DOES PAULS COUNSEL TO THE CORINTHIANS INDICATES A RELIGION UNITED IN NAME ONLY WITH VARIOUS RECOGNISED CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS OF ALTERNATVE LEADERSHIP AND DOCTRINE?
No, as mentioned earlier, the very fact that Paul wrote with obvious authority to the congregation at Corinth indicates he was acting within a certain structure. Indeed , Paul was writing, not as a random well-wisher that happened to hear of the situation but as
a travelling representative of a central synod with the responsibility of safeguarding structural and doctrinal unity.
ACTS 16 : 4, 5
As they traveled on through the cities, they would deliver to them for observance the decrees that had been decided on by the apostles and the elders who were in Jerusalem. Then, indeed, the congregations continued to be made firm in the faith and to increase in number day by day.
One interesting feature of Pauls letter to the Corinthians was that he informed them of his organising a relief fund, not of a general humaniterian nature but specifically for fellow believers in Judea. (See Romans 15:26) What does this indicate? That the Corinthian Christians were part of a network of believers that through their leadership and travelling representatives where not only aware of each geologically dispersed fellow believers but were united in a sense of bejng part of what the Apotle Peter wrote of as "an association of [...] brothers* in the world"
What are we to make of Pauls warnings against disunity?
We are to conclude their must have been a doctrinal and organisational unity he was trying to preserve. Evidently, each seperate congregation was not free to decide for themselves what policy, teachings, writings or practice they would follow; thus his'letters. As an duly appointed representative of the central governing body, Paul was expressing his authority to discipline even expulse (excommunicate) those that did not comply with official teachings and standards of conduct.
History testifies this unity did not survive much beyond the 2nd century but the biblical and historical record indicates that, at its initial stages, Christianity was not an umbrella term for independent groups of wandering hippies that estalished their own churches according to the flavor of the local community, but a structured interlinked organised religion under a recognised leadership.
How could first century Christians be doctrinally united without a complete bible?
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