INTRODUCTION
In explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the early church and how they compare to the church today, I am going to look at a number of areas showing the strengths of the early church and the strengths of the church today. I will also look at the weaknesses of the early church and the church of today. While looking at these strengths and weaknesses of the church I will also make comparisons between the strengths and the weaknesses of the early church and the church in the 21st century.
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STRENGTHS OF THE EARLY CHURCH AND THE CHURCH TODAY
Prayer is very important aspect of our day to day living as a church and as individuals. Prayer helps us understand that a critical decision made without asking God will not succeed. The early church understood this principle and never made a step or decision unless God said yes and because the disciples had been with Jesus and seeing the many times He isolated Himself to pray and also seeing the strength and power He gained after made believe and know that without prayer it was impossible to do anything. In Acts 12:1-18 Peter had been taken to prison by Herod’s soldiers and at this time the church knew what to do and who to consult concerning this issue meaning that the church earnestly prayed for Peters The early church prayed before preaching, travelling and appointing different people for ministry. The church today practices the same principle of prayer before making any decisions. The church today understands that if they don’t pray and commit their plans in to the hands of God they will not succeed.
FOCUSED ON THE TRUTH
The early church stood on the truth, they even told those who questioned them and persecuted them that they only obeyed God and not man. They church founded by the apostles understood what the truth was not only because they had an on pouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost but because they also had been with the Lord Jesus Christ throughout His ministry to the time He was crucified to the time He ascended to heaven. While the church today seems very reluctant concerning the truth, the church today tends to combine the truth of the word of God and science.
FEARLESS
The early church where not afraid to share the gospel at any time to anyone as the Holy Spirit led them. The early church where very bold, that they could even preach and minister before the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees and leaders of different regions who opposed the Good News. The church of today has a lot of fear especially when it comes to soul winning, we have the so called submarine Christians who afraid of what people will say about them, such that they cannot minister to a President or any person who leads a region. The church today allows the fears of being mocked and undermined to keep them from sharing the Good News. In the era of today’s church there are few individuals who are fearless to minister to the lost.
MARTYERDOM
The early church where not afraid to die for Christ and most of where either stoned, or had their heads chopped of and others where crucified. The early church did not run away from those who wanted to kill them but they looked for an opportunity to minister salvation to their persecutors. The church today has a different situation all together. The church today has the right to share the gospel to anyone because the laws of the nations today allow people the right to practise their own faiths and religions. The church of today has more, freedom to live as Christians and even preach the Good News and they will not be killed, but there are some nations who still kill Christians today and everyday one more of these precious people of God are being martyred.
THE POWER OF GOD
The power of God was always dominate in the lives the early church body. They depended on it for everything they did and because most of them where eyewitnesses of the life of Christ and seeing how Jesus was always full of the power of God in all that He said and did. There are interesting scenes in the Bible that tell us of how these powerful men and women of God were mightily used by the power of God. The power of God is dominate even in the church today but not in all the churches. There is less manifestation of the power of God and more of the flesh and man doing what he she thinks is right, God often taken out of the big picture which is causing a lot struggle between the power of God and enemy.
WEAKNESSES OF THE EARLY CHURCH AND THE CHURCH TODAY
DIVISIONS IN THE CHURCH
The early church at first where very united but as time passed there was a lot of division in the church. The apostle Paul rebuked some of the brothers in the church telling that they should not divide themselves and say that I am for Paul and I am for Apollos but that they should remember that they belong to Christ. There is a lot of division in the church today because the only thing people talk about is I belong to pastor and another to pastor, even the very leaders of the churches today are divided. Most of the believers today despise and hate certain brothers and love certain brothers, but the Bible mentions that believers should practise favouritism.
SEXUAL IMMORALITY
Some the believers in the early church where committing having sex outside marriage and the apostle Paul sent a message or word of correction to them concerning this issue. Sexual immorality is very common in the church today and because our society encourages people to live together when they are not married,
this makes it very difficult to abstain from sex before marriage and because even the leaders of the church today also commit this type of sin it is hard for them to tell people not do it.
FALSE APOSTLES
Some people joined the early church and began to mislead many of the believers to go astray and return to their old practises. This issue caused a lot of tension even between the apostle Paul and Peter. Paul confuted Peter on the issue of being circumcised in order to be part of the body of Christ. Paul was against the spirit of gaining salvation through works he said because Jesus died on the cross and rose again and he took away all our sins not because of what we did, but because through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus we were saved. There are more false teachers and prophets who exist in the church today than in the early church. The body of believers today mostly want to hear what they want to hear even if it’s not true as long as it’s pleasing to the hear they believe it, this makes it hard to make distinction between a true prophet and a false unless one is mature and has the spirit of discernment.
LOVE OF MONEY
The believers in the early church shared their possessions and gave to all who were in need and because of this Godly practise no one was in need. Although everybody sold their properties in order to give their money to the needy, there were some people who were greedy and did not stick to their commitment and lied to the Holy Spirit, such people dropped dead in the presence of God before the whole church, thus the believers were committed in whatever they said they would for God and their fellow brethren. The church has a lot of selfish leaders and selfish members everyone has his or her own worries and they always want more very hesitant in giving in the church and giving to the poor.
CONCLUSION
The strengths of the early church are more than their weaknesses. The early church practised some important morals that should be practised by the church of today. There was more commitment to Gods work than there is today, because the church today is often moved by physical surrounding than the spirit surrounding, forgetting that our fight is not against man but against the enemy. There is also a lot of greed in the church to than there was in the early church. The church today needs revival, they need to be winning souls for Christ.
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