I received a very thought-provoking e-mail recently from a blog reader who asked about a subject which doesn’t receive much consideration. He asked, “How does the church of Christ claim (or at least imply) to be something like the first century church, when the first century church didn’t really have the New Testament like we do today?” That’s a great question and there was certainly a period of time when no one had access to all 27 books of the New Testament, so let’s consider what the church was like then.