The third century saw the first attempt to discredit millenarianism, when Origen, perhaps the most influential of all the theologians of the ancient Church, began to present the Kingdom as an event which would take place not in space or time but only in the souls of believers. For a collective, millenarian eschatology Origen substituted an eschatology of the individual soul. What stirred his profoundly Hellenic imagination was the prospect of spiritual progress begun in this world and continued in the next; and to this theme theologians were henceforth to give increasing attention. . . .  When in the fourth century Christianity attained a position of supremacy in the Mediterranean world and became the official religion of the Empire, ecclesiastical disapproval of millenarianism became emphatic. The Catholic Church was now a powerful and prosperous institution, functioning according to a well-established routine; and the men responsible for governing it had no wish to see Christians clinging to out-dated and inappropriate dreams of a new earthly Paradise. Early in the fifth century St Augustine propounded the doctrine which the new conditions demanded. According to The City of God the Book of Revelation was to be understood as a spiritual allegory; as for the Millennium, that had begun with the birth of Christianity and was fully realized in the Church. This at once became orthodox doctrine. - Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages

The fact that the apostolic witness was readily received by so many orthodox Jews (Acts 2:41; 4:4; 5:14; 6:7; 11:19; 13:43; 14:1; 17:4; 18:8; 19:10; 21:20; 24:24f; 28:24) argues strongly for an unaltered Jewish apocalyptic background to the cruciform message. - John P. Harrigan, The Gospel of Christ Crucified, footnotes, p.341

Some say understanding Jewish apocalypticism and the historical context of the NT is a form of gnosticism-- some special knowledge that only the intellectually elite can attain.

It's exactly the opposite.

Knowing what Jews actually believed about things like the day of judgment, the resurrection of the dead, the kingdom of God, and Gehenna delivers us from the theological plague of "spiritualizing" everything (which is the real and original gnosticism).

It actually allows us to read the NT in a plain, common sense manner. - John P. Harrigan

Theology 101: Eternal life is not disembodied life in heaven…or even reembodied life in heaven. Eternal life is reembodied life on a renewed earth.- Dr. Michael Svigel

Here we find the unraveling of a multitude of Gentile games revolving around realized eschatology. If the age to come has been realized, then the cross is no longer the standard of this age, and the sufferings of Christ are to be avoided. The logic is straightforward. Yet the apostolic witness cries out against such folly: 

“Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! . . . We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute” (1 Cor. 4:8–10). 

Paul thus refutes an early form of realized eschatology. - John P. Harrigan, The Gospel of Christ Crucified, p.384

For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs (Rom 15:8)

Paul summarizes the first advent of Messiah as service to the Jews in order to confirm the hope of Israel. The everlasting covenant is the source of hermeneutical truth. The further you veer from it, the further you drift into delusion. - John P. Harringan

The Gospel in its Historical Context // Dr. John Harrigan

 

Audio 1. 

Theology 101: Never preach eternal life as just dying and going to heaven. Preach resurrection. Preach resurrection. Preach resurrection. Without the redemption of our bodies through resurrection, death would forever be the victor and corruption its eternal sting. - Dr. Michael Svigel

"Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life." (1 John 2:24-25)

Live your life in a way that fosters hope in the resurrection. This is how we abide in him.

"And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming." (v 28)

-John P. Harrigan

“There is no exception to this rule; from the Master down to the last disciple, it is a procession of cross-bearers. The day will come when there will be a transformation scene, and you will see all these cross-bearers transformed into crown-wearers. But, rest assured that the old motto, ‘No cross, no crown,’ is certainly true, and those who refuse to carry the cross after Christ on earth shall never be permitted to wear the crown with Christ in the land that is beyond the stars.” - Spurgeon

You can’t love the ways of the world and love God at the same time. You can’t love your own life and love God at the same time. Choose a master to give your sole love and service. If you aren’t willing to do that, then you’ve already chosen a master, and you will find only death. - Josiah Geoffrey

“Martyrdom is not a special calling for a select few, but the commitment of every Christian and the responsibility of every church. Even though not every individual Christian will be killed, there is no way to distinguish those who will be killed from those who will not. Even though not every Christian will be remembered as a martyr, every church that locates its identity in the cross is obligated to cultivate the virtues necessary to enable all of its members to die for the cause of Christ. Every Christian is a member of a martyr-church” - Craig Hovey, To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for Today’s Church 

My teaching on our church's statement of faith. Audio 1. Audio 2. 

Prophetically foreseen by Erich Reber and described by writers such as Robert Banks and Met Castillo, it was in 1996 when probably the first intentional house-church planting movement outside rather closed nations like China, Vietnam or Cuba, was initiated by Dr.Victor Choudhrie in North India. In later years, other initiatives followed, initiated by IBRA Radio, a Swedish Pentecostal Radio ministry, which started a new house church planting ministry in the Arab World, or apostolic persons like Bruce Carlton, inside, but clearly on the fringes of existing mission agencies like the Southern Baptists’ IMB (International Mission Board). First greatly ridiculed by traditional churches in almost all nations, the house church movement has grown to many hundreds of thousands of churches in an amazingly short period of time, and is, at this point, not only the main harvesting tool God seems to use in Muslim nations like Bangladesh, Pakistan, or Indonesia, but making its presence felt in many Western nations as well. Apostolic church planters like Neil Cole or Tony Dale, Bernard Sanders and Guy Muse, Victor John and David Watson, Peter Wenzor Jonathan Pattiasina are leading the way, and many in traditional churches who were watching are not laughing anymore. By now (2009) we know of at least 500,000 newly planted house churches (outside China), and, if George Barna is right in his predictions, published in his book Revolution, it will take but a few more years for house churches to become not only an extremely vital harvesting instrument of God, but quite simply the new mainline church, replacing CAWKI [church-as-we-know-it] with something introduced to the mindset of most Christians only a few years ago. - Wolfgang Simson, The Starfish Manifesto: A Prophetic Roadmap for an Apostolic Journey

Post-400 AD Christianity is a two-fold history of reformation of theology and praxis. Multitudes of books have been written on the reformation and restoration of apostolic doctrine, but few have even considered the restoration of apostolic ecclesiology. The reason for this: it contradicts the wealth and power of the church, so much so that the church persecuted anyone who even tried to live it out by themselves. - John P. Harrigan, Biblical Praxis of Missions

It was not until the conversion of Constantine that the church wholeheartedly adopted corporate holdings endorsed by the State. As the church systematically transitioned to an institutional corporate base, the war against gnosticism subsided, and the Romanized church assumed the identity of the Kingdom Now before an immaterial heaven, i.e. “Christendom”. The theology was thus adopted to validate the ministerial ambition for wealth and power. - John P. Harrigan, Biblical Praxis of Missions

When the church was very young, it had no buildings. Let us begin with that striking fact. That the church had no buildings is the most noticeable of the points of difference  between the church of the early days and the church of today. In the minds of most people today, ‘church’ means first a building, probably something else second; but seldom does ‘the church’ stand for anything other than a building. Yet here is the fact with which we start: the early church possessed no buildings and carried on its work for a great many years without erecting any. This fact has something significant to teach us concerning the character of the church… There was practically nothing in the way of church building until the third century, and nothing with any pretension to architecture until after the conversion of Constantine early in the fourth century. During all this time the church carried on her mission without buildings of her own, without property, and without the burdens and responsibilities that the holding of property implies.  - Ernest Loosley, When The Church Was Young

“We have no temples or altars.” This statement, referring to Christians, comes from the pen of the apologist (defender) Minicus Felix, c 200, and all evidence supports its accuracy. Throughout at least the first two centuries there were no church buildings as such, and this was so remarkable that to the pagan population, it was considered grounds for accusing the Christians of 'atheism.' In a world notable for the number of its holy shrines and the rivers of blood that flowed daily from the sacrificial victims, Christians were conspicuous in that they possessed neither the first nor engaged in the second.” - J.G. Davies, Secular Use of Church Buildings 

And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead. (Acts 10:42)

Proclamation of traditional Jewish eschatology lies at the heart of the Great Commission - John P. Harrigan

In this way, the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, [7] so that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. [8] He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you will be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 1:6-8)

Cruciform, charismatic, Jewish, and apocalyptic--the defining characteristics of the apostolic witness. - John P. Harrigan

And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

(John 2:16-17)

Jesus's zeal was for the temple, not against it. All Jews at the time knew the temple to be the epicenter of the resurrection and the age to come (cf Isa 2:2; Eze 37:26). And Jesus's own resurrection was a sign (vv. 18-19) which confirmed his zeal and authority over his Father's house. - John P. Harrigan

“A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.” — Richard Wurmbrand