Monday, May 10, 2021

Today on the Almanac, Dr van Voorhis answers a question about Church History for the first of a weekly series of listeners' questions.

*** Notes for Today’s Show ***

It is the 10th of May 2021 Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Welcome to the first CHA AMA (Ask me Anything). On today’s show, we have our first of hopefully a number of weekly episodes wherein I answer your questions! You can email a question, or send a 30-second clip of your question to CHA@1517.org.

The question I have chosen to kick off this new weekly segment is an important question asked in the 16th c., it seemed appropriate as we are 1517.org and the Reformation looms large for us. This question was asked by Catholics to Protestants: where was your church before Luther? In other words, isn’t this new stuff just another sectarian heresy?

3 Points:

  • We need to distinguish between the visible church and the invisible church.

The invisible church is made up of all who confess Jesus as Lord, as Redeemer, and as God

  • We need to own our ecumenical family tree, knots and all.

Ecumenical= universal

See the ecumenical creeds!

  • We are baptized into Christ, not the local church.

Church membership might be important, but it does not save!

Don’t assume everyone holds every doctrine that their official church bodies teach

The last word for today comes from Paul in the letter to the Galatians, the 3rd Chapter

But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 10th of May 2021 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who claims to have both a visible and invisible church, the latter he compares to Wonder Woman’s plane. He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day. And remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.

Subscribe to the Christian History Almanac

Subscribe to the Christian History Almanac


Subscribe (it’s free!) in your favorite podcast app.