The Evolution of the Christian Church, Part I, Ver. 1.0.3
The Philosopher
https://anewparadigminchristianthinking.wordpress.com/tag/eveoltion-of-the-church-part-I/
January 24, 2015

Preamble
In the mid to late 1980s I was asked, in no uncertain terms, from “who know who” to investigate the Scriptures and the Gospel from the perspective of National Security. Only speculation can be used to determine why I was called to this mission. Having supported the Energy Department at a national physics laboratory for about 10 years and after successfully troubleshooting a major project that allowed construction of a major Energy Department facility, I began supporting the Defense Department at this same national physics laboratory. Personal family issues (storms) resulted in my joining a Baptist Church where I began my training as a Bible Study Teacher. In the workplace, I was noticed reading the New Testament while on a coffee or tea break. There had been a “Sledge Hammer” Evangelist in this area before me and having another “Bible Thumper” in the area was not well-received. Between some of the antics I received to make my life more uncomfortable, I responded with what little knowledge I had of the Scriptures and the Gospel. At one time I was called into the manager’s office because one of the females with whom I was temporally sharing an office was continually informing me of her sexual escapades after leaving her husband and two daughters to party every night. I had mentioned that Jesus was the only one who could fill her desires, but bringing religion into the workplace was not, in her opinion, acceptable, so she filed an official complaint against me for bringing religion into the workplace. Because of this complaint, combined with her other antics like applying solvent to my state-of-the-art calculator to freeze up all the keys and putting drugs into my instant tea jar that affected my brain and liver, I took a transfer to a more religious friendly group.

My teaching abilities in leading the Adult Bible Study Group were less than adequate. For my first class, teaching about David, I used a stack of index cards to guide me through the presentation. About halfway through the class, I dropped all of the cards on the floor and they scattered. One of the class members kindly picked them up for me. I joined a platform speakers club that met onsite during our lunch hour. I was being trained at these weekly meetings to give three-minute spontaneous impromptu speeches and to give organized five to seven minute speeches. Separated now from my family, I filled my free time with banjo lessons, teacher training and teaching at the church and performing outreach activities for the church. These activities made it difficult for me to organize a speech to give at the platform speakers club when it was my turn at the podium, so I combined my lesson plan at the church with the requirements that needed to be met for my organized five to seven minute speech. On one occasion, my lesson plan was on Amos 4, a topic addressing the social issues of the Israeli nation and how these social issues would result in national security issues. That evening, this speech resulted in an unmistakable, “This is what I want you to do” message from, “Who knows Who”.

My experience in national security at that time was minable, my speaking ability frightful, my musical ability on the banjo terrible and my knowledge of the Scriptures and the Gospel minable at best. But, I was in a speakers club, I was taking banjo lessons, I joined a lunch time Bible Study group that met once a week and I was in teacher training and teaching a Bible study class at the church. Also, I was gaining the reputation as the Top Gun National Crises Troubleshooter for the Defense Department, reviewing programs in trouble and identifying the problem and what was causing the problem and handing this information off to program managers for them to solve the problem. So, I was on learning curves in several appropriate areas to carry out this mission of reviewing the Scriptures and the Gospel from a national security perspective, and to convey that information to the nation’s citizens.
One other factor may be similar to the Apostle Paul, who was born into an aristocrat family and was a Roman citizen, and he probably inherited innate knowledge from his family of origin while exposed to the best teachers in his area. Both of my parents were college educated, an accomplishment for this time in our country. My father was on staff at a local creamery and was in charge of quality control of the production of their milk, which involved inspecting all of the dairy farms contracted to deliver their milk to this creamery. When he retired from the creamery, he accepted an inspector’s position at a local meat packing company. If you have read Sinclair Lewis’s work on this subject, you know what he encountered. The local meat packers never offered their products for sale locally, as the people who worked at the meat packers knew how the meat packing was accomplished and would never buy their products. Therefore, all the meat packing companies sold their products father from home where people were not aware of how the meat was packed. All of the meat packing companies followed this protocol. What this local meat packing company wanted from my father was his signature on quality control reports and not his suggestions for improving their products. I’m not sure which came first – his leaving or the meat packing company asking him to leave. My father instilled in me the protocol of calling it like I see it and I will never be wrong, but maybe not too popular. In my career as a troubleshooter for the Energy and Defense Departments, I did just that. I called it like I saw it, and sometimes this was not too popular. While reviewing the Scriptures and the Gospel form the perspective of national security, I called it like I saw it. The results were definitely not popular with those of the existing paradigm.

I was now functioning as an assistant teacher in a fourth grade Sunday school class. Up to this time, I was “cook booking” my lesson plans from the information I received from the church. After about seven years of these church provided lesson plans, on an Easter Sunday, I decided to write my own lesson plan. My lesson plan was named “Believing without Seeing.” It was also at this time that I became involved with golf and softball. I had perfected a golf swing that was in a golf swing book by an engineer that was very technical and physics-based. Having transferred this technology to my softball batting swing, I became the team’s “Cleanup Hitter”.
My “Believing Without Seeing” lesson plan called for me to take my small class of three boys and a girl to the park behind the church with a plastic bat and a Wiffle Ball. In the classroom, I told the class that I could hit a baseball out of the park for a home run. The whole class was naysayers – every one of them. They did not believe I could hit a home run. Off to the park we went with the bat and ball. I demonstrated the home run swing that I had developed, now called “The String-Bat Model,” and hit the Wiffle Ball deep into the park. They all wanted to know how to do hit a ball like that, so I gave each one a quick individual lesson on hitting home run balls.

Back at the classroom, I suggested to the class that maybe one of the reasons Jesus died on that cross and rose again was so that we would believe what he had taught us when he was alive! The whole class wanted to know what Jesus had said that was so important! I could have been better prepared for this question, but managed to bring up some important relevant teachings of Jesus.

The Director of this Sunday school class was not impressed with this lesson because it did not follow the scripted reasons, provided by the church, that Jesus died and resurrected from the dead. When Easter came around again the next year and I stated to my Classroom Director that I could come up with another lesson plan for Easter Sunday, she reported my activities to the church Sunday School Director and I was accused of corrupting the minds of the youth and my teaching credentials were revoked. (At least I did not have to drink a cup of Hemlock, as Socrates had to do after being charged with the same crime, “Corrupting the Minds of the Youth.”)

I had already received another message from “Who knows Who” to go to a different church that was in the neighborhood of my residence, so my partner and I were doing double time, teaching Sunday school in one church and attending the Worship Service in this neighborhood church. Therefore, after my teaching credentials were withdrawn, we just made the transition complete and left one church for the other. I had no idea why I was being called to this new neighborhood church.

I had been in a rear-ender car accident and was asking for prayer for my neck that was having trouble holding up my head. The Church was located on a property that had historical roots in the town and neighborhood with very large cedar tress providing a shaded park in front of the church. I thought this was a perfect place to have a Bluegrass band play for our Fourth of July picnic celebration in the park and worked with the Music Director to bring in a Bluegrass Gospel Band to play for us for this celebration of our Declaration of Independence. Was this why I was called to this church, to bring in Bluegrass Gospel Music?
The church wanted to build a youth center in the Cedar trees on what had become known in the neighborhood as “The Green Corner,” which was the only green left in this neighborhood. The neighborhood and citizens of this town were not about to have their “Green Corner” made into a youth center for the church. I was studying negotiating workable compromises and thought I could lend my service to come up with a solution that would work for the church and the neighborhood. One suggestion made at one of the neighborhood meetings was for the church to find property that nobody else wanted and put their new church on this property and fix up the property to be an asset to the community. I located 17 acres not far from the exiting church, which was a low lying property next to the arroyo that was part of the city’s open area. Some negotiating with the city and neighbors would be required, but it was definitely floodable property that no one would build on without some serious engineering to mitigate the flood hazard and access. This suggestion was immediately rejected by the church. The church chose to invest in 17 acres of an old horse farm just outside the city limits in “Wine Country.” The neighbor winemaker wanted trees on the property removed because they thought they were giving their wine a bad taste, and the church complied with their wishes. Then after much to do with County Supervisors and public meetings, the winemakers were successful in blocking the church from building on this property. I think the winemakers still remembered Prohibition and how the church was against drinking wine. A church preaching against the use of wine was not a neighbor the winemakers wanted in their backyard. Was this the reason I was called to this church, to help negotiate for a property the church could build on?

After about a decade or so in this church and after personal mishaps and hardships have subsided and I was established in a new profession (due to my neck injury), I had time to take on another project. The church was making available a Socratic Discussion on the book of Acts as part of a training program for future church workers. I had studied Philosophy and knew that Socratic Discussions meant putting together arguments and rebuttals to further our knowledge of the subject. I presented my offer to take part in these Socratic Discussions, but I would use Scientific Methods of investigation to approach the subject and participate in the Socratic Discussions. The response of the Teaching Pastor was, “We don’t want any science around here,” and he thought I might be looked at as a teacher in the Socratic Discussions by the other younger students and that this investigation would be better taking place in an Adult Bible Study in the church. The rest is history and this investigation of the Scriptures and the Gospel from the perspective of national security was underway under scientific protocols. The first protocol was to separate facts from opinions. This reduced the New Testament down to two books: the book of Mark and the book of Acts.

The lack of “Freedom of Expression” had immediately begun to appear in this Bible Study Group. It was apparent that no information that was not supported by this church was welcome in any of these meetings. It seems they were afraid my views on the Scriptures and the Gospel might appear to be supported by the church and this church’s consensus was definitely not in harmony with my interpretations of the Scriptures or the Gospel and they were afraid that these views might seem to be supported by the church to some unwary soul.
The leaders of this Adult Bible Study group were academically oriented; all the leaders had advanced degrees and were considered Biblical Scholars. The class is conducted as a university lecture class, rather than a discussion group with a facilitator. Unless information came from certifiable sources, it was not considered appropriate to bring that information into this classroom. It was interesting to note that the academic acclaimed leader, of some academic standing, was well versed in finding information that was certified as a commentary or in the Scriptures. On one occasion, this leader was able to find in the Scriptures all the people that God had called upon to perform a special mission, but could not notice one sitting next to them.

It was interesting to observe the dichotomy in this class room; the men who were the younger of two brothers, in their family of origin, dominated the population of the class. And each younger brother came to class with their firstborn wives. Some of the younger brothers also had younger brothers and middle-born men also were populous in this church. Firstborn men or functional firstborn men, like me (more than five years between them and their next older same sex sibling), were a definite minority in this classroom. Compare this dichotomy to that of a science or engineering concern where firstborn men and women are the dominate birth order.

The Evolution of the Christian Church

The Christian Church has its roots in the events that took place on the day of the Pentecost Festival, 50 days after the Passover after Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross until dead, as ascertained by a Roman soldier cutting him with a spear and no blood flowed indicating his heart had stopped, and three days later after being laid in a stone tomb, he rose from the dead in a new form and appeared to his friends and disciples. He instructed his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the promised counselor, the Holy Spirit. During the gathering for the Pentecost Festival, (Festival of the First Fruits), as promised by Jesus, the counselor, the Holy Spirit was delivered in a spectacular way, with great winds and tongues of fire on to his disciples. The disciples of Jesus knew they had received something special, but were not quite sure how to deal with this new entity in their lives. The receiving of this Holy Spirit was immediate, on the same day proclaimed to those who were gathered in Jerusalem for the festival. Many of those gathered were from foreign countries and spoke a different language. When the disciples spoke to them in the public square, each heard the disciple’s proclamations in their own language. The assumption, according to the literature, is that the disciples were speaking in different languages, (tongues). The possibility that the disciples were speaking in their own language (tongue) and the foreigners were hearing their proclamations in their own language was not considered. The latter is even more feasible, as certainly the Holy Spirit had the power to translate the proclamation from the disciples’ language to the foreigners’ language. Nevertheless, the former has survived 20 centuries of tradition even though the disciples speaking in several languages at the same time seems a bit confusing. This cohesion of the disciples by this Holy Spirit became the foundation of the Christian Church (not yet named as such). Names like “The Way” were used to describe this new movement. The disciples let Peter take the lead and he immediately associated this new event, the receiving of the Holy Spirit, to their existing Jewish religious tradition of baptism and forgiveness of sins. This was the first of many other attempts to associate this new event to the existing traditions of their Jewish religion.

Jesus, while he was still teaching his disciples before his crucifixion, stated, “You cannot put new wine into an old wineskin; the new wine will burst the old wineskin and you will lose both the wine and the wineskin. New wine must be put into a new wineskin.” But the disciples and others were associating the receiving of the Holy Spirit with their old Jewish religion, the old wineskin.

Fast forward to the end of the first century. This “major movement” continued to be viewed as a sect of the Jewish faith until the second revolution of the Jews against the Roman authority around the end of the first century, when they refused to support who was being supported as “The Messiah” that would lead the Jews to free themselves of Roman control. Since they already had their “Messiah” – Jesus – this refusal to become involved in this second revolution was the beginning of this “New Movement” to become a separate entity from the Jewish religion.

Back to the beginning, this new “Body of Believers” was the beginning of the Christian Church. Since Judas, one of the original disciples, hung himself after seeing what he had done to Jesus, they thought they needed a replacement to make an even twelve apostles (those who had firsthand knowledge of the teachings of Jesus) so they chose Matthias, by lots, to become one of the twelve apostles and this was the “Core Group” of this new movement. It is interesting to note that there were twelve tribes of Israel in the Jewish faith and this may have been why they thought they needed twelve apostles.
As this “new movement” progressed, problems came up that needed to be solved. In fact, many problems came up that needed a solution. One of the first problems to appear was taking care of those who were in need and could not take care of themselves. The solution was for the “Believers” to donate goods and money to the Apostles to distribute among those in need. This was certainly the beginning of the socialist nature of this “new movement.” These donations to the group were not always voluntary. In one case, recorded by Luke in Acts, a husband and wife team (Ananias and Sapphira) sold some property and donated some of the proceeds to the Apostles. The two were chastised, separately, by Peter, as sinning against God for withholding a part of the proceeds from the sale of their property, as each was confronted with this accusation, each died in turn on the spot (probably heart failure) and were dragged out to be buried!

This scenario certainly deserves some observing comments. First, in this socialistic society, contributing or not contributing all of your resources for the good of the society was not an option. All must put everything they own at the disposal of the society and the leaders of the society will manage the taking care of everybody. If this doesn’t sounds like Marxism, it should. Second, Capitalism was not permitted. One could not profit from their investments and donate part of their capital gains to the society, but they must put all of their capital gains at the disposal of the society’s leaders. Third, Peter again has associated this “New Way” with the old Jewish religion in that it is possible to “sin against God” and be punished for doing so. Peter’s actions not only associated this “New Way” with the old Jewish religion, but the Jewish religion had misinterpreted the “Ten Commandments” in the first place (see previous post “The Ten Commandments, a great Misunderstanding”). It is a person’s or society’s actions against another of God’s children that is misusing the name of the Lord your God and this is exactly what Peter did to these two Capitalists. His misusing the name of God for the purpose of his own or his society was “sinning against God.” Not only that, but the purpose of the “Ten Commandments” was to build a new nation with a strong infrastructure with a high National Economic Operating Efficiency, so they would be stronger than those who wanted to take their land from them. “Sinning against God” was a major misinterpretation. Fourth, this new activity of taking care of those in need became very time-consuming for the 12 Apostles and “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables,” so they appointed seven men “who were known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom to oversee that activity. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word.” These overseers of the needy freed up the Apostles to focus on their main mission. This tradition is still active in churches by those known as Deacons, or Elders of the church. The tradition and concept of the church taking care of those in need has become an important part of the modern church’s doctrine. Fifth, it is this author’s opinion that this action, by Peter, came to the attention of Jesus and he seen that, in typical Peter fashion, he was action-oriented and was a little slow to get the point and Jesus started to think about finding a new leader to take his new church forward.
As has been the case throughout history, new paradigms are not well accepted by those heavily invested in the existing paradigm. The leaders and Zealots of the Jewish faith did not accept the new paradigm that Jesus was teaching the population. They trumped up charges against him and dispatched him physically. When the followers of Jesus picked up where Jesus had left off, carrying what they thought was the Gospel message forward, they were met by the same disapproval of those who were heavily invested in the existing paradigm of the Jewish religion. Scholars report that this “New Way” was considered a separate part of the Jewish faith, and that it had not yet made the separation from the Jewish faith. Those of “The Way” were now persecuted by those in power in the Jewish faith (The Existing Paradigm). An enforcer for those in power was a young Jewish, Roman Citizen, then known as Saul. When Stephen made his presentation to the Sanhedrin (those in power of the Existing Paradigm) about this “New Way,” Stephen again associated this “New Way” with the old Jewish faith history. Stephen’s presentation brought great disproval from the Sanhedrin and they ordered that Stephen be dispatched (stoned to death). Saul was present at the stoning and reported by Luke in Acts 7 as holding the cloaks of the witnesses.

Saul became an aggressive enforcer and persecutor of “The Way,” raiding homes and imprisoning members of “The Way.” Saul, who was in the beginning of this New Way, a persecutor of these New Way believers and hunted them down relentlessly and went by the name Saul. Saul had the skill package that Jesus needed to move his church forward. One of Saul’s personality characteristics was that he knew he was right even when he was wrong. This was a valuable characteristic for Jesus to use as Saul just needed to be redirected and he would stay on his mission, something like a Navy Seal. Members of “The Way” scattered and many landed in Antioch, a city up the coast of the Mediterranean Sea from Jerusalem. Saul went in pursuit of these members of “The Way” leading his brigade of men to Damascus; he was stopped by a bright light on the road and was brought to the ground. Jesus appeared to Saul and asked him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Saul was blind after this experience and was taken to Damascus where he was approached by Ananias who had been given instructions by Jesus to give to Saul. The instructions were for Saul to carry the message of Jesus to the Gentiles (non-Jewish in the world) and their kings and before the people of Israel. “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Saul accepted the mission and teamed up with Barnabas to go on the missions and Luke went along as an Embedded Journalist. Saul was also called Paul and he is referred to henceforth as Paul.

Paul was well educated and a prolific writer; his letters to his churches forms most of the New Testament Bible. Paul was a Hearing Witness (he had become temporally blind) at the appearance of Jesus, but he only had the experience of hearing about the delivery of the Holy Spirit from the existing Apostles. I think this influenced Paul to put more emphases on the death resurrection and ascension of Jesus into heaven than on the delivery of the Holy Spirit, especially after his experience with his Corinthian Church where the interpretation of receiving this Holy Spirit enabled the receivers to speak in all kinds of strange languages. Paul was not happy with his church sounding like a bunch of idiots making all kinds of noise in the production of their new found power to speak in many tongues. He did not think this was a good example for the non-converted to see and hear as he thought they would think them crazy. Paul began to introduce traditions into the church that solved some problem in the church and followed more closely his vision for the church, which he often stated came not from him but from Jesus and Jesus became the focus of Paul’s theology rather than the message that Jesus brought and sent to us on that day of the Pentecost Festival.
Paul carried the message around the Mediterranean Sea to the Greco-Roman World on three missionary journeys by sea and land, covering thousands of miles on foot over several decades of time as far as Athens and Corinth Greece and into Macedonia. He set up startup churches along the way and his letters of communication with these startup churches formed the beginning of The New Testament. Paul wanted to convince the members of his Jewish faith of this “New Way” and was met by the same disapproval as those heavily invested in the existing paradigm in Jerusalem. On one occasion, as recorded by Luke in Acts, Paul was stoned and thrown down a hill and left for dead. Paul was highly motivated to continue his mission despite the hardships threats and dangers from many sources. Paul made presentations in Jewish Synagogues, Greek theaters and in the Public Squares and meeting places.

Paul returned to Jerusalem, as he still wanted his fellow Jews to hear his Gospel about Jesus. Paul was lucky to escape with his life as the Jews wanted to kill him. Paul was taken into the protective custody of the Romans and was kept in jail for about two years. During this time of solitude in jail, it is the opinion of this author that Paul came up with the process now known by modern Philosophers, those later than the seventeenth century, as “Autonomy and Reflection,” which is a major shift from the “Argument and Rebuttal” system that had been in place for about 2,000 years, since Plato and Aristotle to expand their knowledge of everything on earth. The major protocol for these Modern Enlightenment Philosophers is “Autonomy and Reflection.” It was these Enlightenment Philosophers that influenced Thomas Jefferson in his writing of our Declaration of Independence. One can thus conclude that the formation of our country, the United States of America, was the result of Paul being kept in prison under protective custody by the Romans where he had solitude and time for “Autonomy and Reflection”.

Many problems arose in these startup churches and Paul addressed these issues in letters, which became part of “The New Testament”, Paul’s solutions to these problems that arose in the new churches became part of the Christian Traditions and Theology.

There are more than the four Gospels as presented in the canonized Bible. The four included, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all included information on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and this is the main message the Council of Trent wanted to convey. There are many other Gospel writings that were not included such as the Gnostic Gospels a completing theology. One scholar from Yale stated, “There are four Gospels in the canonized Bible because there are four corners to the earth and there are four winds” (notice the earth is still flat). Therefore, our focus on Jesus, his death, resurrection and ascension into Heaven, rather than the message Jesus brought to us was the guiding focus of the Council of Trent that put together the canonized Bible.

There was a discovery in 1945 by Mohamad Ali, who was digging for bird droppings to be used as fertilizer along the cliffs when he struck something hard, and it was a sealed six-foot (two-meter) vase. He decided to break the seal and inside the vase was documents wrapped in skins. He could not read the documents and had no idea what he had found and took them home where reportedly his mother used some of the documents to stoke the fire in her oven used for baking. Among the surviving documents were the Gospels of Thomas and Phillip.
Eventually in the third century, the Christians conquered Rome. If this was by the power of the Gospel, then it was a secondary effect as the Christians became totally involved with the Roman government, because they were literate. The Christians thought it important for their members to be able to read about the Gospel, so they taught their members how to read and this is how they conquered Rome. There were just too many Christians in the Roman government to get rid of them. It is reported that the Emperor Constantine saw a cross on the sun, which he worshiped, and he took this as a sign that accepting Christianity would help him conquer his competition to rule Rome (it should be noted that if Constantine looked at the sun, he probably saw spots in his eyes as his eyes were probably sun burned). Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome.

In Summary: The Gospel that Jesus sent to us on that Pentecost Festival day was immediately linked to the Jewish Religion. The immediate followers of Jesus were emotionally too close to the subject to be objective about the Gospel (Good News) that Jesus wanted us to have. This misinterpretation has come through 20 centuries and many add-on traditions have been made. In some churches, so much so that the Gospel that Jesus wanted us to have could not be found by Jesus himself. How many people on this planet know that they can receive the Personal Counselor, Advisor and Tour Guide through life that Jesus promised us, simply by willing this to happen?

There is much turmoil on this planet and religion is behind much of this turmoil. We cannot expect to impact the religious house of other religions if we do not first clean up our own religious house. And there is much cleaning to do to our own Christian religion

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The letters of Paul to the startup churches in chronological order are :
• First Thessalonians (ca. 51 AD)
• Philippians (ca. 52–54 AD)
• Philemon (ca. 52–54 AD)
• First Corinthians (ca. 53–54 AD)
• Galatians (ca. 55 AD)
• Second Corinthians (ca. 55–56 AD)
• Romans (ca. 55–58 AD)
The letters thought to be pseudepigraphic by the majority of modern scholars include:
Pastoral Epistles
First Timothy
Second Timothy
Titus

Scholars have identified seven levels of authenticity which they have organized in a hierarchy ranging from literal authorship, meaning written in the author’s own hand, to outright forgery:

Literal Authorship: A church leader writes a letter in his own hand.
Dictation: A church leader dictates a letter almost word for word to an amanuensis.
Delegated Authorship: A church leader describes the basic content of an intended letter to a disciple or to an amanuensis.
Posthumous Authorship: A church leader dies, and his disciples finish a letter that he had intended to write, sending it posthumously in his name.
Apprentice Authorship: A church leader dies, and disciples who had been authorized to speak for him while he was alive continue to do so by writing letters in his name years or decades after his death.
Honorable Pseudepigraphy: A church leader dies, and admirers seek to honor him by writing letters in his name as a tribute to his influence and in a sincere belief that they are responsible bearers of his tradition.
Forgery: A church leader obtains sufficient prominence that, either before or after his death, people seek to exploit his legacy by forging letters in his name, presenting him as a supporter of their own ideas.

References:
From Jesus To Christ, The First Christians, Frontline, PBS, 1998
Acts 6:2-4
Ibid i
Acts Chapter Seven “The Stoning of Stephen”
Acts 9:1-31 “Saul’s Conversion”
Acts 13-14
Acts 13:9
Acts 14:19-20
2 Corinthians 6: 1-13
Acts 16-21
Ibid i
Ibid i
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_epistles