Clear Evidence

I have heard sermons and read blogs by some seeker-driven pastors about how important it is that church's today become a first century church, and how wonderful it would be to have fellowship like the first century church did. Well I don't think they have thought this all the way through, first and foremost in order to have a first century church one would have to have some first century preaching right? Well that blows it right there for most church's today, because most preachers today don't preach Law, Atonement, Resurrection, Hell, Judgement, Justification, Repentance or the Cross at least the seeker-driven pastors I'm referring to don't.

Also first century church's didn't have the complete cannon of scripture, so I guess we would all just have to use the Old Testament like the Bereans did or rely on oral tradition for the better part of 300 years. Third; just imagine how hard it would be to grow your church when the leader of the known world is killing off your members just as fast as they join your congregation, can you imagine how hard it would be to take role from one Sunday to the next. The persecution of the Christians under Nero was so harsh, that even the inhabitants of Rome resented his cruelty, I think its safe to say that Nero would not have been onboard with Rick Warren's PDC Plan!

Forth; a first century church was open 7 days a week, Acts 1:46 "And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart", you see in order for church's today to be a first century church there would be little time left for today's relevant pastors to ride their Harley's or blast their bass boat to the nearest fishing hole. Fifth the early church regularly had to deal with many "heretical" groups trying to infiltrate the church with false teachings as Arianism, Gnosticism and Montanism which are still with us today in some forms, but today we don't have this problem because almost every idea is accepted into today's emerging church's where truth is vague and style is king. Lastly there was severe church discipline taking place in the first century for instance Ananias and Sapphira in chapter 5 of Acts, but today church discipline is all but UN-heard of with divorce running rampant and the homosexual community allowed to sit under pastoral leadership without confrontation of their sin would never fly in the first century. So with all that said all true believers do have "singleness of heart" and "all things common" with his fellow believers but for a pastor to think that pursuing these two traits define only a first century church is clear evidence that he is not a first century pastor.