CHURCH-EARLY
Christianity
burst into a corrupt world with a brilliantly new moral radiance... The moral
level of society was dismal, and sin prevailed in many forms... Into this
discouraged world came Christ and His Spirit-transformed disciples, filled with
holy joy, motivated by a love which the pagans could not grasp, and proclaiming
Good News-the message that God has provided a Savior... The Christians lived in
tiny communities knit together in the power of the Holy Spirit, little colonies
of heaven. They thought of themselves as pilgrims on their way to the celestial
city, but they were very much concerned to manifest the love of Christ in all
human relationships.
The early
church was most useful when it preached the meaning of Christ through the lens
of the whole of Scripture. It was most powerful when it maintained integrity with
God and other human beings. It was most evangelistic when it understood that
adherents of other religions, whether Jewish or Greek or Roman, faced eternal
judgment without Christ.
Paul House
Who Will Be Saved? Edited
by: House, Paul and Thornbury, Gregory. Crossway, 2000, p. 229.
Authentic,
biblical Christianity has always been an exclusive religion. This became apparent
during the Roman Empire. When the Emperor Alexander Severus heard about
Christianity, he placed an image of Christ beside the other gods in his private
chapel, just to be safe. The Romans were happy to welcome Jesus into their
pantheon. What the Romans couldn’t understand was why Christians refused to
reciprocate. If the emperor was willing to worship Christ, why weren’t
Christians willing to worship the emperor? Yet the early Christians insisted
that in order to worship Christ at all, they had to worship Christ alone.
They were even willing to stand up for this conviction by playing “Christians
and lions” at the Colosseum.
Philip Graham Ryken
Is Jesus the Only Way? Crossway, 1999, p.
10-11.
The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church
Tertullian
A dozen
ignorant peasants proclaiming a crucified Jew as the founder of a new faith;
bearing as the symbol of their worship an instrument which was the sign of
ignominy, slavery and crime; preaching what must have seemed an absurd doctrine
of humility, patient suffering and love to enemies – graces undreamed of
before; demanding what must have seemed an absurd worship for one who had died
like a malefactor and a slave, and making what must have seemed an absurd
promise of everlasting life through one who had himself died, and that between
two thieves.
B.B. Warfield
The Divine Origin of the Bible,
Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of
Publication, 1991, I.432.
In the whole
range of history there is no more striking contrast than that of the Apostolic
churches with the heathenism around them. They had shortcomings enough, it is true, and divisions and scandals not a few,
for even apostolic times were no golden age of purity and primitive simplicity.
Yet we can see that their fullness of life, and hope, and promise for the
future, were a new sort of power in the world. Within their own limits they had
solved almost by the way the social problem which baffled Rome, and baffles
Europe still. They had lifted woman to her rightful place, restored the dignity
of labor, abolished beggary, and drawn the sting of slavery. The secret of the
revolution is that the selfishness of race and class were forgotten in the
Supper of the Lord, and a new basis for society found in love of the visible
image of God in men for whom Christ died.
Henry M. Gwatkin
Early Church History to A.D. 312, P. 1909.
Christians
are differentiated from other people by country, language, or customs. They do
not live in cities of their own or speak some strange dialect. They live in
their own native lands, but as resident aliens. They marry and have children
just like everyone else, but they do not kill unwanted babies.
Epistle to Diognetus