What difference is there between the early Church and the Church today?

Answer 1

there was no early catholic church. the catholic was developed in the the years after Christ's death
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Apart from the Catholic church the early church was one and had no divisions concerning orthodox, protestant, or catholic.

Answer:

There are many differences between the early church and what passes for the church today. Perhaps too many to list here.

First, there was only the Old Testament in the beginning... what some modern Christians call the "Jewish Bible." The early church PREACHED Jesus Christ out of it. There aren't many modern preachers who will or can do that.

Throughout the New Testament are "Old Testament" quotes and teachings. Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God from the Old Testament. He brought "illumination" to the Old Testament... an enlightened "spiritual application" to the scriptures that provides understanding to those who believe, not only in Him, but in what He says.

And before He ascended into heaven, he opened and illuminated the minds of His disciples so that they too would understand and be able to preach spiritual enlightenment from those "old scriptures" that some modern Christians consider to be dead:

"...He said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in THE LAW OF MOSES, and in the PROPHETS, and in the PSALMS, CONCERNING ME. Then opened He their understanding, THAT THEY MIGHT UNDERSTAND THE SCRIPTURES..." (Luke 24:44-45).

Modern professing Christianity's New Testament isn't a Bible unto itself, as some denominations regard it while rejecting the Old Testament. The New Testament is end time enlightenment for God's elect in the last days to understand the prophecies of old.

Until Christ... the scriptures were "closed to understanding" by men:

"...thou, O Daniel, SHUT UP THE WORDS, and SEAL THE BOOK, EVEN UNTO THE TIME OF THE END: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased... and I heard, but I UNDERSTOOD NOT: then said I... what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for THE WORDS ARE CLOSED UP AND SEALED TILL THE TIME OF THE END... none of the wicked shall understand; but THE WISE SHALL UNDERSTAND..." (Dan.12:4-10).

The New Testament, which the Apostles didn't even know they were writing... are letters of spiritual instruction and revelation to God's latter day church, that provides the understanding God promised Daniel would come to the "wise" at the time of the end.

"Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. SERVE THE LORD WITH FEAR, and rejoice with trembling." (Ps.2:10-11)

"The FEAR OF THE LORD is the beginning of WISDOM: and knowledge of the Holy is UNDERSTANDING." (Prov.9:10)

The difference between the early church and the churches calling themselves Christian today are too many. The Bible was smaller in the beginning and enlightenment was in its infancy, preparing to blossom into a whole new testament that only the "wise" of God's end time church would understand.

Do the divided churches of today truly "fear" God? Do they "tremble" at God's Word? Do they "understand" what Daniel did not? Or do they doubt the early church's small Bible?

Do they keep the Holy Day feasts of God commanded in the small Bible the early church kept? Do they keep the Commanded Sabbath day the early church kept, according to their smaller Bible? Are they able to see Jesus Christ in the books of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, to which the disciples' minds and hearts were opened?

Answer 2

A:Martin Goodman (A World History of Christianity, The emergence of Christianity) says that in the non-Christian record the life of Jesus passed almost wholly unnoticed. The career and teachings of Jesus are hard to reconstruct because they were recounted and adapted for ecclesiastical purposes already in the first generations after his death - hence the discrepancies in the different versions preserved in the Gospels. We can not rely on Acts of the Apostles, a book of miracles rather than of history, because, as Uta Ranke-Heinemann (Putting Away Childish Things) says, the whole of Acts is a simply a work of Propaganda.

Paul mentions the Jerusalem Church, but beliefs taught about Jesus by this Church cannot now be known with any certainty since nothing known to have been written by them survives. Goodman believes they may have seen Jesus simply as their teacher whose words continued to resonate after his death, just as the sayings of the Teacher of Righteousness were preserved by the Dead Sea sect. In any case the future of the Church was not with such people, for the number of Jewish Christians in the Jewish homeland seems always to have been quite small.

Even at the end of the first century, Churches had not yet defined exactly what Christian doctrine was, unlike modern Churches that each know exactly what to believe, even as each disagrees with the others. The important doctrine of the Holy Trinity was formulated in the third century and adopted, only after considerable dissent, in the fourth century.

Yes, it is clear that in the first-century there were already competing Christian groups, not the single, monolithic faith that the Romans Catholic Church would have us believe. Each sect of Christianity had its own books and its own understanding of doctrines such as whether salvation is by faith and works (expounded in the Epistle of James) or by faith alone (expounded by Paul). By the second century, the forerunner of modern Christianity had become the largest single group, but did not begin to define its New Testament canon until the breakaway heretic, Marcion, defined his own biblical canon.

It seems that Christianity was spread during the formative years by wandering preachers who stopped at each village or farm for a period, receiving lodgings and meals in return for the messages they preached. It evidently became the practice to abuse the hospitality of Christians, so that rules were put in place in Christian communities, requiring the wandering preachers to settle down and work for their living, or to move on within three days. There were priests and deacons in the larger towns, but not yet bishops, as this role really only evolved during the second century. Clement was an influential leader of the Church in Rome around the end of the century, and some believe that he may have been the first bishop of Rome, but some evidence points towards Anicetus as the first bishop of Rome, in the middle of the second century.

Another Answer:

Secular history and writings note the vast differences that occurred shortly after the deaths of Paul and Peter - ever more so after the death of John, the last of the Apostles - comparing the Apostolic Church to today's mainstream Church. Historians like Edward Gibbon, Will Durant wrote extensively about this time frame and changes appearing. The writer Jesse Lyman Hurlbut said, "For 50 years after St. Paul's life a curtain hangs over the church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises about 120ad with the writings of the earliest church fathers, we find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul" (The Story of the Christian Church, p. 33).

So what are some of the major changes between the Church Jesus began and practiced with the Apostles and other disciples after them? Well consider when the Church began - on that Sunday (moves yearly to other days) in 31 AD known as Pentecost (means 50 - days after the Resurrection on Saturday) - one of God's feast days. Where these days just for the Jews as many teach. God said these Sabbaths (weekly and 7 Annual) where 'these are My feasts' and that they were 'a statute forever throughout your generations' in Leviticus 23. He called them the feasts of the LORD and holy convocations that Jesus and all His disciples and the early Church observed. These were not 'hung to the tree' or the Law is unnecessary due to Christ's obedience. Indeed, we are told to imitate (meaning of disciple) Christ as our perfect example.

The Apostle Paul to the gentiles showed us that we should observe all of God's feasts beginning in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8. And contrary to some teachings, Paul did not abandon the Sabbath but was his custom to worship and teach on it in each of the cities he traveled in (Acts 17:1-3).

The Gospels show Jesus keeping all the festivals of God, including the weekly Sabbath. He even called Himself, 'Lord of the Sabbath' so why has man changed it? Some reason that Sunday is to honor the risen Christ - but did He rise on Sunday? Even putting that question aside, if we can now observe any day as our weekly day of rest and worship, why wouldn't you choose the same day Jesus and the Apostles worshipped on and kept - the original Sabbath of Genesis (Friday sunset to Saturday Sunset as days in the Bible began in darkness and ended in light)?

Today's Churches preach a 'gospel' about Christ and not the Gospel He delivered of the Kingdom of God (Luke 4:4 and etals). Do today's churches even know what the gospel message is as there seems so much variation and confusion among themselves.

Then there is the heaven and hell teachings that is not in the Bible. In fact, Jesus Himself, explained that only He has ascended into Heaven (see John 3:13; Acts 2:29, 34). The Lake of Fire is the 2nd death of Scripture and not eternal damnation for physical humans - only Satan and his cast of demons (end of Revelation 20).

Dietary Laws are abolished. Many celebrate Christmas, Lent, and Easter but these are no where in Scripture. These are some of the major differences between the 1st Century Church and today's churches. So which teachings are you following? Should you be?? Each individual must choose for themselves.