{"id":323,"date":"2015-08-02T18:42:13","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T18:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/?p=323"},"modified":"2015-08-03T18:42:22","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T18:42:22","slug":"doctrine-of-the-church-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/?p=323","title":{"rendered":"Doctrine of the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Here are the completed notes from the evening service August 2, 2015<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>A Brief Survey of Church History<\/h3>\n<h4>Why Study Church History?<\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li>Our God is a God of history<\/li>\n<li>We can understand and know God better by seeing how He has worked in the past<\/li>\n<li>Church history covers doctrines and issues central to the faith<\/li>\n<li>To honor those who have faithfully gone before us<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>A. \u00a0God&#8217;s Historical Record of the Early Church &#8211; Book of Acts (33AD &#8211; 64AD)<\/h3>\n<p>Luke was an early church historian<br \/>\nActs 1:8 serves as an outline for the book of Acts<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Events that occurred during this period:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Coming of the Holy Spirit and birth of the Church &#8211; Acts 2:1-5<\/li>\n<li>Persecution from the Jews (AD33-AD64)<\/li>\n<li>First Christian martyr &#8211; Stephen &#8211; Acts 6:1 thru 8:2 (AD35)<\/li>\n<li>Gospel taken to the Gentiles &#8211; Acts 10<\/li>\n<li>Apostle Paul&#8217;s First Missionary Journey &#8211; Acts 13 (Between AD46 and AD50)<\/li>\n<li>The Jerusalem Council &#8211; Acts 15 (AD49 or AD50)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>B. \u00a0From Acts to the 6th Century (AD64 &#8211; AD605)<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Events that occurred during this period:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Persecution from Rome (AD64-AD300)<\/li>\n<li>The fire in Rome (AD64) &#8211; Nero blamed Christians<\/li>\n<li>Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (AD70)<\/li>\n<li>Gnosticism (AD90-AD150)\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Gnosticism:<\/span> \u00a0<em>The belief that the physical world is evil and that only secret, spiritual knowledge can free persons from the physical world.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Development of the New Testament Canon (Prior to AD190)\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Canon:<\/span> \u00a0<em>measuring stick<\/em><\/li>\n<li>The word refers to the books that God inspired to form the church&#8217;s faith<\/li>\n<li>The Old Testament Canon was finalized around 300BC<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Persecution and Martyrdom<\/li>\n<li>The Council of Nicaea (AD325)\n<ul>\n<li>The creed of Nicaea confessed the church&#8217;s belief in the Trinity and in the full deity of Jesus<\/li>\n<li>Rule of Faith &#8211; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Creeds:<\/span> <em>a series of statements that tested a new believer&#8217;s understanding of essential Christian doctrines<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Emperor Constantine\n<ul>\n<li>After conquering Rome, Emperor Constantine issues the Edict of Milan in 313 and Christianity became fully legal and equal with all religions<\/li>\n<li>The night before the battle with Rome, Constantine received a vision of a flaming cross, combined with the message &#8220;in this sign conquer&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Freedom and Peace Results in Compromise\n<ul>\n<li>Between AD400 and AD400, Christians gained earthly peace and power<\/li>\n<li>Churches grew rapidly (not all growth is good)<\/li>\n<li>Many joined the church to gain the good will of one more deity, other joined for social status<\/li>\n<li>Church members began to identify themselves with earthly institutions and the institutional aspects of the church became overly important<\/li>\n<li>The Gospel became diluted<\/li>\n<li>Some resisted the church&#8217;s new status and spent their lives in exile or fled to communities in the desert<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Names to be familiar with from this period:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nero &#8211; AD37-AD68\n<ul>\n<li>Roman emperor, persecuted Christians after the fire in Rome, had the Apostle Paul beheaded<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Ignatius &#8211; AD35-AD107\n<ul>\n<li>Disciple of the Apostle John<\/li>\n<li>Apostolic church father<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Apostolic Fathers:<\/span> \u00a0<em>Important First-Century Christians<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Thrown to the lions and eaten alive<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Polycarp &#8211; AD69-AD155\n<ul>\n<li>Disciple of the Apostle John<\/li>\n<li>Apostolic church father<\/li>\n<li>Burned to death at the stake<\/li>\n<li>The last survivor of those who had talked with the eyewitnesses of Jesus<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Justin Martyr &#8211; AD100-AD165\n<ul>\n<li>Christian philosopher and apologist<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Tertullian &#8211; AD160-AD220\n<ul>\n<li>North African church planter<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Jerome &#8211; AD345-AD420\n<ul>\n<li>Monk and scholar who translated the Bible into the Latin language of the day<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>*Some contents adapted from Dr. Harold Willmington\u2019s notes on the church<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are the completed notes from the evening service August 2, 2015 A Brief Survey of Church History Why Study Church History? Our God is a God of history We<span class=\"excerpt-ellipsis\">&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/?p=323\" itemprop=\"url\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunnight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csbcva.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}