Quote:
Originally Posted by Raptor
What if Paul was suddenly here today, and wanted to reach the believers?
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Back in the early days in greater Cleveburg, we even had a brother write a song about this to the tune of "
Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce.
Because we had a 20th Century mindset, we thought this was a valid question. It just reinforced our conviction that OCOC was an integral part of God's Economy and all other Christian gatherings were illegitimate.
Thankfully my mindset has changed. Did those 7 LC's in Revelations 2-3 have addresses? Websites? Did they have their names registered on some lookup postal directory? Did they even have a post office? Pony Express? Were they registered as a 501C.4 with the Roman Government?
Did they even have a meeting hall? I seriously doubt any of these. These are all 20th century considerations.
Perhaps this is why each of these letters were directed to the "messenger" of the church. I'm thinking that each church had a messenger, perhaps covert, known only to trusted leaders. These "messengers" provided a means for these small assemblies to communicate. Did you know that these 7 churches were on a circuit? They were 7 adjacent towns on a traveled route, like exits on a highway.
I'm thinking that the "messenger" to Ephesus had a way to circulate the letter to the saints in Ephesus. Perhaps he then hand-carried the other 6 letters to Smyrna to find the next messenger. That messenger to Smyrna would contact his local bro/sis, and then take the next 5 letters to Pergamos. This would then be quickly repeated to the rest of the churches. If there was an eighth letter, the next church would be Colosse.
And let's be honest here. OCOC exclusivism is a farce. We know that Rome and Colosse had a second gathering in homes. Were there not Judaizers in most cities connected to Jerusalem who also met as assemblies? Did they not claim legitimacy by their connection to the Apostles at headquarters? If there was a printing press with scribes I'm sure it was in Jerusalem too.