What did Jesus intend?

What would you think if your religious education instructor made a point of asking “Did Jesus intend to establish a religion?” or “Did Jesus really intend a Church with a Pope, Bishops, and all the trappings we have today?” At first glance this seems an innocent enough question. If one thought no further than it’s face it might seem obvious — Jesus was born into the Jewish nation, raised a Jew – He was the Messiah of the Jews, not the founder of the Catholic Church as we have it today! Jesus simply wanted the Jews to accept the new order He was bringing to His people and accept Him as their Messiah – the Son of God. He wasn’t here to build a church, appoint Popes, bishops etc. etc. That happened later.

Believe it or not I’ve heard this or something similar from three different people in the last several months. Is this a new tack by the dissenting crowd? We can’t seem to discredit the hierarchy so we’ll simply declare their existence is contrived!

I would ask one simple question – if the Church, as we have it, was invented by men seeking power and control then where is the validity in our belief that the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit? If the Church is not guided by the Holy Spirit then it must be guided by man in which case I would ask how the Church could have existed for this long without falling prey to the myriad of pitfalls human institutions face?

Think how wonderful the Church would be without all that overhead to get in the way of being Real Christians!