There's no doubt that cultural colloquisms and everyday things Jesus used to illustrate with can be pretty foreign to 21st century americans..
I never have figgered out why he cursed that one fig tree when the time of figs was not even at hand..?...:)
Complicating that is there is little of no reading these days in the classical english literature and so verses such as
'suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven' can seem odd...unless one has a teacher ...and esp IF he reads that verse just by itself and tries to make sense of it.
Suffer of course means 'allow'..doesn't everyone raised with the KJV know that???...:)
Line upon line, precept upon precept is the scripture given, and the Holy Spirit(working in us individually and thru those He places in the body of Christ as guides) can and does lead the seeker into all truth..
The early church had no printed copies of the gospel, yea, no printing press..no televangelist babblers or annotated synoptic works, no exhaustive concordances with dictionaries of the hebrew, greek, aramaic..
Worse yet, a literacy rate in foreign languages or even one's own that was very small..
Few could write or read.
Yet for all of that, somehow, some way, Christ managed to add to AND build His Church according to His desires useing the 'guides-witnesses' ( I'll call all the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, elders, deacons 'guides-witnesses' for sake of simplicity) as well as His Holy Spirit working IN each believer ..
Amazing.
Has the church in general progressed in it's unction to grow in Christ unto a 'perfect man' since the first century???
Opinions on that will surely vary.
My Granddad once told me that when you have lost something of value, ( and item or a relationship) go back physically or in your heart & mind to the last place in time when it was not 'lost'...when it was yours..
Usually you can find it..and take better care of it after that..
I don't think the church needs reformation..more like a restoration..jim
