Early Church Corruption
Looking into the history leading to the philosophy of Rationalism, nothing was as clear-cut as we would like.
Early in church history, disorders and disagreements developed. Gnosticism claimed secret knowledge and changed the nature of Christ and salvation. Marcion edited his own Bible to change the nature of God. The most confusing disruption was over Montanus, who believed in moving in the Spirit where direct, spontaneous prophetic guidance brought heightened spiritual vitality, repentance, and power. Some were troubled about any authoritative revelations in prophecy, although no Montanist oracles claimed to be superior to Scripture, and none of them conflicted with Scripture.
The church fathers of that day did a strange thing. In fear, they disregarded God’s orders in Scripture and moved toward humanly-designed systems that clamped down on the moving of the Holy Spirit. The result was increased authority and reduced participation. They stopped having meetings where each member had a song, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation, or a prophecy. They changed the order of the local church leadership too. God’s order was multiple local elders who were co-equal.
The office of elder, overseer, bishop, shepherd, and pastor was one office. They were not separated. Every elder was a bishop, which means overseer, and a pastor, which means shepherd. When trouble developed, they changed this order and separated the office of bishop from the office of elder.
Instead of more closely following God’s order for governing the church, church leaders rationalized a more complex structure of church polity. Instead of more closely following God’s order for meetings, church leaders rationalized a system that clamped down on ministry from the common people. Over time, more changes were rationalized. All that structure required money. With money came corruption.
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