A Fallen Record

Learning from past mistakes is the greatest defense against present and future error. There is no escaping the fact that, in whatever form it may appear, history will repeat itself. But we can create better years of antiquity by intelligently analyzing the past to alter the future's course, and while making the present a benevolent catalyst to forward a more complete amendment in thought and feeling.

In this comprehensive examination of the early Christian church, the reader is taken into the past to observe the religious world through the eyes of John, Peter, and Paul. We begin our journey around the year 50A. D. We will then conscientiously monitor the development of the early church until 300A. D. This primitive history reveals an important transition in Christian manners of devotion. Christian elders, abandoning the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, began establishing a creed and service at odds with what that the first apostles preached, and with what their LORD and His Christ taught. The theme behind this early period of church history is captured by the apostle John, who writes, "They went out from us, but they were not of us," 1 John 2:19. The reader will understand what prompted John to say this, and why, at this point in time, it was necessary to chronicle such a conclusion.