What Church did Jesus Christ found?

Hello Aleoje~

As Scriptor has already pointed out, Christ did not form any churches.
However, he did train his disciples to ?spread the good news,? which
they did. And after Christ?s death and resurrection, the same
disciples helped form many churches. (Later, apostles did the same
thing.) Although some folks considered these new groups an offshoot of
the Jewish faith, these early churches (soon to be known as
?Christian? churches) were quite different. For example, priests were
abolished, as were sacrifices. In the Christian mind, Christ made both
of these things unnecessary. In addition, early Christians shared
their material goods, some sold property and gave the proceeds to the
church, and usually worshiped in each other?s homes. In addition,
early Christians worshiped on Sunday, not the Jewish Saturday. (The
reason for this? Christ was resurrected on a Sunday.)


?For many years, Jerusalem was the center of the church,? says ?The
Illustrated Manners & Customs of the Bible? (p. 535, edited by J.I.
Packer and M.C. Tenney, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1980) The earliest
Christians went to the Jewish temple to pray, but had ?the Lord?s
Supper? in private homes. (There is no evidence that Christians built
churches until a century or more after Christ.)

The first ?government? for the Christian church seems to have begun
with Stephen, who was appointed leader of the men who distributed
goods to needy widows (Acts 6:5). ?By the time Paul wrote his letters
to the churches, Christians realized the need to organize their
work?Apparently, one or more elders (presbysters) presided over the
affairs of each congregation?just as the elders did in Jewish
synagogues?Some ministers called evangelists seem to have traveled
from one congregation to another, as the apostles did?In some
congregations, the elders appointed deacons to distribute good to the
needy or care for other material needs?Some New Testament letters
refer to bishops in the early church. This is a bit confusing, since
these ?bishops? did not form an upper tier of church leadership as
they do in some churches where the title is used today. Paul?seems to
use the terms elder and bishop interchangeably.? (p. 538)

As Christians developed patterns of worship, their Sunday often went
like this: In the morning it was time for prayer, praise, and
preaching. ?The Christians? impromptu worship service on the day of
Pentecost suggests a pattern of worship that might have been generally
used.? (p. 539) This included Peter reading from Scriptures, then
giving a sermon. Those who were new converts were baptized. Then the
Christians might share testimony, songs, etc.

The (Roman) Catholic church, for which Paul is commonly (and wrongly)
credited for ?creating,? did not exist until Constantine conquered
Rome and the ruler pronounced the Christianity the official religion.
Constantine and his aids, in large part, formed the basics of Roman
Catholicism. At this time, the Church and Constantine ruled hand in
hand. Some Catholics believe that the Catholic church is the
?original? Christian church, but the New Testament, which gives us a
pretty good picture of the early Christian church, does not indicate
this at all.

I hope this helps!

Kriswrite

Sources:
?The Illustrated Manners & Customs of the Bible? edited by J.I. Packer
and M.C. Tenney, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1980;
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0785250433/qid=1068410186/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-5767694-7794303?v=glance&s=books

?The Illustrated Dictionary of the Bible? edited by Herbert Lockyer,
Thomas Nelson Publishers, n.d.;
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0785250522/qid=1068410210/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/104-5767694-7794303?v=glance&s=books

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Request for Answer Clarification by aleoje-ga on 10 Nov 2003 21:27 PST

OK, perhaps I did not explain myself well. This is what I came accross
in the KJ Bible, it says:

18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it.

Note that Christ does not say I will build my churches or
congregations, so that is excluded (I think). He says my church in
singular. If we believe the Scriptures, there must be a church, unless
we donīt believe that Christ meant what it says in that verse or that
the Bible is not historically accurate. I donīt see it any other way
(at least I donīt).

Can you please clarify?

Many thanks! :)

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Clarification of Answer by kriswrite-ga on 12 Nov 2003 08:01 PST

Hello aleoge~

Certainly, I can clarify! ?

Matthew 16: 18 reads: ?And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it.? (KJV?to see what it looks like in other
translations, see BibleGateway at
http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=MATT+16:18&language=english&version=KJV&showfn=on&showxref=on
)

If you go back to the original language of the New Testament, you may
find that the word ?church? has a different meaning than it usually
does today. In the New Testament, the original Greek word
(?ejkklhsiva?) means ?a gathering of those called.? In other words,
the church is not a place, a domination, or any organized association.
It?s simply a group of people getting together who have been ?called?
by the Holy Spirit. (You can read a bit more about this at ?What Is
The Church??, Daily Bible Study,
http://www.execulink.com/~wblank/20000804.htm )

This is simply a case of there being no English word that fully ally
conveys what the original Greek meant.

I hope this helps!
Kriswrite

Dear aleoje,

Though it may sound  strange: Jesus Christ did not found any church at
all. The earliest groups of Christians regarded themselves a Jewish
sect. It was the work of St. Paul that later gave the Christians a
distinctive profile so their belief slowly developed into a new
religion.

Scriptor

While some fundamentalist Christians do assert that Constantine
"founded" the Catholicism, Catholics contend that Constantine merely
legalized a church that already existed.

Examples of this viewpoint:

"Did Constantine Invent Catholicism?"
http://davidmacd.com/catholic/did_constantine_invent_catholicism.htm

"Constantine: Founder of the Catholic Church? "
http://www.ancient-future.net/constantine.html

Hello aleoje-ga!

Your question is an interesting one and also, I imagine, one sure to
spark a lot of comments. The answer to this question really depends on
who you ask. For example, for a slightly different viewpoint, you can
visit the site for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint
(Mormons). There it states that members of the LDS church believe that
while Christ was on the earth he organized his church with the
apostles as key leaders. After his crucifixion and death, his apostles
carried out the work of this church until they were all ultimately
martyred or forced into exile. There was an apostasy, or disappearance
of Christ's church from the earth. In the 1800s, Joseph Smith restored
Christ's church, which has continued to the present day as the Mormon
church.

http://www.mormon.org/learn/0%2c8672%2c955-1%2c00.html

Another site that may be of interest to you is religioustolerance.org
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_true.htm

I am enjoying the many viewpoints that are emerging on this and look
forward to more!

Sincerely,
Boquinha-ga

Search Strategy
christ found true church

Of course, part of the answer depends on what you mean by "found." One
view (and I hope I'm not misstating the Catholic viewpoint) is that
Jesus appointed Peter to found the Church. Another view would be that
there was no church per se until after Pentecost, a time when Jesus
was no longer on the Earth (which if you believe he was divine doesn't
mean he couldn't found it).  Another view would be that Jesus chose
the 12 to organize the church; this view seems to make the most sense
to me, because the 12 felt that one of their number needed to be
replaced after Judas died, so there are signs of very early
organization.

The claim of Catholics and the Orthodox churches would be that the
organization continues today through their churches; like Boquinha-ga
said, Latter-day Saints believe that the organization died out at some
indeterminate time. (This wouldn't necessarily be inconsistent with
what has been said about Constantine.) That view is not unique to LDS;
Seventh-day Adventists also believe that there was an apostasy or
falling away from Jesus' teachings.  Various other groups (most of
them very small) have also claimed to have restored the original
church and/or its teachings in some way.

It is interesting to know that the New Testament word for "church"
might better be translated as referring to an assembly, community or
congregation. The word didn't necessarily have the bureaucratic
implications implied by the word today. The word doesn't imply lack of
organization, but it does suggest something other than an impersonal
organization, a living entity if you will, and probably something that
involved much more than activity on just one day of the week.