Church--is one needed?

[_kairos]

Help me out here- is not the apocalypse the end of the world when Jesus returns on the clouds to rule and reign and judge ? And according to Jesus ,only the Father knows the day and hour? so was Jesus in the dark like Paul and just guessing the time was imminent?

so will any of the physical structures of Christianity existing today from small congregations in house churches like Corinth to store front Bible churches to small and large chapels, buildings and catheradals, conference centers and former athletic venues like joel osteen's to studio-satellite-cable networks like ewtn and tbn get a thumbs up from jesus when he returns. more importantly which organzational structure and 'offices' like Mormons or RC or denominations like methodists or associaltions like calvary chapel be preferrred or will jesus just not give a damn? he did come to "save " people not conference centers!


k

[_huckelberry]

Help me out here- is not the apocalypse the end of the world when Jesus returns on the clouds to rule and reign and judge ? And according to Jesus ,only the Father knows the day and hour? so was Jesus in the dark like Paul and just guessing the time was imminent?

so will any of the physical structures of Christianity existing today from small congregations in house churches like Corinth to store front Bible churches to small and large chapels, buildings and catheradals, conference centers and former athletic venues like joel osteen's to studio-satellite-cable networks like ewtn and tbn get a thumbs up from Jesus when he returns. more importantly which organzational structure and 'offices' like Mormons or RC or denominations like methodists or associaltions like calvary chapel be preferrred or will Jesus just not give a damn? he did come to "save " people not conference centers!

k

Kairos, To me your question about the time has a puzzle in it. You speak of the end of the world and proceed to talk about Jesus ruling and judging. If the world has ended what is there to rule and judge? Perhaps there is ambiguity in the phrase end of the world.

As far as Jesus knowing, he obviously would not know the whole story. As the creed says, he was made man. A man has very limited knowledge, even if comparatively alert, wise and learned (and attuned to God the Father).

To my ears what Jesus is saying is asking people to change their relationships to others and take love, care and respect seriously. I think he understood his own actions as pushing a great change forward and becoming the foundation of a new sort of world. That is an end of the world of a kind.

I doubt that while living he had any understanding of how much time these large scale changes will require. I think both he and the early church used conventional word imagery, apocalyptic, to deal with the amount of unknown in the particulars.

[_moksha]

Think of what the end of the world will mean to various blogs and message boards: At Sic et Non, there will be rejoicing that the Maxwell Institute will finally be returned to its rightful owners. At Mormon Discussions, there will be general gratitude for all the fish and the sense that Ludwigm should finally be freed from his school locker.

[_Fence Sitter]

Help me out here- is not the apocalypse the end of the world when Jesus returns on the clouds to rule and reign and judge ? And according to Jesus ,only the Father knows the day and hour? so was Jesus in the dark like Paul and just guessing the time was imminent?
k

According to Ehrman, Jesus did not see himself as the Messiah nor "The Son Of Man". In fact Jesus believed he would be alive when the event happened. This whole glorious return of Christ belief was added in later of my anonymous writers who saw that Christ nor any of his followers had lived to see the Kingdom of God on earth and they had to explain why.

Ehrman's book gives a really good easy to understand explanation of why he thinks much of what is in the New Testament wasn't actually taught or said by Jesus.

[_kairos]

Help me out here- is not the apocalypse the end of the world when Jesus returns on the clouds to rule and reign and judge ? And according to Jesus ,only the Father knows the day and hour? so was Jesus in the dark like Paul and just guessing the time was imminent?
k

According to Ehrman, Jesus did not see himself as the Messiah nor "The Son Of Man". In fact Jesus believed he would be alive when the event happened. This whole glorious return of Christ belief was added in later of my anonymous writers who saw that Christ nor any of his followers had lived to see the Kingdom of God on earth and they had to explain why.

Ehrman's book gives a really good easy to understand explanation of why he thinks much of what is in the New Testament wasn't actually taught or said by Jesus.

Bart Ehrman puzzles me- as a young evangelical out of wheaton college i think, he experienced the chrasmatic gifts, then he goes deep into the study of early documents of the gospels and comes out like john dominic crossan as saying there are maybe 2 paragraphs in the gospels that are the actual words of Jesus. In an email exchange i asked him if he would concede at least one healing miracle to jesus and if so would that be enough to affirm jesus as God? he would not answer directly but indicated that the study of faith healers is complex and difficult.

my personal opinion: he is far off the being christian rails but with his episcopal/anglican wife's influence he will return to a christian belief system- he is brilliant and has lots of followers as i pray for him and them.

k

[_honorentheos]

The idea of a church is anachronistic in that the historic Jesus lived among a chosen people with a covenant between them and their god. The historic Jesus was calling a people in second temple period Israel to return to god before the Son of Man arrived and ushered in the conquest of God and restoration of His chosen people in their Promised Land minus invading gentile forces. Jesus wasn't preaching "come follow me" in Mark which is the closest to contemporary to the life of Jesus, but instead, "come and see". Come follow me is a late concept appearing long after the destruction of the temple and romanizing of the Jewish beliefs of the historic Jesus. Paul established churches.

[_huckelberry]

The idea of a church is anachronistic in that the historic Jesus lived among a chosen people with a covenant between them and their god. The historic Jesus was calling a people in second temple period Israel to return to god before the Son of Man arrived and ushered in the conquest of God and restoration of His chosen people in their Promised Land minus invading gentile forces. Jesus wasn't preaching "come follow me" in Mark which is the closest to contemporary to the life of Jesus, but instead, "come and see". Come follow me is a late concept appearing long after the destruction of the temple and romanizing of the Jewish beliefs of the historic Jesus. Paul established churches.

Honorentheos, I have some uncertainty about what you mean here. Mark was written very close to the time of the destruction of the temple, likely before. It does have variation in speaking about following suggesting perhaps some sayings have been reshaped by followers (sometimes conventionally referred to as early church because it developed into the Catholic church)

I was thinking that Paul was Jewish and an educated one at that. It seems odd to associate him with Romanising Jewish beliefs. He was saturated in Jewish belief.

[_honorentheos]

Honorentheos, I have some uncertainty about what you mean here. Mark was written very close to the time of the destruction of the temple, likely before. It does have variation in speaking about following suggesting perhaps some sayings have been reshaped by followers (sometimes conventionally referred to as early church because it developed into the Catholic church)

I was thinking that Paul was Jewish and an educated one at that. It seems odd to associate him with Romanising Jewish beliefs. He was saturated in Jewish belief.

He was not just a Roman citizen, but was born one. When he interacts with the Jerusalem apostles he asserts that Jewish customs and beliefs should be done away with and not imposed on gentiles converts to the new covenant. He bragged about doing it and winning the arguments.

[_huckelberry]

Honorentheos, what I hear you saying is that church refers to groups of gentile converts that did not fallow Jewish law and kosher. Paul clearly is an important part of that development. Those groups you can if you wish distinguish by calling them church and not calling church those groups of people maintaining a faith community continuing Jewish communion together with some sort of connection to the prophet Jesus.

[_honorentheos]

To the point of the OP, the historical Jesus wasn't attempting to establish a new community around unique religious views. Instead, he had a community in Israel he was attempting to turn back to God. The call to be more faithful, less influenced by Roman and Greek occupations are not about setting up a new religious order. Instead, as fence sitter has pointed out, it was an urgent call to return before it was too late when the arrival of the Son of Man and champion of God brought about the destruction of the wicked including those who forgot their covenant and were living too cozy in a gentile world.

Paul went about preaching and setting up communities of believers with leadership hierarchy and rules that had nothing to do with the covenant between YHWH and Israel. He also seems to be sure of a pending apocalypse when the world is ended by the return of Christ, Jesus who was the champion of God who will destroy the wicked and return all the people of the new covenant to their place in God's kingdom. But most of what Christians associate with this end time belief is much more modern than Paul.

Jesus didn't try to establish a church. He was a faithful Jew seeking to return of the people of the covenant to God. Saying he was trying to establish a church however one wants to define it is anachronistic as the concept had no meaning in the context of his religious world view. The various camps within Judaism of the time weren't churches, but more like schools of thought with teachers and students. Church is a very Pauline invention, likely derived from his establishing pockets of believers throughout the areas of his ministry.