The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

During the first few centuries that the church existed, it face a handful of internal struggles on top of persecution from the Roman Empire and hostile neighbors. Most of the struggle, both internally and externally, came about because the gospel was intellectually/culturally unacceptable throughout the ancient world.

One of the first internal struggles the church faced was a movement called “Gnosticism.” Gnosticism was an attempt to take Christianity and mix it with Roman mystery religions. These mystery religions were very popular throughout the 2nd and 3rd century. Some folks looked at thes...