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THE EARLY CHURCH - A DAUNTING TASK Just imagine for a moment you have never heard of Jesus Christ, no knowledge of Christianity whatsoever. Somebody gives you a book; here they say is the answer to who you are and why you are alive. Of course the book is the New Testament. You quickly thumb through, a strange book, no real chapters, almost a collection of a number of books, some narratives, others letters. You come to this book with an open mind; you’ve always been asking what is the meaning of life. After a short while you realise that those who followed Jesus Christ as his disciples were convinced that Jesus came to reveal who and what God is like. More astounding they were prepared to stake their lives on it. This Jesus, God incarnate, died a horrific death and in so doing saved those who believed in him from the curse and penalty of sin. Moreover, they emphatically testified that this Jesus did not stay in the grave but rose triumphant and that in his life, death and resurrection fulfilled all the things foretold of him recorded in the Old Testament, a book you have yet to read. Fascinated and somewhat excited, you continue on to the place where Jesus is now to leave this earth and return to his father God - he commissions his disciples. And then it dawns on you, he expects these few followers, numbering 100’s at best to continue to teach as he did and to do the works that he did. What a tall, surely impossible, order. Not just to build a church in Jerusalem but ultimately to go to every ethnic people on the face of the earth giving them the opportunity to hear the greatest story ever told. What are the odds, you think, of them pulling this off? Surely everything is against them. What chance have they to turn the tide of human history? After all, their master himself was murdered. How can they pull this off? Sometimes it is good to use your imagination, to try and put yourself in someone else’s place especially when coming to the Christian story without any preconceived ideas. It’s then you realise what Jesus left those first followers to do. And here we are some 2000 years later and the job is still not yet completed but well on its way. Before we look briefly at the first 300 years of the Christian Church’s history let’s ask ourselves a few questions. Just how daunting was what we call the “great Commission”? What did they have going for them? Were they full of confidence as they began to continue Jesus’ work or was it just a matter of getting on and seeing what happens next? They had been with Jesus, at least the twelve for three years, travelling, listening, observing and sometimes being actively involved themselves, seeing things nobody had ever seen before. They were growing in faith but sometimes it was a painful experience. Secondly before sending them out Jesus had commissioned them with his authority to preach, heal and deliver (Mark 6). Thirdly they were told that they would not do this in their own strength but by the Holy Spirit who would soon empower them (Acts 2) so they were not left to their own devises despite the fact in many ways they were very ordinary Jewish men and women. Also, Jesus we are told came “in the fullness of time”. In other words, this was no random happening – Bethlehem (the manger) Jerusalem (the cross) were all in the planning of God. And these sovereign factors contributed hugely to the spread of the gospel especially in the period covered by Luke the historian in his Acts of the Apostles. Jesus the Messiah was by human birth a Jew living under the rule of Rome. The Roman government gave the Jews special privileges. Any favour they gave to the Jewish nation was to suit their own ends but in the sovereign purposes of God, it did contribute to gospel success. Jews were unique in as much as they were allowed to carry on their worship of Yahweh without having to embrace all the other deities of this ancient world and also were exempt service in the Roman legions. We understand 15% of the Roman Empire was made up of Jews scattered across the empire. For some hundreds of years Jews gathered locally in synagogues to pray study and read the scriptures. These gatherings provided a readymade audience for the gospel by those Jews who had turned to Christ. Add to this for 250 years, peace had been maintained within the boundaries of the empire and the Romans had built nearly 250,000 miles of roads as well as safe passage in the Mediterranean so travel was good and safe. All this enabled the gospel to spread. For some 30 years, churches did not fall foul of the Roman authorities. As far as Rome was concerned this newest sect within Judaism (“the Way”) was protected under Roman law. Despite the fact that the Jewish authorities had protested against this to Rome (see Acts 17, Paul at Corinth) the Romans regarded the Jews as theologically divided always squabbling over semantics. It was not until the reign of Nero in the mid 60’s that this began to change. But it gave the Church a head start facing persecution only from the Jewish authorities. It is good also to see how much the Hellenistic or Greek culture in its own way helped the spread of the gospel. Greek was spoken throughout the empire so it was not surprising that the first Christian documents of eye witness accounts were written in Greek. Many of the words used in the Greek mystery religions such as “fullness” “mystery” “knowledge” “wisdom” were taken by the Christian writers, especially the apostle Paul, when presenting Jesus as God incarnate. Both Greek and Roman religion asked searching questions on the meaning of life, it was the early church that was able to answer these questions from the story of Jesus. So coming back to our original questions – yes, we acknowledge humanly speaking the task set before those early disciples was daunting but gospel advance in these first 30 years took the message of Jesus from the streets of Jerusalem to the Emperor’s palace in Rome. As Jesus promised “I will be with you until the end of time”. RAY LOWE -2- 17 JANUARY 2015