Section 3
broken, or hurt and that it now requires mend ing. Mending always restores a situation to the condition which was present at the beginning. For example, I have had a particular jacket for seven years. At times, a part of this jacket has been torn, and my wife has had to mend it for me. After she mended the broken places, the jacket was restored to its original condition. Like wise, the church has been in existence since the day of Pentecost. However, not too long after its beginning, the church was damaged and injured by many different thoughts, opinions, concepts, philosophies, ideas, teachings, and doctrines. If you carefully read the New Testament along with church history, you will learn that many injuri ous concepts crept into the church through Juda ism. These ideas damaged the ancient church. Moreover, in the early days, even in the first cen tury, Gnosticism, a blend of Greek, Egyptian, and Babylonian philosophy, also crept into the church, causing considerable harm. Thus, the early church was damaged by both Jewish reli gious concepts and Greek philosophical ideas, all of which produced numerous doctrines and teachings and injured the church, making many holes in the spiritual net.
The largest hole in the church net was caused