HE went through with the Water AND the Blood."


Challenge 3. Jesus was not raised from the dead.

Paul wrote: "Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen." 1 Cor. 15:12-13


Challenge 4. Ignorance of the Holy Spirit.

Paul said: "And finding some disciples he said to them, 'Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?' And they said to him, 'We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.' And he said to them, 'Into what then were you baptized?' So they said, 'John's baptism.'" They were then baptized with Christian baptism - water & Spirit.

Paul said: "But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His." Romans 8:9

Paul said: "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free - and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." 1 Cor. 12:13


Challenge 5. Jesus lived under the Law, therefore we should ignore all that He said.

"God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds..." Hebrews 1:1-2.

Jesus said: "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him - the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak." John 12:48-49


Challenge 6. The Old testament should be discarded.

Jesus said: "Then He said to them, 'These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.' And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures." Luke 24:44-45

Paul said: "For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." Romans 15:4

The New Testament writers made extensive quotations from the Old Testament as they were led by the Holy Spirit. Note Peter's sermon in Acts 2 and Paul's sermon in Acts 13. The record of our wrongdoings was nailed to the Cross, Col. 2:13-15.


Challenge 7. We can be saved simply by our own obedience to law.

Paul wrote: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23

"I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain." Gal. 2:21

James wrote: "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all." James 2:10

John wrote: "If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."
1 John 1:10

Paul wrote: "And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith." Phill. 3:9


Challenge 8. Christian love is not important.

Paul wrote: "For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge." Romans 10:2

John wrote to Ephesus: "Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love." Rev. 2:4

Again: "And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment." 1 John 3:23

Paul wrote: "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
1 Cor. 13:13



The earliest form of what later became creeds was a set of questions based on Jesus' command to baptize disciples in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). These creeds were staments of The Faith intended to be a shortcut to reaching a true basis of relationship to Jesus. Early Restoration leaders said: No Creed But Christ. No Book But The Bible. No Name But The Divine. And these slogans were intended as a statement of their Faith.