The Apostolic Church

The Apostolic ChurchChristians of our time are so continually agitated by events of the moment brought to them through newspapers, magazines, and the radio that they tend more and more to lose their sense of history. One Sunday newspaper will contain more material than the New Testament. As much material as is found in five Sunday newspapers would cover a very satisfactory presentation of church history, yet how can a Christian expect to read any church history if all

Christians of our time are so continually agitated by events of the moment brought to them through newspapers, magazines, and the radio that they tend more and more to lose their sense of history. One Sunday newspaper will contain more material than the New Testament. As much material as is found in five Sunday newspapers would cover a very satisfactory presentation of church history, yet how can a Christian expect to read any church history if all his time goes to the radio, the newspaper, and sports?
This loss of a sense of historical perspective is a great evil in our modern Christian world. It leaves millions of thoughtless Christians open to the changing winds of sensational religious doctrine which blow them here and there like autumn leaves in a storm.
All Protestant Christians believe that the church has apostatized, at least to some extent, from the standards of the apostolic church. Doubtless most Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics would admit as much. In the following pages I have, in a comparatively brief way, indicated what treasures were lost by the historical church and how they were lost. I have also given some indication of how they may be found again.
That is why this book makes no pretense to being a complete outline of New Testament theology and its historical development. Such a work would be encyclopedic and massive, altogether beyond the scope of a popular book. When Harnack undertook a task somewhat viii]]like this, he filled seven large volumes with his findings, and still left out much material.
This book, therefore, limits itself to a study of a few fundamental elements of the apostolic church, the loss (or partial loss) of which has brought on many, if not all, of the enormous evils and miseries of the modern world.
(from the Preface)