In I Corinthians 10:11, the apostle Paul tells us that “these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction.” What is true of the historical narratives of Scripture is also to some extent true of the succeeding history of the Christian Church. We can learn much from the examples, both positive and negative, of those who have gone before us. The early history of the Church from the end of the apostolic era to the threshold of the Protestant Reformation is unfamiliar to many Christians, but it has much to teach us. In this era we see the spread of the Gospel in the face of intense persecution, the consequences for the Church of political power, and most of all the rise of man-made traditions added to God’s Word that led to what we know as Roman Catholicism. We will see the growing corruption of the Church, the rise of monasticism and its consequences, the schism that divided Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, the Crusades, and the attempts to harmonize Christian theology with the prevailing philosophies of the age in the Scholastic period in the High Middle Ages. In the process we will gain a better understanding of what shaped not only Catholicism and Orthodoxy, but also Islam. For those who care to follow along, we will be covering chapters 1-17 of Making Dry Bones Live.
Join us as we learn from Pastor Bob Walton in the Main Sanctuary every week from Sunday, September 20th to Sunday, January 3rd, 9:45 to 10:45am.