Photo Credit: Adam Dimmick

The following is a re-post from Patrick Hoban’s old blog, October 2009. – Admin

The Bible talks about a great falling away that will take place in the church before the coming of the Lord (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Just as in the early church there were many false teachers and those who harassed new believers with doctrines that took them from the apostles’ teaching, I believe that before the coming of Christ again the church will experience the same kind of turmoil.

The first 400 years of the church were filled with doctrinal turmoil.

Gnosticism (secret knowledge) reared its head very early on in the church. The apostles John and Jude wrote about it in their letters. John spoke about people the church was familiar with who once claimed to be true believers, but were not because they didn’t keep to the teachings of the apostles.

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us (1 John 2:19).

There was a way for the believer to know that he was believing the truth: it was by adhering to the teaching of the Apostles.

We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error (1 John 4:6).

The spirit of error that John talked about is a spirit that causes people to wander from the truth. They wander from what we like to call “Orthodoxy.” Orthodoxy means having right or straight thinking. Apostasy is falling away from Orthodoxy. It’s a wrong thinking.

Most of the doctrinal issues facing the church were resolved by the First Nicene Council. The issues concerning the nature of Christ and the God-head were resolved, and from that Council we received the Nicene Creed, a creed that I truly appreciate.

Doctrinal error occurs from two main sources:  Continue Reading…