Ancient Churches Lexicon Entry:
Nations
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The people of the Most Ancient Church distinguished themselves into separate houses, families, and nations (AC 1159). This was done so that the church on earth might represent the Lord’s kingdom, where all people are distinguished into communities, and these communities into larger communities, and these into still larger communities, according to their differences in love and faith (AC 1259). A married couple with their children, along with their servants, constituted one house. In the Most Ancient and Ancient Churches, a number of houses close together made up one family, while a number of families, who all recognized one father, made up one nation (AC 1159, AC 1258). Each nation took its name from its one recognized father. The Hebrew nation, for example, took its name from Eber, who was the founder of that nation (AC 1238).
The various nations of the Ancient Church were diverse in respect to their worship (AC 1153). Each nation was also distinguished according to the name that they called their god (AC 1343). At first, these names were meant to designate the different qualities of the one God, whom they called Jehovah. However, after the church started to fall away from goodness and truth, people started to worship the different names of Jehovah as different gods. This continued until each nation, and at length each family, acknowledged one of them as its own god (AC 3667).
See also:
Land of Canaan, Cities, Cush,
Eber, Egypt, Families,
Hittites, Houses, Marriage,
Monarchs, Names of theLord,
Polytheism, Representatives
Passages relating to Nations and the Ancient Churches:
AC 470; AC 483; AC 1140; AC 1143; AC 1153; AC 1159; AC 1235; AC 1238;
AC 1241; AC 1246; AC 1258; AC 1259; AC 1329; AC 1342; AC 1343; AC 1345;
AC 1416; AC 1992; AC 2724; AC 2739; AC 3665; AC 3667; AC 4478; AC 8118;
AC 10160; AE 175; CL 205; EU 49; SE 521; SE 4071; SE 5546
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