(Christian History) 1. the Early Church -Daily Life and Persecution — David Guzik

I'm going to begin our study through church history, which again, I've organized into twenty lectures that will hopefully be somewhere about an hour each, but I'm going to begin this time just with a very brief scriptural introduction, even though I want to take pains to emphasize with you that church history is not scripture.

Scripture and Church History

We do not base our faith on church history. We do not base our faith on what great men, even the great men of the church, have said in times past, so we really want to make a distinction in our mind between scripture and church history.

Scripture is scripture, church history is church history, but yet we can definitely learn from what God has done among men, and we can learn from what men have done towards God. I've got to say, the lessons are very often bitter and dark.

When you really understand church history, there's oftentimes more discouraging lessons than there are encouraging lessons. Sometimes the lessons are bright and glorious, but often dark and gloomy. Let's take a look here at Psalm 78, verses 1 through 8.

To me, this psalm is just one of a few different passages in the Bible that give us sort of the permission to really have an interest in history and to study it. He says, Give ear, O my people, to my law, incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful work that he has done.

For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children, that they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments, and may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright, and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

And I just want you to notice two very quick things from this text. First of all, there's the encouragement to know and to learn history. I mean, I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come. And so this idea of relating what God has done in the past to understanding it for ourselves, of course, but also relating it to our children, is a very, very important concept.

But I want you to notice the closing verses here, and that they may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation. Again, I think the psalmist is sort of cluing us into something that we'll find as a persistent theme through church history, that you see a lot of stubborn and rebellious people throughout church history.

And this will be a familiar theme that we come back to again and again. So we open church history with our eyes wide open here. We embark on this study here. We're taking a look at it, fully understanding that God has done some incredibly wonderful things in the history of the church, but man has also done some dark and terrible things.

Christianity in World History

So with that sort of out of the way, let's sort of consider where Christianity stands in the setting of world history, and you'll understand what I mean by that as we go on. Christianity is a faith that concerns itself with big ideas.

We would say that the Christian story is significant, you could even say it's significant cosmically. We claim that this work of God is relevant not only for people of one faith, but for the entire earth.

Indeed, we claim it's relevant for the entire universe. I mean, even though our focus is going to be on the history of Christianity, and if I can make it even more specific, the history of Western Christianity, we believe that the big story has relevance for the entire world, because it's all going to be remade as part of God's eternal plan.

If you want to, you can divide the time before the emergence of Christianity into ten general periods. Now, whenever you see a list like this, take it with a grain of salt. I mean, let's face it. You can make all different sorts of divisions and distinctions.

Some people might have more things on a list, some people might have fewer, but the general idea, I believe, remains the same. So here are ten periods of church history, excuse me, of history that I would describe to you before Christianity.

First, the period of innocence and the fall. Second, the period of Noah and the world that perished. Third, the period of the patriarchs, of course, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and including Joseph. Fourth, Israel and Egypt.

Fifth, the Exodus. Sixth, the time of the judges. Seventh, the united monarchy, covering the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon. Seven, excuse me, eight, the divided monarchy. Nine, exile, and then ten, the four hundred silent years, or what is sometimes referred to as the intertestamental period.

Now, after this, you could say begins the historical period of Christianity, beginning of course, with the emergence of Jesus Christ on the scene, right? I mean, Jesus is the beginning of church history, even though we're going to talk very little about that, because that's really more adequately covered in a Bible study class where you study the documents of the New Testament.

And so we're really going to consider ourselves, consider in this class, very little of what we might consider biblical church history. Even though, I'm going to freely admit to you, that's the most important thing to study and to know.

If you could choose between really knowing church history in all the twenty lectures that I'm going to give to you in the next several days, if you could choose between knowing that, and choose between knowing the book of Acts, forward and backwards, pick the book of Acts, the New Testament is more important for you to understand than the history of Christianity.

Now, we're not saying that there's no value in understanding the history of Christianity, there definitely is, but again, we just want to make this distinction between scripture and history that's very important for us to keep in mind.

The Four High Civilizations of the Roman World

Now, at the time that Christianity came on the scene, there were four what we might call high civilizations representing higher culture. These four civilizations were the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, India, and China.

In China, the Han Dynasty ruled China from about 200 BC to about 200 AD. And under the Han Dynasty, Confucianism was the state-supported religion, but there was also Taoism. Now Buddhism was introduced into China at the end of the Han Dynasty, but it didn't gain a large following until later.

In India, Hinduism was strong, and Buddhism came five centuries before Christianity, but it also flourished in India. The Persian Empire was in constant competition with the Roman Empire. The official religion of the Persian Empire was Zoroastrianism.

But the Roman Empire is, of course, most interesting and relevant to us. First of all, because one might argue that it was the most dynamic and influential empire upon the earth at that time, I mean, we don't want to say that China and India and Persia were unimportant in those times, of course they had great significance.

Of course they had high culture, but they had nowhere near the subsequent influence that the Roman Empire had. But of course it's also relevant to us because it's from within the Roman Empire that Christianity came forth.

Religious Pluralism in the Roman Empire

Now, if you want to speak religiously, the Roman Empire at that time was marked by several religious and philosophical ideas that were generally joined together into a pluralistic system. This great empire, which encompassed so much of the civilized world, had a whole variety of religious expressions in it.

So listen to me here. First there were the official religions of Rome. These were the ancient Roman cults, to which were added the worship of the emperor. Then there were the philosophies of Greek origin.

So first you had the official religions, those would be the traditional pagan religions of Rome. Secondly, you had the philosophies of Greek origin, which you would include under them Platonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, the Cynics, Neoplatonism, all these different philosophies of Greek origin.

But then thirdly, in addition to the normal pagan religions and the Greek philosophies, you had the mystery religions from the East. These were mainly coming from Egypt, Syria, and Persia. You see, these mystery religions centered on a savior god who supposedly was slain by his enemies and rose from the dead, which we would, from a biblical perspective, regard as sort of a clever impersonation, a clever counterfeit is the right word, of Satan to sort of dilute the message of the Christian gospel.

Some of these mystery religions were built around Dionysus, others around Orpheus, others around Attis, or the great mother who loved him and mourned his death and affected his resurrection. Some had Adonis, some Osiris, and some Mithra at their center.

And so these religious ideas, both the traditional pagan religions, the Greek philosophies, and the mysteries religions, filled the Roman Empire at this time. Understand, Christianity came into a very religious world, right?

It didn't come into what we would consider today secular Europe or the secular Western world. It came into a world that was already filled with religion. Now the general condition of the Roman Empire, in many ways, made it a good place for the gospel to take root and to spread.

Why Christianity Spread Through the Roman Empire

First of all, there was Roman political unity that ensured peace. I mean, it's the famous Pax Romana, right? This peace of Rome, where Rome was the dominant superpower of the world for, you know, well, almost 800 years, I guess you could say.

It was an incredibly long period where Rome ruled over the Western world, and that political unity ensured peace, and it really allowed the gospel to spread. Secondly, the Roman legal system ensured order.

Isn't it remarkable? You see this in the Book of Acts, where Paul could appeal to his rights as a Roman citizen. That's because there was such an established political, or excuse me, a legal understanding in the Roman Empire.

Thirdly, there was widespread trade across and beyond the Roman Empire, including the trade of ideas. This whole idea of the trade and the merchants going back and forth, not only within the Roman Empire, but also outside of the Roman Empire.

I mean, all of this ground, there was trade all over the place, both outside the Roman Empire and within it. But in that whole period there, these merchants who became Christians spread their ideas everywhere.

Fourth, there was a generally common language in the Empire, and of course, that generally common language was Common Greek, or Koine Greek. Not the same Greek of the philosophers, that's known as Attic Greek, but it was sort of a common tongue descended from that more philosophical language.

And therefore, when Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost, right, and he preached to this great crowd assembled, there were people there from a huge number of different nationalities, right? But yet Peter could address the crowd collectively in one language.

And so this common language made a great environment for the Gospel to come into. Fifthly, the Empire was religiously pluralistic and generally tolerant. Now I quoted to you the different religious influences current in the Roman Empire at that time.

Of course, I left out Judaism, which was a fourth important influence. But if you want to talk about the four influences of the Roman Empire religiously when Christianity came into it, you have the traditional pagan religions, the Greek philosophies, the mystery religions, and then Judaism, that's a pretty diverse religious environment.

And within this, it was conceivable that people were more ready to hear new ideas. And the Romans didn't really care. The Romans weren't out trying to establish so much a state religion that would rule over everything.

They were more interested in political order. This is a subject we'll get into in greater depth a little bit later on. And then finally, number six, there were simply good roads and a good infrastructure for travel.

You could travel around the Roman Empire more easily in the year 50 AD than you could in the year 650 AD, because the infrastructure was just good. It was superior. There were good roads, a good system for travel by ship.

It was just a good environment for the gospel to spread readily. So when Christianity emerged into the Roman Empire, it emerged into it into a certain time and place that's important for us to understand.

Jesus Christ in the Historical Setting of Palestine

First of all, you could say that Christianity begins with this distinct historical figure who's Jesus Christ, of course, coming into what we would call a distinct historical setting. So at the time that Jesus came into the Roman Empire, first of all, the Roman Empire was young.

These were the early days of the empire. You could say that Jesus was born during the reign of the first Roman emperor. Before that, Rome had been a republic, and it wasn't ruled by kings or emperors, but it was ruled by their senate.

But the first Roman emperor, Augustus, was the one who was king or emperor, I should say, more specifically, when Jesus was born. So the Roman Empire was young. The Roman Republic had been around for several hundred years, but the republic had sort of been absorbed into the empire because of the different structure.

The empire was dominated by the Caesars, right? These great emperors, these great rulers. The republic was dominated by the senate. So the Roman Empire was young. Secondly, Palestine, that's what the Romans called the biblical area of Judea, Palestine had been incorporated into the Roman Empire and ruled as an occupied territory.

And you could say that it seethed, man, it pulsated with resentment and unrest against Roman rule. These people who lived in Judea, again, you can go back and forth whether you should use the name Palestine or Judea.

In a modern context, we don't like necessarily the name Palestine because it can be interpreted as a denial to the right of Israel to live in the land. But if you're speaking historically, that's what the Romans called it.

By the way, the Romans called it that as an insult against the Jews because they wanted to identify the area that they called Palestine with the Philistines. And Philistia, Palestinia, it comes from the same idea in the Roman mind.

In any regard, this is what the Romans called it. And think of it as an occupied territory that, again, was just seething against Roman rule. Thirdly, you could say that the Jewish religious establishment, especially the temple, it was dominated by the party of the Sadducees.

There were, point four, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the ones who knew how to pull the political strings. They had the political connections. They had the advantages. But then, fourthly, another prominent party were the Pharisees who were the spiritual heirs of the movement to keep Judaism pure from the influence of Hellenism.

And so you had Sadducees, you had Pharisees. The Pharisees, look, I think we commonly misunderstand the Pharisees. You know what we would consider the Pharisees today? They would be a back-to-the-Bible holiness movement.

That's exactly how the Pharisees were understood. Man, they were very interested in the Scriptures and they were very interested in holiness. We look at the New Testament and see how often the Pharisees are the bad guys, and they are.

But we need to understand that they emerged from the context of being the back-to-the-Bible holiness movement guys who became corrupted. And then, fifthly, we could also say that there were some minority ascetic movements such as the Essenes who were responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

They had their thing out in the desert. But as much as anything, we need to understand about this historical environment of the first century that there was a real sense of messianic expectation. Now if you want a biblical example of this messianic expectation, do you remember in John chapter 4 when Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman?

Go back and read through that conversation one more time and you'll notice she was expecting the Messiah. You think about that, that's awesome, isn't it? Here's an anonymous Samaritan woman that Jesus just happens to meet by a well in Samaria and she has a vital messianic expectation.

I can't explain why exactly, it may have well been the work of the Spirit of God preparing the world, but in the first century that Jesus came to, they were looking for the Messiah. And then even though it had all of these advantages that we spoke about, the political unity, the legal system, the widespread trade, the common language, the religious pluralism, the good roads and infrastructure for travel, the whole setup that we've just described in the last five or ten minutes, I want you to see that despite all of that, we can say that the success of Christianity is still an incredibly unlikely story.

In the period that we're going to talk about in the next several lectures, Christianity went from a despised, illegal, persecuted religion to become the dominant force of Western civilization and world civilization.

You've got to admit that's a pretty remarkable story, isn't it? To go from a despised and persecuted religion, and we'll point ourselves to a time, again we'll get to this in a future lecture, where in the early 300s it looked like Christianity would perish from the Roman Empire, it honestly did.

It looked like it might be totally finished. To go from that to being the dominant cultural and philosophical and just the dominant force of Western civilization, you have to admit, is an amazing story.

And so here we find this very impressive setting that Christianity comes from, and the success of Christianity really is almost despite these advantages, not necessarily because of them. So as we move on, let me make a second point, just to really emphasize with you the idea that Christianity, in its historical setting, we would have to say that Christianity is a religion, it's a faith, very much interested in history.

Christianity Is Rooted in Historical Events

Notice this, when Paul describes what the gospel is in 1 Corinthians 15, do you remember what he describes there? He says, for the gospel that I brought unto you and what he describes, do you remember what he says?

He says, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now what is it about those three things? Those are historical events. Christianity is deeply, deeply rooted in historical events. It's not primarily about a teaching, right?

It's not primarily about a philosophy. Christianity is primarily, first you have to deal with historical events. The idea of history is essential to Christianity. If you look at the first few verses of the Gospel of Luke, where he says, I'm offering to you historical truth, things that were surely known among us.

Well, along those lines, we should really be able to understand for ourselves that in ancient times, secular historians confirmed very strongly the existence and the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, right?

This is a very important idea. You should know that the record and the evidence for Christianity is not only found within the historically reliable documents we know as the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, but it's also found within several secular historians as well.

For example, the ancient historian Thallus, you can date him about the year A .D. 52. He mentioned Jesus and the historical events mentioned in the Gospels in a history that's lost but was quoted by later writers like the Christian Julius Africanus in the year 221.

Thallus made specific mention of the darkness that came upon the whole world when Jesus died and he explained it as an eclipse, although you have to admit, if you know much about astronomy, not that we would expect Thallus to know about it, but during the Passover, the moon is full.

That's part of the way that they set the date for Passover is by the full moon. And it is astronomically impossible to have an eclipse during a full moon. It just doesn't work that way with where the moon is in the sky.

This is what he said. He said, on the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness and the rocks were rent by an earthquake and in many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness, Thallus, in the third book of his history calls, as it appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.

This is Julius Africanus again quoting this ancient historian Thallus. Now unfortunately, the document of Thallus, his writing, is lost to history. We just don't have it. But we have it quoted in some later Christian writers.

Second, there's a letter from the Syrian Mara Bar-Sarafon to his son where he mentions Jesus as a historical figure. He talks about Jesus in the context of the Athenians and Socrates. Well let me just read it to you.

He says, What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras?

In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise king? It was just after that that the kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men.

The Athenians died of hunger. The Samanians were overwhelmed by the sea. The Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good. He lived on in the teaching of Plato.

Pythagoras did not die for good. He lived on in the statute of Hera. Nor did the wise king die for good. He lived on in the teaching which he had given. Now remember this is a completely secular man. But yet he mentions Jesus as being a completely historical figure on par with these other ones.

And he mentions him in a way that he doesn't really need to explain the story of Jesus, right? He understands that his son knows who he's talking about. Again, not a Christian man. But understanding this, it just helps us to understand that the history of Jesus and that he was accepted as a historical figure was widespread in this early historical period.

Next we have something from the Jewish historian Josephus. He wrote about Jesus and Josephus clearly spoke of Jesus as a historical person. By the way, Josephus also confirmed the historicity of many New Testament events.

This is a famous quote from Josephus from his Antiquities of the Jews. He says, Now there was about this time Jesus a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works.

A teacher of such men has received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him.

For he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold, and these ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.

Now you should know that some say that early Christians corrupted this quotation to their own advantage, but when Origen cited Josephus in 250 AD and when Eusebius quoted Josephus in 324 AD, this is exactly how the quotation read in those early citations.

By the way, Josephus also makes specific mention of John the Baptist and of James the Just, who was James the one who wrote the book of James and who was the half-brother of Jesus. And so again, we find historical confirmation for the story of Christianity within secular history.

Here's a fourth example here, Lucian. Lucian was a Roman comedian and wrote a play mocking Christians, but in his play he treats Jesus as completely a historical figure. This is the quote from Lucian, he says, Jesus was, quote, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world.

Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers of one another after they had transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws.

Now you can see Lucian's attitude, right? Is he a supporter of Christianity? No, he mocks Christianity. Nevertheless, he fully recognizes the historicity of Jesus Christ. And then for a final source here, we look to the Jewish rabbinical writings, well, perhaps not a final source, but the Jewish rabbinical writings after the destruction of Jerusalem, that is the Mishnah, several times mention Jesus as a historical figure.

Here's a quotation from the Talmud. It says, on the eve of Passover, Yeshua was hanged. For 40 days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, he is going to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and has enticed Israel to apostasy.

Anyone who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf. But since nothing was brought forward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of Passover. Now we would say that this gets the story somewhat wrong, but it certainly understands what happened, right?

It certainly understands and agrees with the historicity. Next, we could say that Justin Martyr, as he mentions the Roman historical documents, when he dialogues with a Jew named Trifo in A .D. 147, he could confidently say this.

He says, you Jews knew that Jesus was risen from the dead and ascended into heaven as the prophecies did foretell was to happen. Justin Martyr also quotes a later document, supposedly called the Acts of Pontius Pilate.

By the way, there's also an apocryphal book, I believe by that same name. It's not the same one mentioned. Basically what it was is that they saw that Justin Martyr referenced this document. They said, well, we can't find it, so let's create it, which is never a good idea.

But some people have done that in the history of the church. But yet he references the legal documents in the libraries of ancient Rome that record the legal proceedings having to do with Jesus and his trial before Pontius Pilate.

Lastly, we can say that there is a detailed historical confirmation of both the Gospels and the Book of Acts. William Ramsey was a groundbreaking historian in the late part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century.

He actually set out to prove that the Book of Acts in particular was historically inaccurate. You guys know what a historical novel is, right? They take a small historical truth and then they build on it all this fiction and all this drama, or as sometimes they call them in the world of film or television, a docudrama.

It has some documentary truth, but then it's filled with a lot of filler. This is basically what William Ramsey thought that the Book of Acts was like. Yes, it has a little bit of history in it, but it's mostly just falsity and fluff.

William Ramsey set out and for years he toured around that part of the ancient world and applied all his historical critical skills to the job and researched whether or not the Book of Acts was historically accurate.

Basically he became a Christian because of it. I mean, he confirmed over and over again that the Book of Acts is a remarkably accurate historical document. Now when this is all over, we come to a conclusion, and this is the conclusion that I want to quote to the great historical and biblical scholar F .F. Bruce.

He said this. He said, Some writers may toy with the fancy of a Christ myth, but they do not do so on the grounds of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic, that means without question, is as axiomatic for the unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar.

It is not the historians who propagate the Christ myth theories. Now I just say this because every once in a while still I will run across it where you'll find people who are skeptics and this and that, and they'll act as if it's sort of historically bold to question the history, well maybe Jesus never really existed, or this or that.

It's complete nonsense. Both of course the scriptures tell us that, the scriptures being legitimate and valid historical documents, but not only that, we can also say that the secular historians outside of the Bible also confirm it very richly.

The Five Broad Periods of Church History

So leaving all of that sort of introduction, now we want to come into this period that we speak about, the apostolic church. In our lectures through church history over the next several days, we're going to divide church history into five different categories.

Although I can't say I'm really pleased with these five different sections, they're very inexact. You can see one of these sections lasts for more than a thousand years, that's really not a good way to divide, I should make several divisions within there.

But just in sort of broad speaking, these are the divisions that we're going to have. First of all the apostolic church, A .D. 33 -100, secondly the early church, A .D. 100 -312, third the Christian empire, 312 -1500, fourthly the Reformation, 1500 -1650, and then finally Christianity in a more modern world, 1650-present.

So as awkward and inexact as these divisions are, we're going to consider them one by one. And first we're going to consider the apostolic church. Now of course the apostolic church is so named because it had within it the authoritative presence of the apostles and prophets.

I mean this is basically the church of the book of Acts, and we're not going to deal with it much in this because I think you can better deal with it with an in-depth study of the book of Acts or perhaps the life of Paul.

But this is of course a very important period within church history. Again marked number one by the authoritative presence of the apostles and prophets. And we have the subsequent history or the subsequent teaching of this authoritative presence of the apostles and prophets for us recorded in the New Testament, do we not?

I mean this is where we find this. We are our heirs. We have the legacy of this authoritative presence of the apostles and prophets in that foundation that was laid by them in the New Testament. Secondly, it was marked by a church life that was glorious and not so glorious.

The Glorious and Troubled Apostolic Church

I say this just to remind ourselves that it is definitely possible to over-romanticize the apostolic church, right? When we talk about the New Testament church, sometimes our eyes kind of glaze over and we think, oh, it was heaven on earth.

Wait a minute, have you taken a look at the books of 1st and 2nd Corinthians? Have you taken a good look at the book of Acts? Have you studied the New Testament documents carefully? True, there were glorious things in the New Testament church, but we don't want to forget that there were also many things that were not so glorious.

That it was a mixed bag, right? There was an amazing work of the Holy Spirit going on, there was the wonderful presence and influence of the apostles and the prophets of the first century, however it was not perfect.

And so it was glorious, but not so glorious. Third, we could say that it was marked by a spreading gospel. And this is really wonderful to consider how the gospel spread within these first few decades of Christianity.

I mean, if you understand sort of the basic, broad outline of the Roman Empire, being sort of an empire that would surround the lake, if you will, it's a huge lake, but you could say the Mediterranean Sea, if you just considered that to be a lake, all around the shores of that lake, you would have the Roman Empire.

But in the first century, it didn't really extend throughout the entire Roman Empire, the whole western area of the Roman Empire, Spain, Gaul, the lower part of Germany, Britain, much of North Africa, at least the western part of it, was not really touched by Christianity.

But within, it was all this area that was touched by apostolic Christianity, all of this in Judea and Samaria and Asia Minor, and Greece and Rome, and much of the Egyptian area of North Africa. And this remarkable spread of the gospel came within the apostolic period.

During the first century, there were churches sprinkled all over this area. Some of them, you see, you can just mark the many dots on the map that would mark these apostolic churches. But understand that many of these apostolic churches were not started by deliberate missionary effort.

Some of them were, of course, right? You think of the Apostle Paul touring around this part of the Mediterranean, going to these different places, going to Thessalonica or Philippi, and with the deliberate idea of converting people to Christianity and starting a church.

But many of these churches started somewhat spontaneously as people became Christians and simply traveled from place to place. And so it was a mixture of deliberate evangelism and missionary effort and what we might call accidental evangelism and missionary effort.

And so the gospel spread all over the place. I'll give you a good example of this non-deliberate spreading of the gospel would be, I would say, the church at Rome. Paul writes to the Romans, and they already had an established church there, and no apostolic delegate had ever been there, and Paul himself had not started that church.

It seems to have been started by Jews who were converted and traveling around the Roman Empire and settled in Rome. And of course there's several other examples of this throughout the course. When Paul met believers in these areas on his way up to Rome, as it's mentioned in the book of Acts, he found believers, what was it, at three taverns, at another place.

This indicates just this very natural spread of the faith. So it spread in this very organic way. Now you could chart this spread of the gospel throughout the first century churches as going very much along the command that Jesus gave to the disciples in the book of Acts, where it said that it spread from Jerusalem to Judea, right, from Judea to Samaria, and then from Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth.

About the year 150, and I know this is outside of the apostolic period, but about the year 150, the Christian wrote this to the Roman Emperor about the growth of Christianity. This is what he says. He says, we are but of yesterday.

In other words, you know, we've only come on the scene since yesterday. We are but of yesterday, and we have filled all that belongs to you, the cities, the fortresses, the free towns, the very camps, the palace, the senate, the forum.

He says, we leave to you the temples only. In other words, what he's saying is, listen, Roman Emperor, you better wake up to the fact that there's Christians everywhere, everywhere. The only place where there's no Christians is in your pagan temples, right?

We leave to you the temples only. And that's a valid description of this remarkable spread of the gospel within the apostolic period. Now, another important marking point of the apostolic church, or characteristic of the apostolic church, I should say, is that it was marked by the transition from Christianity as a branch of Judaism to Christianity as a faith in its own right.