Bible Question: The latest statistics show that there are over 20000 churches in existance in the world. Jesus prayed for His one church and there was only one apostolic church. I continue to here people like the "Bible Answer Man" say this is acceptable as long as they beleive the essentials. I find this and I'm sure the Lord finds this reprehencable at best. Whats the opinion out there. Why so many churches? |
Bible Answer: ToddN, if you hang around this forum very long, you are likely to find some answers to your question. This forum, among other things, is a laboratory of sorts; it brings together on one web site an ever-changing assortment of people from a number of different folds, both Catholic and Protestant, both liberal and conservative, both pragmatic and highly speculative, both Calvinist and Arminian, both orthodox and heretical, both young and old, both learned and unlearned -- an admixture, a slice of splintered Christianity as it is in 2002. We come together, professing in the main to be Christians, and we disagree. The focus of our disagreement may be weighty or it may be trivial. What User A sees as important, User B sees as nonsense. What User C views as orthodox, User D calls heresy. ..... Here's but a small sampling of the contrasts we see on the forum, and we see them or others very much like them every day: Man has free will; man has little or no free will. Water baptism saves us; water baptism does not save us. Christ died for all men; Christ died only for the elect. The Genesis account of creation is literal; it is figurative. Women should serve as elders, deacons, preachers; these positions are for men only. A believer has eternal security; a believer can lose his salvation by sinning. The list goes on. At the fork of every road, some go left, some go right. Side #1 thinks side #2 is too dense to see the plain truth. Side #2 thinks side #1 just possibly is touched in the head.... So, friend, now is it becoming a little easier to get a pale glimmer of understanding of why there are so many denominations in the world? With so many different and often opposing points of view out there, it's no less than a miracle that we on the forum get along as well as we do. That miracle, I feel, is our common belief that Jesus Christ is Lord. Nothing about which we disagree comes close to being on a par with this belief we, most of us at any rate, share in common. --Hank |
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Emmaus |