Heritage & Legacy

I had another pot come to a boil. But it ties in with “The great Christian Revolution.” Since Sunday I have been reading some history of the early church. Heritage, Legacy.

Heritage: 1) inheritance, an estate passes from an ancestor to an heir, or course of law. 2) saints or people of God are called His heritage.

Legacy: to send, to bequeath , a bequest, a particular thing…

Rome called the Christians atheists. ".. To deny Caesar and the state as mans Lord and savior was considered atheism. "“Away with the atheists!”

What has stood out is how much error there was. My wife would say the church is always messed up. I used to think it was the early church that had it all together. Oh well. Some added works, others saw a bad old testament God and a nice new testament God, some had big chunks of Greek thinking, the physical is bad, spiritual things are good. I heard Marc mention after church, kidding, about adopting the stance of those in the early church who did’nt bathe. Momtanism. Rushdooney wrote ..."They tended to be unpopular people."

The same group thought there was no absolution for mortal sins after baptism and only ate dry foods.

Also on Sunday Mr Coleman laid out in a such a perfect succinct fashion how crafty our enemy is. How he works for varying degrees of error through compromise.

In the name of unity, or avoiding a combative atmosphere much error has snuck into the church. Over time it becomes orthodox for the church. But it is no longer Gods orthodoxy.

Much work, battles were fought over, who God is and what areas of life did he care about or have authority over, or did Caeser, the State have authority.

At the council of Nicea in 325 , that Christ was one with God, was affirmed. It was a minority group of church leaders who dug in and wouldn’t budge. Most of the council had a moderate position. At one point the whole fight revolved over one phrase. It didn’t affirm the error…”but by avoiding a hard and fast declaration of orthodoxy. It implicitly left the field open to to any opinion.” They held fast till a statement was accepted that blocked off the error. Even when the emperor Constantine was in aggreement with the moderates! The creed of Nicea came from this meeting.

As I was reading this all, the words heritage and legacy kept popping into my head. Of the men at Nicea, Rushdoony comments…” when Constantine met with leaders of the church at the council of Nicea, it was a strange assembly which surrounded him. Many were without eyes, others without arms or without hands, others maimed in various ways…”

Because….Fourteen years prior the latest and most fierce persecution yet came upon the church, where so many were thrown to the beasts that …” weary animals finally refused to attack them”, and…” soldiers became weary of killing, and their swords grew dull or broke…” The more merciful governors…merely cut off ears or split the noses or put out the right eyes or otherwise maimed the Christians…” this was…” a gathering of men who had faced death for the faith.” Heritage , Legacy.

It makes you wonder, was some of the physical persecution to temper and prepare the early church fathers mentally so they could stand as minorities if necessary and defend the faith, no compromise. Tempers were lost, and you can imagine the intensity in these arguments, to form the foundations of the faith.

Today the pressure is on to be loving, to not be divisive, to be inclusive. I remember the Pearls getting a letter from someone saying that their pastor had banned “ Created to be his helpmeet” because it was divisive. Never in a million years would the New Testament writers think that their urgings to be united, to be of one faith, should be achieved at the cost of abandoning Gods truth.

Heritage, Legacy, we receive them, and we help to shape the ones given to those coming behind us.