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You can find countless variations of the claim that early Christians believed Protestant things: Mormons who claim that the early Christians believed Mormon things Muslims who claim they believed Muslim thingsNon-religious people claiming that they didn’t originally consider Jesus divineAnd various other religious groups making similar claims about how their teachings were what the earliest Christians really believed.Almost all of these arguments follow a similar form: the first followers of J …

The first Christians didn’t learn their faith from the Bible because none of the books of the New Testament had been written yet. This is evident in Paul thanking the Corinthians for “maintain[ing] the traditions even as I have delivered them to you” (1 Cor. 11:2), and instructing his disciple Timothy,“what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2).Paul thanked the Thessalonians for accepting his preaching, not …

At first, the apostles conducted their teaching mission in a purely oral form. Peter preached a sermon on Pentecost.He did not issue a pamphlet.By teaching orally, the apostles followed the example of Jesus, who didn’t author any books, letters, or treatises. Only once do the Gospels mention Jesus writing, and that was with his finger on the ground (John 8:6, 8). Communicating God’s word orally was the most effective way to do it. The great majority of people—even in Israel—were illiterate. …