One valuable experience students have as part of Living Education–Charlotte is listening to Forum presentations each week, for which each speaker is encouraged to address the topic of his choice. The essay below was selected from a section of LCGEducation.org where David Markopoulos, an alumnus of Living Education–Charlotte who now serves the program full-time, summarizes these Forum messages. We hope you enjoy this sample of what our students are hearing! —Editorial Staff
Roots of the Church
In a recent Forum delivered to this year’s Living Education students, evangelist Dr. Douglas Winnail, who serves as our Director of the Church Administration Department, spent time relating the history of God’s Church through the ages. As a longtime minister who has been CAD Director since 2005, Dr. Winnail presented a full and comprehensive view of the Church’s history and emphasized how important it is that we understand what we are part of.
The heritage of the Church goes back long before the time of Christ. Scripture states, referring to ancient Israel, that they “all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:3–4). What became the Church of God started with the ancient nation of Israel.
Dr. Winnail pointed out that the laws God gave His people laid the groundwork for a unique culture. God’s law reflects the value of human life, the importance and role of women, and principles of love, mercy, and justice, which were absent in most pagan cultures. These principles and laws, on which the Old Covenant was based, were also the groundwork for the New Covenant established by Christ. While the pagans around them practiced debauched rituals, the Israelites were meant to be different—and their Scriptures taught laws and ideas that changed the world.
Jesus stated in Matthew 16:18 that “the gates of Hades” would not prevail against His Church—in other words, it would continue to exist despite challenges. The New Testament has preserved the fundamental doctrines of the early Church in detail, and as we attempt to trace the Church through the ages, we are able to identify important characteristics. The New Testament calls it “the Church of God”—a consistent moniker. The Church believes in the coming Kingdom of God, the Messiahship of Jesus, Sabbath-keeping, and the validity of God’s commandments, and it has a mission to preach the Gospel and share a warning message to the Israelite nations.
We know from Jesus’ own words that the Church would continue to exist—so why does its history become so murky after the first century AD? As the Ephesian Era ended toward the end of the first century, heresy was beginning to creep in. With the death of the early Apostles and the transition to the Smyrna Era, God allowed the Church to drift toward apostasy and experience persecution. The end of the Smyrna Era saw the beginnings of Catholicism become the dominant religion of the Roman Empire.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the Roman church consistently persecuted the scattered remnants of the Church that held to the truth. Across Europe and elsewhere, there are historical reports of Sabbath-keeping groups who were persecuted viciously—among the Vaudois, Paulicians, Bogomils, Waldensians, and others. The eras of the Church laid out in Revelation can be recognized in specific periods of recorded history.
After the Middle Ages, Sabbath-keepers in Western Europe and Britain began to migrate to the United States, founding congregations, schools, and communities. This was the time of the Sardis Era, which in turn set the stage for the impactful Philadelphia Era. As Sabbath-keepers moved west across the United States, they brought with them important doctrines.
It was during this era that Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong encountered members of God’s Church in Oregon. He was later ordained an elder, and as time went on he came to understand much about the Bible that had not been taught for many centuries. Recognizing the importance of Christ’s command to preach the Gospel to the world, Mr. Armstrong began to preach on the radio. This was the beginning of the Radio Church of God—later the Worldwide Church of God. The Church grew substantially during this era, and it was evident that Jesus Christ was blessing His Work. As the time of the Philadelphia Era ended after Mr. Armstrong’s death, God again allowed apostasy to creep in, making the Church much smaller in scale, yet the Church is continuing to do the Work to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.
Dr. Winnail exhorted the students to learn more about the history of the Church and to fully appreciate the heritage we are part of. The Church has been preserved under Christ’s leadership throughout history and is continuing to do the Work today. As the Church continues to grow, it is important that we understand where we have come from and why we are here.