Download The Early Church Part One

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
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17 JANUARY 2015