Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
Someone needs to do their homework. There's definitely historical evidence for one administration per city in the early church.
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You say things like this, but cannot establish that any possible situation was more than the way it was at the particular time in a particular place. In one particular place there is reference to the people having all things in common. But even that was somewhat overstated. It was generally true. More like theoretical communism in which needs are met, but not necessarily meaning that only the collective owned anything and not the individuals.
When we get to other churches, there were meetings in the houses of wealthy persons, and among the attenders were slaves. And in at least one place there was eventually a slave owned by the owner of the house. So without going into grand speculation, there is a case of things very much not in common.
A situation in which you find an administration that covered the whole city could only refer to Jerusalem. The first church. The one that had all of the apostles for a period of time. Yet there is no evidence that how they did it (as sparingly as we can discern) was dictated as the way other churches should do it.
If there is anything to be learned from the descriptions of the churches that we can glean from Acts and the epistles, there was a lot of diversity in many ways among the churches. Not just in the makeup of the assembly, but even in how they met, what kinds of things were important to them. And Paul never said for any one of them to do it like they do it in some other place, including Jerusalem.
So you have a really vague example in Jerusalem, embellish what was revealed into something more, and then insist that everyone else must do it the same or else be relegated to the dust bin of illegitimate churches.
That is the sign of real unity.
Ye search the scriptures for in them you think that they will reveal that your peculiar set of rules are right and that you are thereby empowered to expel everyone that does not live up to your standard. But those scriptures point to Christ, not the church. You come to Christ for life, not the church.
Even Thyatira was not an illegitimate church. Neither was Laodicea.
But to the ones who think they are the only game in town, it doesn't matter.
And while you like to say that you have history and scripture on your side, maybe you could try to show some of it. Try starting with a single item of evidence. Let's see if it really means what you think it means. When we have either proved or disproved that, let's move to another. Posting a 1,500 word listing of alleged proofs and saying "See! I did it" does not prove anything. Only that you can post scripture. Let's spend some time on each portion.