Which Church did Paul try to destroy?

Have a few questions while I'm working on the next dusty idea.


Galatians 1:13 - For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.


Paul is writing to the Church in Galatia. He is bringing his past life in Judaism to their remembrance and how he persecuted the church violently and tried to destroy "it". This blog revolves around "it". "It" in this passage is called the church of God. In other passages we find church of the First Born, church of the Living God, and also the Churches of Christ. In our day and age there is confusion with denominations and what the Bible regards as "it". We're going to investigate that for a few minutes.


First off lets just start from scratch here and see who's Church it is. I can glean two things from Matthew 16:18 - And I say unto you, thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. No doubt here, its Christ's church, it belongs to him. If it belongs to him, why would a church be named after a man or a method? I can also see that it will last forever because the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So it's Christ's and its gonna last forever. So we can see from this that Paul was persecuting the church that Christ built.


Next question before we can figure out what "it" is. On the day of Pentecost when Peter preached the first gospel sermon, there were about 3000 souls added to the church that day. Were they all put in the same church or divided out into 6, 7, 8, 20 or 1500 different churches like all the denominations we have out here today? Well lets see, we're gonna make some of you guys baptists, some methodists, some lutherans, some of you can be catholics. Does the Bible say anything like that? When the apostles received the baptism of the Holy Ghost earlier in the day were they all in the same church? They were the first converts to Christianity. The Bible doesn't say they all went out from that place and picked a street corner and started their churches. Acts 2:44 says they all stayed in the same place and had all things common. They were in the same church and had the same doctrine and they all spoke the same thing.


Now back to the original thought, what church did Paul try to destroy?


Take the pattern of your church (How, when, who you worship) lay it over the original pattern found in the New Testament and see if it fits. This would take some time and trouble, but isn't your eternal destiny and the eternal destiny of your family and children worth some of your time? If it doesn't fit, it isn't the church that Paul persecuted, it isn't "it". The "mourners bench" and "praying through" is that in the Gospel? See if you can find where an alien sinner was told to pray to get saved. You'll be reading till Jesus comes and you'll never find it. What about "tarrying for the Holy Ghost"? Find me anybody in the Bible that was sprinkled as a form of baptism, it's not in there. Do you have a woman preaching at your congregation, find that for me in the Bible. Are people in your congregation waiting for the "rapture"? Are you waiting for Jesus to return and set up a kingdom on this earth? If your church has a doctrine that includes any of this stuff it's not "it".