Book Review, History

Hello, when I read Nilesh’s comment, I come …

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Comment posted ‘Origin of Christianity in India’ by Dr.Benedict Vadakkekara by Joseph George.

Hello, when I read Nilesh’s comment, I come to realise that when we say Apostle Thomas established churches in India, people expect a church building to be constructed by the Apostle and none of the historians bother to explain that this is not the case. The word “church” comes from Greek “ekklesia” meaning “called out ones” i.e., from the world. It is a group of called out ones and not a building. If we bother to study the Acts of the Apostles we learn that Apostle Paul established so many churches throughout Asia and Europe but we never read that he ever constructed any church building. It was always a group of people that he established as a church.

It is also anachronism to say that Thomas established crosses at various places because as Dr. D Babu Paul says correctly cross was NEVER a part of Christian life in the first century. On the contrary, veneration of the cross or any such physical object on behalf of the true God was considered as idolatry by all the apostles of Christ.

We can establish from the Bible that Thomas came looking for the jews who were in Malabar in AD 52 because the Bible says categorically that the gospel in the first century was to be proclaimed FIRST to the jews and then to the gentiles. This was a clear instruction to them from none other than Jesus Himself(Matt.10:5-6)! Even Paul who was the famous Apostle for the gentiles first went to the synagogues to announce the good news to the jews and then to the gentiles. So we can see that it was the presence of jews in Kerala that drew the Apostle Thomas to India. This fact, that there were jewish diaspora in Kerala too, is ONE of the strongest historical evidences to establish that one original Apostle of Christ came to India because that was the charge given to them by their Master: “but you will receive POWER, ……. and you will be witnesses of Me ………….. TO THE END OF THE EARTH”(Acts 1:8). The desciples never took this as a joke but as a serious authorisation.