“Our challenge is to find the New Testament Church in our day, being sure it is historically identical to the Church of the Apostles-the one Christ Himself established. Starting in the twentieth century with the plethora of choices available to us is difficult. For we have hundreds of denominations and sects claiming to one degree or another to be the New Testament Church. The Roman Catholic Church makes that claim based on its apostolic succession. Baptist churches are unwaveringly confident they hold to the New Testament Faith. Often a Church of Christ will have a sign outside reading, “Founded in Jerusalem, 33 A.D.,” thereby staking the claim to be the original Church. And the list goes on.

Granted, many groups have maintained, or even rediscovered, important aspects of the New Testament Faith. But who is right? Or is the pluralism crowd correct-that essentially everybody is in and ties for first place?

There is a predictably reliable way to tackle the problem of who is right. Rather than trying to decide which of the over 2,500 Christian groups in North America keeps the original Faith best by studying what they are like right now, we can start from the beginning of the Church itself and work our way through history to the present.”

Fr. Jon E. Braun

 

To read the whole article,

please see

http://journeytoorthodoxy.com/orthodox-faith/finding-the-new-testament-church/