When you read Jude 3, one might genuinely ask, “what is this faith once delivered?” And that is a legitimate question. The Christian faith has had many branches on its family tree as we come into the 21st century. Some have maintained relatively close ties to Scripture, while others have not. Through it all though there has been a continual line of believers from Acts to today that have, by the grace of God, tried to live the truth of Scripture and grow the church. As the church has grown there have been times of apostasy, or false teaching, as well as persecution that has strengthened and even grown the church. It is through this understanding that we need to not seek complacency, but seek to grow that fire in our hearts for God. To boldly proclaim the truth of Gods Word and with white hot desire seek to apply those truths to our lives.

Now while we might long to put one denomination over another as we look back down the road of history we need to not be of “Paul, or Apollos” but instead be Biblicists applying Scriptural truths to our lives and living them out! The Roman Catholic church will try to use the succession of popes, called Apostolic Succession, to claim supremecy in the Christian church it won’t take long to look and see that might not be true. OR, the Lutherans by being the first to arguably break from the Catholic church to grow a whole new family of churches. While the Anabaptist churches might claim supremecy by their generally literal interpretation of scripture. I want to preface I do not think we need to paint a judgemental broad brush when it comes to certain denominations, but Matthew 7:16 can be a litmus test to who is and isn’t living the Word of God out. That being said, we can look from the inception of the Roman Catholic church arguably in 325 A.D., to the rise of Martin Luther’s Influence in 1519, to Ulrich Zwingli a few years later, and see there has been Godly men who were moved to speak out about the apostasy and false teaching in the church of their day. While they may have started out right, whether by compromise, or fatigue, they drifted off the path of biblical truth to sometimes eventual shipwreck (1 Timothy 1:19). 1 Peter 5:8 tells us we have an enemy as children of God, and he will take various roles, persuade some Christians into being his mouthpiece and use them to destroy the church from within. Ravening wolves is what Jesus Christ called them in Matthew 7:15. But I digress, the role of the church(made up of individual believers, 1 Cor. 12:12-27) has always been to preach, teach, and bear witness of God’s truth and redeeming grace to mankind through his son Jesus Christ, and by extension the purity and strength of its body. If we as believers cannot read God’s word, understand it, and apply it; then how are we to bear fruit for His Kingdom?

I basically have said all this to start the next few weeks looking at various eras of the Christian church after Acts to show that regardless of the time, persecution, or county, God has kept a faithful remnant of believers the world over who have sought to obey the voice of the Lord in His Word and kept a faithful bride for the return of Christ. Again, this family of God has been in various denominations and eras, and while it is strongly shown in Scripture to be part of a body, we all individually should be seeking to grow in the “grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:8) so that we can keep growing the church collectively. The church is only going to be as strong as its body. So let’s get growing and sharing our faith!

Lord willing we can look at the rise the early church next week and until then I’ll leave you with a favorite hymn of mine: ¹.The church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is his new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.
²Elect from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.
³Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great church victorious
Shall be the church at rest.
⁴Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with thee. God bless and keep studying!