Quote:
Originally Posted by zeek
The hope of Jesus's return in his lifetime to set up the kingdom of God on earth was very much alive in Paul and coexisted with his Hellenistic tendencies. As the hope for Jesus's soon return diminished over the generations Paul's Hellenistic teachings were the ones that were more often applied to build the church. With the resurgence of apocalypticism among the Protestant churches of course Paul apocalyptic teaching came more to the forefront.
|
Again, this is a fair historical analysis which is making the leap from correlation to causation.
Instead, I would argue that the
cause for this was that the believers
"left their first love". Much of the legalistic and organizational aspects of Christianity are contrary to the Jesus we saw and loved in the gospels.
The fact that the teachings took this course to my understanding is that they chose the easiest route. The principal being that the road to destruction is wide, and the road to life is narrow and there are few that find it. Popular, prevailing views do not indicate an accurate understanding of the word, simply the understanding that those who take the broad way choose to embrace.
I think the Lord describes this in his parable of the good samaritan where everyone in the story is "going down to Jericho" except for the Samaritan who is "journeying". Christianity in that parable is depicted by Jericho.