Simple Church Minute 76--Simson's Thesis #2

76—WS#2

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Last blip, I mentioned Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today, we proceed to Thesis #2, which is, it is “Time to change the ‘cathegogue system.’

            The historic Orthodox and Catholic church after Constantine in the fourth century developed and adopted a religious system based on two elements: a christian version of the old testament temple—the cathedral—and a worship pattern styled after the Jewish synagogue.  They thus adopted, as the foundational pattern for the times to follow, a blueprint for Christian meetings and worship which was neither expressly revealed nor ever endorsed by God in New Testament times; the ‘cathegogue’, linking the house of God mentality with the synagogue.  Baptized with Greek pagan philosophy, separating the sacred from the secular, the cathegogue system developed into the Black Hole of Christianity, swallowing most of its society-transforming energies and inducing the church to become absorbed with itself for centuries to come. … Luther reformed the content of the gospel, but left the outer forms of ‘church’ remarkably untouched.  (Various moves of God made some corrections)…, but until today nobody has really changed the system.  The time to do that has now arrived.  Unquote.

            The Bible shows us two types of meetings of believers on earth:  the meeting of all the believers in a city in Acts, one time, and meetings of groups of believers in a home.  How did the early church come up with this?  The apostles were taught by Jesus. Where did Jesus come up with this?  The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit lived as a community before the founding of the earth.  We would be wise to learn from them.

            You can read back and ahead on Simson’s 15 Theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de.

You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on simple church, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website) .

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94